Your question becomes the engine’s own searches.
One buyer question turns into many searches the model writes for itself, and the shortlist of brands is largely set before a single page is fetched.
You earn your way onto the shortlist.
The shortlist is built from training association, so it rewards genuine standing in the category. That is the anti-spam design, and it is why the position is defensible: the way in is to become genuinely known. Being named in the model’s own query is worth far more than being one of the hundreds of pages it reads.
What you’re up against.
These four numbers are the LBOX AEO Index: our own measurement of the category, run on our own data. They describe the difficulty of the game and a brand’s starting line, snapshot as of 13 Sep 2026.
AI engines recognize a brand far more than they volunteer it.
When you are named in the question, the engine knows you. When the buyer asks the category with no brand named, that recognition mostly goes quiet. Closing that gap is the work.
LBOX AEO INDEX · n = 4,284 unbranded / 329 branded answers
Five brands take more than half of every category's mentions.
About 35 brands get named in a category, and the top five capture most of the mentions. The shortlist is where the visibility lives.
LBOX AEO INDEX · n = 88 subjects
The sources AI trusts are diffuse and category-specific.
Citations spread across 6,860 domains, led by YouTube, Reddit and brand-owned sites. There is no single directory to buy your way onto; trust is earned across the sources your category actually uses.
LBOX AEO INDEX · n = 28,492 citations
More than half of every category is still open across engines.
Only 43% of category answers are owned by a single brand across all engines. The rest is contested or leaning, which is where the window is open right now.
LBOX AEO INDEX · n = 114 category questions
The signal that matters most is coming.
The sharpest signal in AI search is how much more likely you are to be recommended when the model puts you in its own query, versus merely reading your page. LBOX is instrumenting its own measurement of it now, and we will publish our own number the moment the capture lands. Until it is real it stays blank, never borrowed.
Two things decide whether the model recommends you.
Reading the fan-out tells you which of the two you are looking at, so the plan is targeted from day one.
Earn the association
This is where you become known in the category. A structural build that compounds over time; the association is earned, and once it holds, it lasts. Honest work, worth setting expectations on.
Strengthen the evidence
The model already considers you and searches you. Here you win by making your page prove the case: specific, addressable, and much faster.
You win AI search by becoming the answer the model already believes in. Now that is measurable.
The LBOX AEO Index is proprietary to LBOX: our own measurement, run on our own data. Snapshot as of 13 Sep 2026, over 28,492 citations, 8,126 brand appearances, 88 subjects and 15 markets. The live instrument runs on the Engine Intelligence surface. Figures move as the dataset grows and should be cited as the LBOX AEO Index.