Download the Lucie Visibility Index ↗
Lucie Research | 2026 Edition

The Lucie AI Visibility Index

The Invisible Business: How AI Answers Decide Who Gets Chosen — built on the first peer-reviewed research on Generative Engine Optimization, our 2026 Index reveals that most businesses are invisible to AI search, and the gap is widening fast.

By Craig Lucie, Akshita Gorti, and Prajwal Mohan Kumar

Get Your Lucie Visibility Report →Download the Lucie Visibility Index ↗

45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local businesses, up from 6% a year earlier. Yet AI platforms recommend only 1.2% of local businesses. Consumer behavior has moved quickly; most businesses have not caught up.

Get Your Lucie Visibility Report →Download the Lucie Visibility Index ↗

Key findings from the 2026 Lucie Visibility Index

26.6%
completely invisible

25 of 94 businesses were not retrieved in any tested scenario. Visibility looked much more like an on/off switch than a smooth scale.

1.

One in four businesses was invisible to AI

84% of the sample scored either 0 or 100 on retrieval — there was almost no middle ground. A business was either fully visible or completely absent from AI answers.

40.6%
competitor substitution

Across 564 recommendation responses, a competitor was recommended instead of the subject business 229 times.

2.

Competitors captured four in ten recommendation opportunities

When one company is left out, the answer often gives the customer another name. The mean recommendation score was 40.1 out of 100 — well below the midpoint.

r = 0.90
retrieval-recommendation correlation

Retrieval accounted for 81% of the observed variance in recommendation score. Being found was the biggest hurdle.

3.

Retrieval was the gateway to recommendation

A business had little chance of being recommended if the model did not retrieve it first. The two scores are calculated by separate modules, so this reflects actual model behavior.

26.7%
Google-ready but AI-invisible

Of 90 companies with a Google eligibility score of 70+, 24 still had zero AI retrieval. The correlation was effectively zero (r = -0.009).

4.

Google readiness did not guarantee AI retrieval

Being technically ready for traditional search did not make a company more likely to appear in the AI answer. Independent research found only a 45% overlap between top performers in traditional search and in AI recommendations.

7.5x
year-over-year increase

45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local businesses, up from 6% a year earlier. ChatGPT handles 2.5 billion prompts per day.

5.

The answer replaced the list

AI Overviews now appear on ~60% of U.S. searches. 37% of consumers begin their search with AI rather than a search engine. When an AI answer names only one or two companies, those businesses receive a disproportionate share of attention.

See where your brand stands

Run a free AI visibility scan on your website in 30 seconds. We'll check whether your brand is discoverable by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude.

In your own words — a few words is plenty. Part of your result is seeing whether AI describes you the way you describe yourself.

Checks your visibility on
ChatGPTGeminiPerplexityClaude

Frequently asked questions

See how AI describes your business today

The free scan above covers Technical Readiness. Our team can walk you through all six modules of the Lucie Visibility System and build the strategy that changes the AI answer.

Get a Demo →