Report 2026: The commercial search shift on ChatGPT and what this means for brands.
Report 2026: The commercial search shift on ChatGPT and what this means for brands.
Report 2026: The commercial search shift on ChatGPT and what this means for brands.
Last updated 5 October 2026 by Ema Fulga
More commercial conversations are happening on ChatGPT. But there’s a catch.
Contrary to popular belief, ChatGPT isn’t mostly used to imagine an 80s makeover, draft work-email replies, or settle an argument with your boyfriend. There is a significant increase in queries based around buying decisions. People are turning to AI to help them decide how to spend their cold, hard cash, and it’s an opportunity too good for brands to miss.
Here’s what serious buyers are doing on AI right now, with a reality check at the end because, just like your bestie, we want the best for you.
Commercial conversations have doubled
Profound studied ChatGPT data and found that commercial conversations on the platform doubled in the past year. Between June 2025 and June 2026, estimated weekly volume rose from 243 million to 533 million.
We believe that comes down to two forces:
More people are using ChatGPT.
The share of commercial-intent queries has risen.
In simple terms, more people are using AI search in general, and more people are trusting it to help make purchase decisions. It’s the first piece of gold held up to the sunlight during a gold rush: there’s gold in them thar hills.
The payoff is getting bigger in weeks, not years
SEO changes used to make us pause, review, and re-strategise over long stretches of time. Searchable noticed that ChatGPT made a major algorithm change that affected citations in a matter of weeks.
On 8 August 2026, ChatGPT began citing more sources than ever before, particularly for commercial queries. A couple of weeks earlier, it used an average of 11.60 sources to answer a commercial query. It now uses 24.64, or 2.12 times as many. Transactional and informational queries increased by 1.6 and 1.75 times respectively.
That is an opportunity for brands. ChatGPT is showing favouritism towards branded domains: brand-owned pages gained 80% more citation share while barely gaining additional read share, a rise that held for 85.9% of the 1,665 brands tracked. ChatGPT was always reading your website. Now it really, really wants to cite it.
The catch: citations are not conversions
Before you start swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck, there are a few caveats:
ChatGPT isn’t reading your website more, just citing it more. It still uses a range of other sources, and your AI search efforts need to account for all of them.
A citation is a link a user can follow, but that doesn’t mean they will. They may take ChatGPT’s word for it and move on without ever visiting your site.
AI-driven conversions cannot be easily quantified. Someone may read about you in an AI-generated answer, continue their research on social media, Google, Trustpilot, or a blog, then make a decision later.
Three takeaways for brands
Customers are using AI to make purchase decisions.
ChatGPT is citing brand pages when it provides answers, which means the sources you have the most control over are gaining value.
Brands will not win by tracking AI referral traffic alone. They will win by building an aligned, optimised online presence across every platform, AI search included.
Need a reality check on your AEO efforts? Drop decipher. a line. We’ll give it to you straight.
Last updated 5 October 2026 by Ema Fulga
More commercial conversations are happening on ChatGPT. But there’s a catch.
Contrary to popular belief, ChatGPT isn’t mostly used to imagine an 80s makeover, draft work-email replies, or settle an argument with your boyfriend. There is a significant increase in queries based around buying decisions. People are turning to AI to help them decide how to spend their cold, hard cash, and it’s an opportunity too good for brands to miss.
Here’s what serious buyers are doing on AI right now, with a reality check at the end because, just like your bestie, we want the best for you.
Commercial conversations have doubled
Profound studied ChatGPT data and found that commercial conversations on the platform doubled in the past year. Between June 2025 and June 2026, estimated weekly volume rose from 243 million to 533 million.
We believe that comes down to two forces:
More people are using ChatGPT (which is why you should optimise for ChatGPT; but I digress…).
The share of commercial-intent queries has risen.
In simple terms, more people are using AI search in general, and more people are trusting it to help make purchase decisions. It’s the first piece of gold held up to the sunlight during a gold rush: there’s gold in them thar hills.
The payoff is getting bigger in weeks, not years
SEO changes used to make us pause, review, and re-strategise over long stretches of time. Searchable noticed that ChatGPT made a major algorithm change that affected citations in a matter of weeks.
On 8 August 2026, ChatGPT began citing more sources than ever before, particularly for commercial queries. A couple of weeks earlier, it used an average of 11.60 sources to answer a commercial query. It now uses 24.64, or 2.12 times as many. Transactional and informational queries increased by 1.6 and 1.75 times respectively.
That is an opportunity for brands. ChatGPT is showing favouritism towards branded domains: brand-owned pages gained 80% more citation share while barely gaining additional read share, a rise that held for 85.9% of the 1,665 brands tracked. ChatGPT was always reading your website. Now it really, really wants to cite it.
The catch: citations are not conversions
Before you start swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck, there are a few caveats:
ChatGPT isn’t reading your website more, just citing it more. It still uses a range of other sources, and your AI search efforts need to account for all of them.
A citation is a link a user can follow, but that doesn’t mean they will. They may take ChatGPT’s word for it and move on without ever visiting your site.
AI-driven conversions cannot be easily quantified. Someone may read about you in an AI-generated answer, continue their research on social media, Google, Trustpilot, or a blog, then make a decision later.
Three takeaways for brands
Customers are using AI to make purchase decisions.
ChatGPT is citing brand pages when it provides answers, which means the sources you have the most control over are gaining value.
Brands will not win by tracking AI referral traffic alone. They will win by building an aligned, optimised online presence across every platform, AI search included.
Need a reality check on your AEO efforts? Drop decipher. a line. We’ll give it to you straight.
Need a reality check on your AEO efforts?
Need a reality check on your AEO efforts?
or simpy…
Until then… Tah-tah, darling!
Until then… Tah-tah, darling!
