mapou.ai
Free check
§01Market intelligence

How buyers find products
changed overnight.
Most brands are still running the old playbook.

AI assistants are now where many buyers start, before they visit a search engine, let alone a brand site. Traditional search traffic is falling. The window to claim your category in AI answers is getting narrower.

§02The numbers

60%

of US adults use AI to search for products & services

Source · State of AI Search 2026

47%

of brand-prompt pairs are invisible to every major AI engine today

Source · mapou Visibility Index 2026

$144B

projected AI-driven ecommerce by 2029, up from near zero in 2023

Source · eMarketer 2026

§03The shift

How product discovery moved from links to answers.

Buyers used to click links and choose. Now they ask AI and get a direct recommendation. Being in that recommendation is the new Share of Voice.

Yesterday · link-based search
Query format"best running shoes"
Result type10 blue links
Brand surfaceTitle tag + meta description
Traffic typeClick → site visit
AttributionLast-click, cookie-based
AI involvementRanking algorithm only
Today · AI answer engines
Query format"What running shoe should I buy?"
Result typeSynthesised answer with citations
Brand surfaceCited entity in AI response
Traffic typeZero-click or direct intent link
AttributionPrompt-level, first-party
AI involvementFull synthesis + recommendation
§04Sources

Where AI models pull retail citations from.

AI models don't crawl your site in real time. They rely on content patterns they've learned from high-signal sources. Your brand needs to be present where AI looks first.

Source · State of AI Search 2026

reddit.comCommunity & reviews
30%
youtube.comVideo content
19%
amazon.comProduct & ratings
12%
brand sitesOfficial brand pages
24%
otherNews, blogs, forums
15%
§05Platforms

The AI platforms your brand needs to be on.

Four channels where AI now answers product queries, and where your brand can be cited.

ChatGPT.

400M+ users

IntegrationAnswer citation + purchase intent

OpportunityProduct recommendation, brand authority

Perplexity.

100M+ users

IntegrationProduct recommendation layer

OpportunityCategory-level SOV, direct citation

Google AI Overviews.

1B+ users

IntegrationFeatured answer position

OpportunityZero-click brand visibility

Retail AI Engines.

Multi-billion sessions users

IntegrationSponsored agentic placement

OpportunityIn-session product discovery

§06Where you stand

Find out where your brand sits in AI search right now.

Start with an AI visibility diagnostic to understand your current citation rate and where your competitors stand.

View solutions