Consumer Discretionary Industry: 2026 AEO / GEO Benchmarks

*This data comes from the 2026 AEO / GEO Benchmarks Report. To explore insights across all 10 industries, access the full report here.

Executive summary

There’s a new search experience for brands to prioritize: AI answer engines.

The rise of AI answer engines and Google’s integration of AI Overview (AIO) results directly onto traditional SERPs means users are increasingly getting answers from AI-generated summaries directly rather than clicking a link, leading to a surge in zero-click searches.

While organic search still fuels the majority of discovery, AI has introduced what we’re calling a parallel surface of visibility—an invisible layer that determines which brands are seen before anyone clicks.

The data shows that AI referral traffic currently represents just over 1% of total web visits and is growing by roughly 1% each month, on average. It will never rival traditional organic search traffic—but that’s not the point. In this new model, visibility no longer begins on your website; it starts within the AI experiences that answer questions, guide intent, and shape perception in real time. If your brand isn’t cited, mentioned, or referenced in these AI answers, it’s effectively absent from the modern customer journey.

AI visibility is becoming its own performance channel, one that signals which brands are trusted enough to enter the answer. Winning in this space isn’t about clicks; it’s about credibility.

The following findings provide the first layer of industry-specific benchmark data essential for navigating the new search landscape and ensuring credibility (and visibility) of your brand. It moves beyond traditional website analytics to provide key context for evaluating your total search performance, identifying accurate KPIs for both organic and AIO, and implementing the right strategies to drive results.

Top takeaways for Consumer Discretionary

• AEO, GEO & AI Search benchmarks:
  • The automobiles & components subindustry is an AI standout, with 3.28% of its total traffic coming from AI.
  • AI referral traffic growth in the Consumer Discretionary industry slowed from a .09% increase (May-June 2025) to just .01% (August-September 2025).
  • ChatGPT is the primary source of AI referral traffic for this industry, accounting for 92.3% of all AI-driven clicks. Perplexity drives the second largest amount of AI referral traffic, with 4%.
  • Braunability.com (37.07%) overwhelmingly dominates AI citations for the automobiles & components subindustry, while walmart.com (8.10%) leads in the distribution & retail subindustry.
• AIO benchmarks:
  • AI Overviews (AIOs) appear for 12.6% of analyzed Consumer Discretionary industry queries.
  • Kbb.com (3.92%) captures the largest AIO share of voice for the Consumer Discretionary industry, with edmunds.com (2.46%) also holding a significant share.
  • Blog content was by far the most cited page type in AI Overviews for the Consumer Discretionary industry, with over 100,000 pages being cited in the results.

For Consumer Discretionary brands, success in 2026 won’t be defined solely by organic traffic or rankingsRankings
Rankings in SEO refers to a website’s position in the search engine results page.
Learn more. It will hinge on how effectively a brand appears inside AI answers, AI Overviews, and LLM-powered recommendations. These results indicate that, while AI search is still in its infancy, its impact on brand discovery is already substantial.

The data that follows paints a picture of this parallel surface of visibility: where AI is beginning to redirect attention, and which brands in the Consumer Discretionary sector are establishing early leadership in AI search and AIO presence.

Methodology

Using Conductor, we analyzed 13,770 domains from leading brands. Each domain was categorized into 10 industries and then further segmented into 22 subindustries to provide additional insights, which map directly to the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) framework. This research identifies emerging traffic trends, separating traditional organic traffic from new AI referral patterns and zero-click visibility at a granular level.

For the purposes of this industry-specific report, the Consumer Discretionary industry was split into two subindustries:

• Automobiles & components
• Consumer discretionary distribution & retail
• Consumer durables & apparel
• Consumer services

AI search methodology

The AI search market share and brand leaders are sourced from our analysis of 13,770 domains being cited against our index of 3.5 million unique prompts between May and September 2025. We focused on these domains as they aligned with the 10 GICS industry categories we are reporting on. The analysis included 17 million AI-generated responses and over 100 million citations sourced from our AI Search Performance (AISP) and AIO reporting index.

