The First Brand in an AI Recommendation Gets 9% Fewer Words Than the Brands After It

    The brand an AI engine names first in a product recommendation gets 9.1% fewer words than the brands named after it, 30 words against 33 on average. On Perplexity the first brand gets 18.4 words against 26.3 for the rest.

    Average words by position in the answer
    1st brand
    30
    2nd brand
    28.8
    3rd brand
    32.5
    4th brand
    33.4
    5th brand
    36.2
    6th brand
    34

    Source: Suff Digital analysis of 15,102 AI product recommendations naming three or more brands · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026

    First brand (words) by AI engine
    ChatGPT
    17.8
    Gemini
    36.2
    Google AI Mode
    37
    Google AI Overviews
    34.9
    Perplexity
    18.4

    Source: Suff Digital analysis of 15,102 AI product recommendations naming three or more brands · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026

    Source: The First Brand in an AI Recommendation Gets 9% Fewer Words Than the Brands After It - Suff Digital