AI cites Reddit more than any other site when Australians ask what to buy, Findrix study finds
Reddit was the most-cited domain across nine Australian markets, followed by Legal 500 and Chambers.
AI sources are highly local in service markets, but far less so in B2B software, fashion and beauty.
The same buying questions lead different AI engines to rely on different source types and cite them at very different rates.
Study of 23,000 buying questions across nine Australian markets reveals which websites ChatGPT and Google AI cite in their answers.
The study asked 23,000 shortlist questions on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews in September 2026: which law firm, which bank, which sunscreen. It counted 228,000 citations, meaning links in the answer to a site the engine used.
Three findings
Reddit beats the brands and the press. In fashion, Reddit is cited four times as often as Vogue Australia. In beauty, Reddit and Adore Beauty each outrank every brand's own website. Across the study, when an engine pulls in a Reddit thread it names it in the answer seven times out of ten, a higher rate than any newspaper or magazine.
"Reddit is still dominating Australian fashion. If you agreed that Reddit is dead, you would be missing a huge source," said Tom Wells, Lead Research Advisor at Findrix. "We only know that because we ran 23,000 prompts aiming to look at the market as a whole."
The rest of the map is not what brands expect either. In finance, Canstar is cited more often than any bank. In legal, three of the top four sources are international directories, and no Australian directory or press title makes the top twenty. In home services, Yellow Pages sits below rank 1,000.
Services are answered from Australian sites: more than 85% of citations in clinics, home services and finance go to .au domains. Products are not: about half in fashion and beauty, one third in B2B software.
Two thirds of what AI reads is a company's own website. "The company's website is the one source every brand controls, and most brands have never checked what AI finds there," said Yosif Meerman, co-founder of Findrix. "Reddit and the directories decide who gets a second look. Your own pages decide whether AI can recommend you at all."
Businesses in the market, their competitors and retailers make up about 65% of all sources the engines pull in. Publishers are about 11%. Only one source in five is a place a brand can reach through press, directories, forums or review sites.
What companies should do
Check all three engines. In most markets, fewer than half of the top twenty sources appear on all three.
Fix the pages you own first. Answer the buyer's question in the first 60 words. Put price, specs and credentials in the text, not in images or behind a form.
Work the sources your market trusts: Reddit and the beauty press in fashion and beauty, the directories in legal, the comparison sites in finance. Treat them as a standing programme, not a campaign.
Plan across borders in product markets. Half of the sources in fashion, beauty and software are not Australian.
The full index, with a page for each market, is at findrix.ai/australian-ai-source-index.
About Findrix
Findrix is an AI visibility platform. It tracks how AI assistants answer buying questions in a market, maps the sources behind those answers, and gives brands a ranked list of fixes for their site, content and off-site placements.
Evgeniya Zemlyanskaya
Findrix Corp.
+357 94 092606
email us here
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