The findings on AI search traffic, organic Google traffic, and referral traffic by answer engine type were sourced by analyzing anonymized and aggregated traffic patterns across 1,215 of our enterprise customer domains to assess how users of answer engines are reaching websites.

Ultimately, we analyzed more than 3.3 billion sessions across all of our data sources. Of that traffic, AI traffic from LLMs and chatbots accounted for more than 35.7 million sessions across the 10 industries analyzed.

The following benchmarks are averages sourced from an analysis of monthly AI search traffic data in the U.S. over a five-month period (May 2025-September 2025) in Conductor.

AI Overview methodology

We analyzed AI Overview data in the U.S. over a four-week period from September 15 to October 12, 2025, to gain insight into how AI-powered search is affecting Google’s traditional search experience. To do so, we analyzed approximately 21.9 million unique Google searches from Conductor’s traditional search index. Of those Google searches, nearly 5.5 million generated an AIO result.

AEO & AI search visibility analysis for Consumer Discretionary

This analysis provides a granular, data-driven benchmark for true visibility in the AI search landscape.

This section focuses on:

• AI referral traffic by subindustry
• Month-over-month (MoM) growth
• AI referral traffic by answer engine
• AI vs. Traditional channels
• AI market share

AI referral traffic for the Consumer Discretionary industry

The results:

• AI referral traffic accounts for .48% of all website traffic for the Consumer Discretionary industry.
  • AI referral traffic usually has high intent and is more likely to convert than traffic from traditional channels. That shift means that AI search visibility is becoming the new key currency for enterprise AEO.
• The Financials (.48%) industry and Consumer Discretionary (.48%) industries were below the average of 1.08% in terms of AI referral traffic.

While AI referral traffic remains small in volume, its impact on visibility is outsized. That .48% of AI referral traffic represents millions of interactions happening before a user visits a website. These moments decide which Consumer Discretionary brands show up in the new customer journey—and which are invisible.

AI referral traffic by Consumer Discretionary subindustries

The results:

• 3.28% of traffic from queries related to automobiles & components comes from AI, the highest percentage of all the subindustries.
• The other subindustries—consumer discretionary distribution & retail, consumer durables & apparel, and consumer services—received less than 1% of traffic from AI.

The reason automobile & component queries drive so much AI referral traffic could be because buying a car is a major financial decision. That makes users more likely to spend time on research. Their queries are complex, comparative, and informational, which is a great fit for AI search. The other subindustries often have simpler, more visual search intents where a user wants to see images and shopping links rather than read about a product.

Month-over-month growth in AI referral traffic change

The results:

• AI referral traffic in the Consumer Discretionary industry rose .21% from May to September 2025.
• Month-over-month growth slowed down in September 2025 after more significant growth earlier in the summer.
  • August to September (+.01%) saw much smaller jumps in referral traffic than May to June (+.09%).

This could speak to some seasonality, but also points to the volatility of AI search as user behaviors are adapting and the AI models themselves are constantly being updated. So even though it may seem like it’s leveling off, expect volatility to continue.

AI referral traffic vs. Traditional SEO traffic benchmarks for Consumer Discretionary

The results:

• Established channels like organic search, paid, direct, social, and referral traffic, aside from AI, still drive the vast majority of website visits across all industries.
  • AI traffic accounted for .48% of all traffic in the Consumer Discretionary industry.
• Organic Google traffic makes up nearly 18%, and other traffic sources contribute over 80%.

This data underscores the continued importance of a strong traditional SEO strategy. Even as AI search emerges, optimizing for visibility in standard Google results is essential for improving brand visibility and relevance. This potential overlap reinforces the need for a dual approach of traditional SEO and AEO / GEO strategies.

AI referral traffic by answer engine source: Consumer Discretionary industry

The results:

• On average, ChatGPT drives 92.3% of all AI referral traffic in the Consumer Discretionary industry.
  • If you're not being cited on ChatGPT, you're losing out on the lion's share of high-intent AI referral traffic.
• Perplexity drove 4% of AI traffic to the Consumer Discretionary industry.
  • This highlights why focusing on ChatGPT isn’t enough to own AI search visibility. Consumer Discretionary brands should focus on optimizing for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot—the top three answer engines for their industry.

