what is a good ai visibility score? the 2026 benchmarks.
a good ai visibility score is one above your industry's median and above your direct competitors on the same prompts. the two largest 2026 studies give the medians: 6.8% of ai answers mention the brand across 1.2 million responses and 2,400 brands (presenc, january to march 2026), and 19.6% among brands that already track their visibility (get3rd, 111 brands, 732,359 answers, 19 september to 18 october 2026). the gap between the two numbers is the first thing to understand before you trust any score.
what the score measures
most tools define visibility as the share of ai answers to a set of tracked questions that mention your brand. some count only citations (your page linked as a source), some count recommendations (the assistant picks you over alternatives), and some exclude questions that already contain your name. the number changes a lot with the definition, which is why one vendor's 31% median and another's 6.8% are both honest. the ai visibility score explainer covers what the number is made of; this post is about what a good one is.
the benchmarks, by industry
presenc's study (48,000 category prompts, six engines) gives medians and quartiles per industry. the table shows the share of answers that mention a brand:
| industry | bottom quartile | median | top quartile | top 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| saas / technology | 2.1% | 8.4% | 18.2% | 32.5% |
| e-commerce / retail | 1.8% | 7.6% | 16.8% | 29.4% |
| financial services | 1.5% | 6.9% | 15.1% | 26.8% |
| education | 1.9% | 7.2% | 15.6% | 27.9% |
| travel / hospitality | 2.4% | 8.8% | 19.1% | 33.7% |
| professional services | 0.9% | 4.6% | 11.2% | 20.3% |
| manufacturing | 0.7% | 3.8% | 9.6% | 17.8% |
so for a professional-services firm, 5% is median, 11% is top quartile and 20% is elite. a consultancy that is "only" mentioned in one answer out of ten is already in the top half of its category.
the benchmarks, by engine
in the same study the average mention rate differs by assistant: perplexity 8.2%, gemini 7.4%, claude 6.9%, copilot 6.5%, meta ai 5.8%, chatgpt 5.1%. chatgpt is the hardest place to be mentioned and the one most people check first, so a low chatgpt number is normal, not a failure. semrush's 2026 ai visibility index, as reported by secondary coverage, found the opposite pattern on chatgpt for citations: a 20.7% mention rate against an 87% citation rate, meaning chatgpt links sources heavily when it does mention a brand.
the number almost nobody reports: recommendations
get3rd checked 493,856 answers for whether the assistant actually recommended the brand over the alternatives. the median recommended rate was 0.2% against a median mention rate of 19.8%: about one recommendation per 65 mentions. 44 of 60 brands were under 1%, 7 were at 5% or more, and 15 were never recommended in the month. being mentioned and being chosen are different scores, and the second one is the one that produces a customer. the mention vs citation post explains why.
so what is "good"?
- mention rate above your industry median (4.6% to 8.8% depending on the table above).
- a recommended rate above 1%, which puts you in the top quarter of tracked brands.
- ahead of the two or three competitors that appear for your buyer's prompts, measured on the same prompts and the same engines. get3rd's own guidance is that the absolute level is low by design and the useful comparison is against competitors.
- a trend that rises month over month after you publish answer-first pages and earn mentions off-site. a single week's number is noise.
what the score hides
a score tells you that you appeared. it does not tell you whether the people asking had a budget, whether the assistant quoted you accurately, or whether a click followed. in practice most of the traffic from assistants lands in analytics as direct, because the assistant fetched the page and the person typed or pasted the address. measure the fetches on your own server alongside the score; the manual visibility measurement post shows how without a $500-a-month tool.
questions people ask
what is a good ai visibility score?
above your industry median mention rate (about 5% to 9% in 2026 data) and ahead of your direct competitors on the same prompts. a recommended rate above 1% puts you in the top quarter of tracked brands.
why is my chatgpt visibility lower than perplexity or gemini?
that is the normal pattern. across 1.2 million responses the average mention rate was 5.1% on chatgpt against 8.2% on perplexity and 7.4% on gemini.
is a mention the same as a recommendation?
no. in the get3rd 2026 study the median mention rate was 19.8% while the median recommendation rate was 0.2%. recommendations are what turn into customers.
want to know where you sit against your competitors?
the ai visibility audit tracks the prompts your buyers actually ask, across the engines that matter, and tells you which domains are winning them today.
see the ai visibility auditsources, read 9 november 2026: presenc.ai, ai mention rate benchmarks by industry 2026 (1.2 million responses, 48,000 prompts, 2,400+ brands, january to march 2026) · get3rd, state of ai visibility q4 2026 (111 brands, 732,359 answers, 19 september to 18 october 2026; nordic-leaning sample) · maxaeo ai visibility benchmarks 2026 (31% median non-branded mention rate) · semrush ai visibility index 2026 as reported by secondary coverage. definitions differ between studies; compare like with like.