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Research·Study 1 · April 2026
Observational study · 1,000 businesses

Outrigger AI Visibility Index

1,000 businesses. 5 AI models. 95,392 mention checks. A large-scale view of which businesses AI recommends—and the signals that appear with visibility.

Observational findings show association, not causation.

65.9%
Completely Invisible
to all 5 AI models
4%
Visible in All 5
AI models
11.7
Avg Visibility Score
out of 100
10
Industries Studied
1,000 businesses

Key Findings

What separates the businesses AI recommends from the ones it ignores.

The Invisibility Problem

65.9%

of businesses are completely invisible to AI. They appear in zero AI-generated answers across all five models tested.

Multi-Model Coverage

4%

of businesses appear in all five AI models. Being visible in one model does not guarantee visibility in others.

The 1,000 Review Cliff

2.4x

higher visibility

Businesses with 1,000+ Google reviews score 23.6 vs 9.8 average. Reviews are a strong signal AI models use to filter recommendations.

Strongest Observed Relationships

Google Review Countr=0.306
Blog Post Countr=0.120
Schema Markup Scorer=0.069

Monthly Trend

How AI visibility metrics evolve as we rerun the study each month.

Trend data starts with the April 2026 baseline.

New data points will appear here after each monthly study rerun.

65.9%
Invisible
11.7
Avg Score
80.5
Top Performer Avg

AI Model Coverage

Percentage of businesses that appear in each AI model's recommendations. Perplexity leads at 22.5%, while Claude mentions only 13% of businesses tested.

Perplexity
22.5%
ChatGPT
15.9%
Gemini
15.5%
Google AIO
15.5%
Claude
13%

Industry Breakdown

Average AI visibility score by industry. Personal injury law leads; med spas trail significantly.

Personal Injury Law
16.2
29% invisible
Accounting
15.2
61% invisible
Digital Marketing
14.8
65% invisible
Real Estate
12.9
61% invisible
Financial Advisors
12
70% invisible

Methodology

How the Outrigger AI Visibility Index is built each month.

Step 01

Sample Selection

1,000 businesses across 10 industries, balanced between local service businesses and SaaS companies.

Step 02

AI Model Testing

Each business is queried across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews using standardized buying-intent prompts.

Step 03

Signal Collection

We collect 27 technical and authority signals per business including schema markup, review counts, blog content, robots.txt, and crawl accessibility.

Step 04

Correlation Analysis

Pearson coefficients measure the relationship between each signal and composite visibility. These associations do not establish causation.

Download the Data

Full dataset available as CSV. Use it for your own analysis, research, or client reporting.

Where does your business stand?

Run a free visibility audit across five AI experiences. Results are ready on screen in 2–3 minutes.

Run the free visibility audit