ChatGPT dominates the landscape right now, with over 92% of overall AI traffic coming from ChatGPT. That said, while it’s the engine you should prioritize within your AEO / GEO strategy, it’s not the only answer engine you should pay attention to. Prepare for future volatility by tracking your brand presence across all of these answer engines and then optimizing as needed if your mentions and citations drop.

Consumer Discretionary market share: Domain citations and brand mention leaders

This section is an analysis of the brands and domains that won the most market share in the Consumer Discretionary industry. Our analysis was based on AI citations and brand mentions between May and September 2025. The results are split across four key Consumer Discretionary subindustries:

• Automobiles & components
• Consumer discretionary distribution & retail
• Consumer durables & apparel
• Consumer services

Consumer Discretionary industry: Top 5 domains by AI citation market share

1. clemson.edu
2. walmart.com
3. target.com
4. fourseasons.com
5. cornell.edu

The list of top-cited domains reveals a unique split between academia and retail. Clemson.edu (a Conductor customer) leveraged our AEO/GEO platform to claim the #1 spot, ultimately capturing 91% AIO market share through a new, AI-focused content strategy. Alongside them, retail giants walmart.com and target.com perform well, as AI models cite their authoritative product data to answer consumer queries.

Consumer Discretionary industry: Top 5 brand leaders by AI brand mention market share

1. Walmart
2. Target
3. Miele
4. Sonos
5. Nike

Walmart and Target are the top-mentioned brands, reinforcing their retail dominance. The appearance of premium, high-intent brands like Miele (appliances), Sonos (electronics), and Nike (apparel) is significant. It shows that AI is heavily used for bottom-of-funnel research, fielding specific, branded, and comparative queries from users.

Automobile & components subindustry market share leaders by domain citations

Below, we have the top five domains in the automobile & components subindustry based on their share of domain citations in AI search.

This subindustry list shows a dramatic divergence from the overall industry leaders (like clemson.edu or walmart.com). The chart is dominated by highly specialized domains, with braunability.com (37.07%) holding a massive share of domain citations, followed by superiorvan.com (9.42%). This indicates that the automobile subindustry in AI search is heavily driven by a high-value, research-intensive niche (mobility vehicles), rather than general car shopping, with AI citing these specialized manufacturers as the primary authorities.

Consumer discretionary distribution & retail subindustry market share leaders by domain citations

This subindustry list accounts for the major retail players on the overall industry chart, with walmart.com (8.10%) and target.com (5.49%) holding top positions. The list also brings in the other expected industry leaders, like home improvement giants homedepot.com (4.24%) and lowes.com (2.75%). This signals that when users ask product-related, DIY, or "where to buy" queries, AI models are prioritizing these massive, high-authority eCommerce domains for in-depth tutorials and product data and availability.

Consumer durables & apparel subindustry market share leaders by domain citations

This subindustry is composed entirely of new domains not seen in the top 5 of the overall industry chart. The list is led by premium, brand-specific domains like miele.com (5.00%), sonos.com (4.63%), and ariat.com (4.05%). This demonstrates that for durable goods and apparel, AI models are handling high-intent, comparative queries by citing the brand's own domain as the primary source of authority. The inclusion of fanduel.com also reveals that online gaming is a significant driver of AI citations within this category.

Consumer services subindustry market share leaders by domain citations

This subindustry list is nearly identical to the top of the overall industry chart, with clemson.edu (6.63%) and fourseasons.com (4.12%) holding top spots in both. It's clear that "Consumer Services" queries are currently dominated by hospitality and education, with cornell.edu (3.75%) and harvard.edu (3.52%) also leading. This indicates that for service-related queries, AI models are prioritizing content from renowned university programs as top-tier, unbiased authorities.

