--- title: "AI Brand Recommendations: 93% Come With No Downside" url: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides description: "AI brand recommendations study: 93.3% of the brands AI engines recommend in product answers get no con or drawback, and 97.4% on Perplexity. See the data." lang: en --- Share Share on X: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fai-recommendations-mention-downsides&text=AI%20Recommends%2093%25%20of%20Brands%20Without%20Mentioning%20a%20Single%20Downside Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fai-recommendations-mention-downsides Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fai-recommendations-mention-downsides Share on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fai-recommendations-mention-downsides&title=AI%20Recommends%2093%25%20of%20Brands%20Without%20Mentioning%20a%20Single%20Downside **93.3%** of the brands AI engines recommend in product answers come with no downside at all: no con, no drawback, not even a "but". On Perplexity the figure is 97.4%. Analysis of 69,214 brand recommendations · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026 ## Key Findings 1. 1. **93.3%** of the brands AI engines recommend in product answers are described without a single downside; 6.7% get a con, drawback or trade-off. Copy stat 2. 2. Google AI Mode mentions a downside for **9.7%** of the brands it recommends, almost four times Perplexity's 2.6%. Copy stat 3. 3. AI recommendations of streaming services mention a downside for **13.5%** of brands and software for 13.1%, about twice the overall rate. Copy stat 4. 4. AI recommendations of beauty and health products mention a downside for **2.5%** of brands, about one in 40. Copy stat 5. 5. The first brand in an AI product recommendation gets a downside **5.6%** of the time, against 9.4% for brands named fifth or later. Copy stat ## Summary Read any good product review and you will find the catch: the vacuum that struggles on thick carpet, the laptop with weak battery life, the insurance plan with a high deductible. Ask an AI engine for the best of the same products and the catch is usually gone. The answer lists five brands and says something good about each. That matters to shoppers and to brands. A downside is often the most useful thing a recommendation can tell a buyer, because it shows who a product is wrong for. When AI answers leave it out, every product sounds like a safe choice, and the shopper has to find the trade-offs somewhere else. AI engines describe **93.3%** of the brands they recommend without a single downside. Google AI Mode is the most critical engine, and it still flags a weakness for fewer than one brand in ten. The few warnings that appear gather in streaming and software answers and around the brands lower in the list. ## What we measured On September 23, 2026 we asked 2,000 "best product or service" questions in 20 categories, from kitchen appliances to insurance, to five AI engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews (the AI summary above Google's search results). In the answers we identified 69,214 brand recommendations, each the passage of text an answer writes about one brand. A brand counts as getting a downside when its passage names any con, drawback, trade-off or weakness ("expensive", "lacks", "noisy"), or qualifies its praise with words such as "however" or "but". That is a generous test: a single "but" counts. We compared the rate by AI engine, by category and by the brand's position in the answer, where position 1 is the first brand named. ## AI product answers are almost all praise 93.3% of brands recommended in AI product answers come with no downside. Fewer than one brand in fourteen gets any stated drawback, even though the test counts words as mild as "but". An AI shortlist reads as a list of good options, each with its strengths described and its weaknesses left out. An AI answer gives each brand a few lines, and those lines go to its strengths. For a shopper, that means an AI answer tells you what each product is good at, but rarely what it is bad at or who should avoid it. ## Google AI Mode is the most critical engine 9.7% of brands recommended by Google AI Mode come with a downside. No engine is very critical. Google AI Mode (9.7%) and Gemini (8%) are the most likely to mention a weakness. ChatGPT (5.3%) and Google AI Overviews (4.9%) flag a downside for about one brand in twenty, and Perplexity, whose answers are short, for 2.6%, about one in 40. Recommended brands with a downside by AI engine Google AI Mode 9.7% Gemini 8% ChatGPT 5.3% Google AI Overviews 4.9% Perplexity 2.6% Source: Suff Digital analysis of 69,214 brand recommendations · answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, September 2026 The gap between engines means the same product can come with a warning on Google AI Mode and none on Perplexity, whose short answers leave room for a verdict and little else. Even on the most critical engine, nine brands in ten are recommended without a downside. ## Streaming and software get the most warnings Streaming services (13.5%) and software (13.1%) draw the most warnings, about twice the overall rate. These are products where the trade-offs are easy to state: one streaming service has fewer films, another has ads; one app lacks a feature, another costs more per user. Services, kids products, insurance and kitchen products follow at 8% to 9%. Recommended brands with a downside by category Streaming 13.5% Software 13.1% Services 8.9% Kids 8.7% Insurance 8.4% Kitchen 8.3% Finance 7.2% Gaming 6.8% Travel 5.3% Cars 4.1% Electronics 3.4% Fitness 3% Home 3% Beauty 2.5% Health 2.5% Beauty and health products are almost never criticized, at 2.5% each, with home and fitness products at 3%. In those categories an AI answer reads like a list of recommendations with no warnings, even though fit, skin type and personal needs decide whether a product works for a given buyer. ## Criticism rises further down the list The brands AI names first are described with the fewest reservations. The first brand gets a downside 5.6% of the time and the second 5.5%. From there the rate climbs, to 6% at the third position, 6.9% at the fourth and 9.4% for brands named fifth or later. Recommended brands with a downside by position in the answer 1st brand 5.6% 2nd brand 5.5% 3rd brand 6% 4th brand 6.9% 5th or later 9.4% The warnings gather around the alternatives, where the answer explains why a brand is a second choice: pricier, narrower, or suited to a specific need. For the brands at the top of the list, an AI recommendation is praise with almost no qualification. ## What this means for brands and shoppers For brands, the risk in AI answers is being left out, not being criticized. If you are named, you are very likely to be described favorably. Focus on getting named, and on the positive details the engine repeats: clear product pages and review coverage that state who your product is for and what it does best. If you sell streaming, software, services or insurance, check what AI engines say about your trade-offs. Those are the categories where warnings appear, and an outdated complaint in a cited review can follow you into the answer. Ask the publisher to update it, and publish your own clear answer to the objection. Shoppers should treat an AI shortlist as a starting point and open the cited sources to find the trade-offs. Working with an ai seo company (https://www.suffdigital.com/seo/ai-seo-services) that tracks how AI engines describe your brand, including any downsides they repeat, tells you which sources to fix first. ## Embed this research Paste this on your site to embed the charts. It links back to the source automatically.

