Gemini Declines to Pick a Winner in 15.3% of Product Questions vs 4.2% for Google AI Overviews

Asked for the best product or service, Gemini answers "it depends" without naming any pick in 15.3% of its answers, more than three times the 4.2% of Google AI Overviews. In finance, AI engines name an explicit pick in just 21.1% of answers.

Answers that decline to pick by AI engine

Gemini

15.3%

ChatGPT

10.3%

Google AI Mode

9.6%

Perplexity

4.8%

Google AI Overviews

4.2%

All five engines

9.4%

Source: Suff Digital analysis of 17,524 answers to 2,000 "best" questions in 20 categories · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026

Name an explicit pick by AI engine

Perplexity

84.6%

Google AI Overviews

68.1%

Google AI Mode

51.4%

Gemini

47%

ChatGPT

32.1%

Source: Suff Digital analysis of 17,524 answers to 2,000 "best" questions in 20 categories · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026

Decline to pick by category

Pets

16.6%

Finance

15.2%

Software

14.2%

Health

13.6%

Insurance

13.5%

Services

11%

Fitness

10.7%

Phones

10.1%

Beauty

9.7%

Cars

8.9%

Kitchen

6.2%

Office

4.8%

Gaming

4.4%

Home

4.3%

Source: Suff Digital analysis of 17,524 answers to 2,000 "best" questions in 20 categories · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026

Source: Gemini Declines to Pick a Winner in 15.3% of Product Questions vs 4.2% for Google AI Overviews - Suff Digital