ChatGPT Relies Heavily on News Sites, Semrush Finds
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ChatGPT relies heavily on news sites more than any other major AI platform, in both the UK and the US, Semrush reported on Tuesday. From January to July, news took a larger share of ChatGPT’s cited sources each month. Gemini, Google’s AI Mode, and AI Overviews all trailed behind.
The UK shows a stronger pull of news, with news and information sites averaging 29.5% of ChatGPT’s citations among the 100 most-cited domains, compared to 19.6% in the US.
Semrush, an Adobe-owned company that offers AI tracking tools, analyzed 2.5 million UK prompts and 25 million US prompts monthly using ChatGPT, Gemini, Google’s AI Mode, and AI Overviews. The data covers January to July 2026 across 22 industry categories.
"AI is now a decision layer for customers, changing how they discover brands, sort through options, and ultimately purchase," said Andrew Warden, Semrush’s chief marketing officer.
Disagreements Among Platforms
The four AI platforms disagree more about named brands in the UK than in the US. While they share 63-70% of their top 100 mentioned brands in the UK, this figure ranges from 70-78% in the US.
Gemini consistently named more distinct brands per answer than ChatGPT in both markets. ChatGPT cited the most sources per answer, while Gemini had the fewest.
Cited vs. Mentioned Brands
Semrush found that being mentioned isn't the same as being cited as a source. Fewer than half of the top 100 mentioned brands also appeared among the top 100 cited domains, on average.
For example, both Tesco and Asda appeared in the top 100 mentioned brands on all four platforms every month, yet in July, Tesco ranked 25th on ChatGPT’s list of most-cited UK domains, while Asda ranked 606th.
Google’s AI Overviews Focus on Medical Sites
Google’s AI Overviews cited medical reference sites more than the other platforms, in both markets and every month. These sites made up 13.4% to 18.9% of Google’s citations in the UK and 8.4% to 13.7% in the US.
News Dominance in the UK
On Gemini, news led UK source categories every month, accounting for 16.6% to 23.0% of top-100 citations.
The increasing role of news in AI answers is a topic of discussion. Google is currently paying 100 publishers for AI answers in a pilot program, according to The Information.
Universal Core Domains
Semrush identified 24 UK domains and 36 US domains that made the top 100 mentions on all four platforms every month. These are called the Universal Core, with 15 domains shared, including Adobe, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube.