Who AI Recommends: Category Spotlight
Every month the AI Index freezes who the AI models recommend in 180+ categories. The spotlight distills one category to two pages. The sample covers digital marketing agencies; any category can be produced on request.
What's inside
- The category podium: who the AI models back, and how strongly
- Provider-by-provider agreement on the leaders
- How to read the numbers, with the methodology linked
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Read the paper
We asked all 8 leading AI models the question buyers ask: "What are the best digital marketing agencies?" This is the July 2026 record of who they named, captured verbatim and frozen. Ignite Visibility leads the category, yet ChatGPT and DeepSeek do not name it at all. Even the winner is invisible somewhere.
| # | Brand | Score | Named by | ChatGPT | Claude | Gemini | Perplexity | DeepSeek | Grok | Copilot | Google AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ignite Visibility (ignitevisibility.com) | 59.2 | 6/8 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2 | WebFX (webfx.com) | 47.3 | 5/8 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| 3 | Disruptive Advertising (disruptiveadvertising.com) | 41.4 | 4/8 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| 4 | SmartSites (smartsites.com) | 32.6 | 3/8 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| 5 | Thrive Internet Marketing Agency (thriveagency.com) | 23 | 2/8 | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| 6 | KlientBoost (klientboost.com) | 21.3 | 2/8 | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| 7 | Funnel Boost Media (funnelboostmedia.net) | 20.7 | 2/8 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| 8 | Victorious (victoriousseo.com) | 20.5 | 2/8 | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| 9 | Viral Nation (viralnation.com) | 20.5 | 2/8 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| 10 | VaynerMedia (vaynermedia.com) | 20.3 | 2/8 | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Filled dot = this AI model recommends the brand unprompted. Score = the published AI Recommendation Score (0 to 100); full formula at citehawk.com/leaderboards/methodology. Snapshot bbf5b6eb, captured 2026-07-02, immutable.
Three things to check against your own brand
1 · Are you in the answers at all?
If your brand is not on this list, the 8 AI models did not name it when buyers asked. That is not a ranking problem; it is an invisibility problem, and it has specific, fixable causes: the sources these answers cite do not know you exist, or describe you wrongly.
2 · Which AI models leave you out?
The dot grid is the real story. Almost no brand is named by all 8; the gaps show exactly where visibility is leaking. A gap on one AI model has different causes (and fixes) than a gap on another, which is why a single blended "AI score" hides what matters.
3 · Who wins the answers you lose, and why?
Every position above yours traces to sources those answers cite. Pull the receipts on the category page, list the citations, and check which ones mention the brands ahead of you but not you. That list is the work.
"Rankings are computed from AI responses only. Claiming a brand cannot change its position, and positions are not for sale."
The Index pledge. Every verbatim answer behind this record is published; recompute anything from the JSON download.
Data: the CiteHawk AI Index July 2026 edition (immutable record). Model versions per AI model are stamped on the snapshot.
Now see it for your brand.
The paper shows what AI recommends. Your free report shows where your own brand stands in those answers.
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