ChatGPT leans on news sites more in the UK than the US, Semrush index finds

In July, Tesco and Asda were both among the top 100 mentioned UK brands on all four platforms, as they were in every other month measured ^[9]. On ChatGPT, Tesco was the 25th most-cited UK domain that month and Asda the 606th ^[10], 581 places apart ^[19]. On Gemini the two ranked 29th and 60th ^[11].

Semrush's finding is that a brand can be mentioned in an answer without being cited as one of its sources. On average across categories and platforms, under half of the 100 most-mentioned brands also ranked among the 100 most-cited domains ^[7]. The UK figure ran from 36.7 to 45.3 domains out of 100, depending on the month ^[8].

The news pull differs by market and by platform. The UK share of ChatGPT's top citations that went to news is 9.9 points above the US share ^[16], about 1.5 times as much ^[17]. On Gemini, news led the UK source categories every month, at 16.6% to 23.0% of top-100 citations ^[12]. Even that best month sits 6.5 points below ChatGPT's UK average ^[20]. AI Overviews points elsewhere: video streaming sites, led by YouTube, took the largest share of its citations in both markets ^[13].

Semrush sells the tracking, and Adobe owns Semrush ^[3]. Its chief marketing officer, Andrew Warden, said in a statement: "AI is now a decision layer for customers, changing how they discover brands, sort through options and ultimately purchase." ^[5]

Here's what teams tell themselves users do: ask an AI, then buy what it names. Here's what the index recorded: answers to prompts Semrush ran, with a UK set one tenth the size of the US set ^[18]. The only outcome figure in the write-up is Adobe's. By its count, AI-referred visitors convert 60% better than other traffic, and each of their visits brings in 53% more revenue ^[21]. The write-up does not include retention or time-to-value figures.

We'd test press coverage for UK brands that platforms name often and cite rarely, and leave it off the plan for surfaces that lean on video. The trade-off is that the spend is an experiment: the index shows where platforms look, and only a brand's own prompts can show whether a placement changes its rank.

To decide platform by platform, we'd sort each platform and market where your buyers ask into a two-by-two. One axis is whether news is a large share of that platform's citations. ChatGPT and Gemini in the UK qualify on the figures above ^[12], and AI Overviews, where video sites lead, does not ^[13]. The other axis is whether your brand is cited or only mentioned. In the news-heavy column, a brand that is only mentioned goes first for press coverage, and a brand already cited defends what it has. In the other column, a brand that is only mentioned looks at what that platform does cite, such as video on AI Overviews, and a brand already cited leaves it alone. Any pair that lands in the news-heavy, only-mentioned cell gets a test on your own prompts before it gets budget.