Since the rise of the internet, brands have fiercely competed to rank high on search engine results, aiming for prime visibility on Google pages. However, in the age of AI, traditional search engines are becoming secondary, and over 25% of brands are reportedly becoming invisible, according to a recent study.
The 2026 AI Visibility Index, the first report from strategic communications firm Lucie Content, analyzed how often AI chatbots recommend businesses. Appearing in AI recommendations is now critical since 45% of consumers turn to AI for business suggestions, a steep increase from 6% in 2025.
What exactly is AI visibility? It measures how frequently AI chatbots mention or recommend a business and how accurately they describe it. Lucie Content tested this by simulating customer questions and tracking business mentions and the accuracy of descriptions in AI responses.
Lucie Content’s analysis of 94 businesses revealed that 26.6% never appeared in AI chatbot recommendations, and companies tended to either consistently appear or not at all. There was little overlap between high rankings on Google and AI visibility.
To check your brand’s AI presence, Lucie offers a free tool to scan AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini for visibility scores focused on technical readiness. Businesses can mimic Lucie’s method by running customer-like queries to gauge their AI visibility.
Lucie Content stresses that improving AI visibility boils down to clear, consistent, and factual information, supported by strong visuals to help both AI and humans understand the business. The firm successfully enhanced its own AI presence by applying these strategies, proving the issue can be addressed.
“The encouraging takeaway from our study is that visibility problems are fixable,” said Craig Lucie, CEO of Lucie Content. “We saw measurable improvements in our own company before assisting others.”
