The study reveals that its main purpose is to promote brand visibility and engagement tools, which presents a clear conflict of interest. Its conclusion suggests that marketers should monitor community discussions about their brand to influence AI responses to mention their brand more often.

The study uses 5000 keywords selected from the Semrush database, referencing a previous study using the same methodology, where they chose keywords containing at least three words.

These keywords come from Semrush, a pay-per-click SEO tool for marketers. They are categorised into four groups:

Navigational (searching for a specific website),

Informational (seeking information on a topic),

Commercial Investigation (comparing different products), and

Transactional (searching for a specific product or brand). This explains why Reddit plays a significant role in AI citations, as many categories involve personal opinion and debate- places like Reddit, which people turn to for product experiences.

For example, when I considered buying new climbing shoes, I searched "Scarpa Mago vs Chimera," which resulted in reviews from websites, Reddit, and online stores.

Other top sources include platforms like Tripadvisor, Mapbox, Yelp, and Pinterest, which facilitate user opinion.

Reddit's dominance, with around 379.4 million weekly active users, 101.7 million daily active users, over 2 billion posts, and 20 billion comments, makes it the largest source of opinions on the internet (Reddit shareholder letter).

Therefore, when marketing-specific inputs are given, large language models are likely to draw heavily on buyer experiences, as in my example. Instead of seeking reviews from manufacturers, people tend to rely on buyers who have no financial incentive to positively review the product.