When you ask ChatGPT, Google AI Overview or Perplexity to name the best product in a category, a chunk of the answer can be traced back to pages that make money from their recommendations. A September 2026 study by Berlin agency GetCited scanned 106,758 English citations and found 25.4% led to a page carrying an affiliate, partner or advertising disclosure.
Look at answers, not just links, and the number jumps. Because each response can cite many pages, roughly 86% of English answers contained at least one commercially disclosed source, according to the study.
Where the commercial layer is thickest
The study wrote 3,334 English comparison questions across 748 product and service types, then logged every URL ChatGPT, Google AI Overview and Perplexity surfaced. Each page was rendered in a headless browser and checked against 22 markers, from affiliate disclosures to labeled partner content.
The exposure is not evenly spread. Sectors with strong review ecosystems lead:
- Consumer electronics: 41.3% of citations were commercially disclosed, versus 12.7% for education and learning.
- Fitness and sports hit 37.5%, while telecom, VPN and hosting reached 32.8%.
- Finance, legal and software sat lower, but GetCited warns that clinics, lawyers and installers often rely on unlabeled provider pages the scanner cannot read as commercial.
The publisher concentration matters
Marketers should notice who supplies this layer. Ten publishers account for roughly 6,786 of about 27,100 commercially disclosed English citations. TechRadar led with 1,225, ahead of Forbes Advisor, PCMag, CNET, Tom’s Guide, RTINGS, NYT Wirecutter, Good Housekeeping, Healthline and Wired.
These are mostly affiliate-funded review brands. That creates a real tension for the affiliate model: the same pages funding AI answers are losing organic traffic to AI Overviews and similar surfaces. GetCited notes the citation does not reveal which brands pay, how much, or whether payment moves the ranking.
A citation is not the ranking driver
This is the key nuance for growth teams. The study measures what AI tools cite, not what decides the recommendation. Peec AI’s analysis of 5 million query fan-outs found ChatGPT added words like “best” and “review(s)” to its background searches, language that matches affiliate review titles. But traffic research by Suganthan Mohanadasan found brands named in ChatGPT’s own first query won mentions 33 times more often, while only 3.1% of retrieved pages earned a citation. Selection may happen before a page is read, which means a cited affiliate page may be confirming a shortlist, not building it.
What to do with this
If you want your brand to show up in AI product answers, start with the sources the assistants already trust.
- Audit which pages each assistant cites for your product category, and note how many carry affiliate or partner labels.
- Get your product into the comparison articles and review hubs that actually appear in those citations.
- Measure AI visibility separately from organic rankings. Only 16% of brands track it systematically, according to the IAB’s August 2026 framework.
- Treat vendor data with care. GetCited sells exactly this kind of placement, with campaigns starting at $3,000 a month, and the dataset first appeared in May under research partner DataPulse.
The practical read: AI product search rewards publishers who monetize recommendations, but the link between a citation and the eventual pick is weaker than it looks. Before you invest in AI visibility, check which sources are cited, whether disclosure survives into the answer, and whether the placement can actually influence the recommendation.
Source: PPC Land