Source: AI Recommends 93% of Brands Without Mentioning a Single Downside - Suff Digital

## Cite this study APA Suff Digital. (2026). AI Recommends 93% of Brands Without Mentioning a Single Downside. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides Plain link AI Recommends 93% of Brands Without Mentioning a Single Downside - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides ## Frequently asked questions ### How often does AI mention the downsides of products it recommends? ### Which AI engine is most critical of products? ### Is the top AI pick criticized less? ### Which products does AI criticize most? ## Related studies - AI SEO Gemini Uses Negative Words About 72.6% of Brands vs 57.2% for ChatGPT: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/chatgpt-negative-words-about-brands - AI SEO Gemini Declines to Pick a Winner in 15.3% of Product Questions vs 4.2% for Google AI Overviews: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-declines-to-pick-winner - AI SEO 53.7% of AI Product Recommendations Name Brands Without Linking to Any of Them: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-brands-named-not-linked - AI SEO 54% of AI Product Recommendations Don't Mention a Price: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-product-answers-mention-price ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization", "name": "Suff Digital", "alternateName": "Suff Digital Marketing", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "contentUrl": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "caption": "Suff Digital" }, "image": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo" }, "description": "Suff Digital is a full-stack digital marketing agency that turns websites into predictable revenue engines, SEO, paid media, content, CRO, and web design built around revenue, not vanity metrics.", "slogan": "Digital marketing built for what's next.", "email": "hello@suffdigital.com", "telephone": "+1-629-236-0099", "foundingDate": "2022", "founder": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Matt Suffoletto", "jobTitle": "Founder & CEO" }, "contactPoint": [ { "@type": "ContactPoint", "telephone": "+1-629-236-0099", "email": "hello@suffdigital.com", "contactType": "sales", "areaServed": "US", "availableLanguage": [ "en" ] } ], "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Nashville", "addressRegion": "TN", "postalCode": "37219", "addressCountry": "US" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "United States" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/suff-digital/", "https://www.instagram.com/suffdigital/", "https://www.youtube.com/@suffdigitalmarketing", "https://www.tiktok.com/@suffdigital" ], "knowsAbout": [ "Search Engine Optimization", "Pay-Per-Click Advertising", "Paid Social Advertising", "Conversion Rate Optimization", "Web Design", "Digital PR", "Link Building", "Website Migration", "Website Maintenance and Support", "Technical SEO", "Local SEO", "AI Search Optimization" ], "hasOfferCatalog": { "@type": "OfferCatalog", "name": "Suff Digital Services", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/ppc" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Paid Social Advertising", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/paid-social" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/cro" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Web Design", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/web-design" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Digital PR & Link Building", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/digital-pr" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Website Migration", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/website-migration" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Website Maintenance & Support", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/website-maintenance" } } ] } }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#website", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/", "name": "Suff Digital", "inLanguage": "en-US", "publisher": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization" } } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Article", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides#article", "headline": "AI Recommends 93% of Brands Without Mentioning a Single Downside", "description": "93.3% of the brands AI engines recommend in product answers come with no downside at all: no con, no drawback, not even a \"but\". 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On Perplexity the figure is 97.4%.", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides", "creator": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization" }, "datePublished": "2026-09-24", "dateModified": "2026-09-24", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "isAccessibleForFree": true, "measurementTechnique": "Answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode" }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/ai-recommendations-mention-downsides#faq", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How often does AI mention the downsides of products it recommends?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AI engines mention a downside for 6.7% of the brands they recommend in product answers (September 2026), so 93.3% are described without a single con, drawback or trade-off." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which AI engine is most critical of products?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Google AI Mode, which mentions a downside for 9.7% of the brands it recommends. Perplexity mentions one for 2.6%." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is the top AI pick criticized less?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. The first brand in an AI product recommendation gets a downside 5.6% of the time, against 9.4% for brands named fifth or later." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which products does AI criticize most?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Streaming services and software. AI engines mention a downside for 13.5% of recommended streaming brands and 13.1% of software brands, against 2.5% of beauty and health brands." } } ] } ] } ] ```