AI Overview benchmarks for Consumer Discretionary

Despite the rise of AI answer engines, billions of searches still happen on Google, and every day, AI Overviews are appearing for more of those searches. That means it’s essential for brands to optimize their site to rank on page 1 in Google and increase their chances of winning an AIO result.

Below is our analysis of the AIO visibility in the Consumer Discretionary industry.

AIO visibility analysis: Consumer Discretionary industry

The results:

• AIO results appeared for 12.6% of analyzed Google queries in the Consumer Discretionary industry.
• Consumer Discretionary is in the middle of the pack in terms of AIO visibility compared to the other industries included in our annual report.

AIO visibility analysis: Consumer Discretionary subindustries

The results:

• Consumer services (22.5%) and automobiles & components (21.3%) searches trigger an AIO result most often out of all Consumer Discretionary subindustries searches.
• Consumer durables & apparel (5.4%) had the lowest share of AI Overviews out of all Consumer Discretionary subindustries.

Although the Consumer Discretionary industry may see fewer AIO results than some of the other industries, brands still need to prioritize appearing in and winning these results, as AIO affects a large chunk of searches and will continue to do so.

It’s specifically important for brands in the automobile & components, and consumer services subindustries to strategize ways to win AIO results.

Page types cited most often in AIO results for Consumer Discretionary

The results:

• Blog content was by far the most cited page type in AI Overviews for the Consumer Discretionary industry, with over 100,000 pages being cited in the results.
• The next most cited page type in AIO results is product pages, with just over 39,000 citations.

The key takeaway here is that your content is much more likely to appear in AIO results for Consumer Discretionary queries if it’s a blog. Users with Consumer Discretionary queries usually want authentic answers from a person in a similar position to them, and blogs can often provide that more human, personable feel.

Consumer Discretionary AIO share of voice winners by subindustry

The following tables show the top 5 domains that were cited most often in an AI overview across the automobiles & components, consumer discretionary distribution & retail, consumer durables & apparel, and consumer services subindustries.

Automobiles & components subindustry: Winning domains for AIO share of voice

The results:

• Toyota.com (.15%), mercedes-benz.com (.13%), and ford.com (.12%) are in a tight race for the top AIO citations.
• Lexus.com (.10%) and thecarconnection.com (.08%) round out the top five.

This list is dominated by the primary, "source-of-truth" manufacturer domains. This signals that when users ask for specific model information, features, or specs, Google is citing the official brand site as the most authoritative source. The presence of thecarconnection.com also shows that high-trust, third-party review sites are used to round out these answers.

Consumer discretionary distribution & retail subindustry: Winning domains for AIO share of voice

The results:

• Kbb.com (3.92%) accounts for by far the largest AIO share of voice in this subindustry.
• Edmunds.com (2.46%) and cars.com (1.50%) follow, securing the next two spots.

This subindustry is completely dominated by third-party automotive marketplaces and valuation guides. This indicates that for high-intent commercial and comparative queries like "best used cars" or "what is my car worth," AIOs are trained to prioritize these data-rich, unbiased platforms over the manufacturers themselves.

Consumer durables & apparel subindustry: Winning domains for AIO share of voice

The results:

• Samsung.com (.39%) leads the AIO share of voice for the consumer durables & apparel subindustry.
• Roku.com (.12%) and whirlpool.com (.12%) are tied for the second-place spot.

This list is composed entirely of major, high-authority brand domains, from electronics (samsung.com, roku.com) to appliances (whirlpool.com) and apparel (nike.com). This shows that AIOs are citing the manufacturers directly for the most trustworthy product specifications and details. The market share is highly fragmented, reflecting the huge diversity of products in this category.

Consumer services subindustry: Winning domains for AIO share of voice

The results:

• Study.com (1.11%) accounts for the largest AIO share of voice.
• Harvard.edu (.65%) and coursera.com (.49%) follow, highlighting a strong educational focus.

This subindustry is dominated by educational and informational domains. This signals that a high volume of "consumer service" queries are informational, like "what is" or "how to learn." AIOs are built to answer these questions by citing large-scale educational libraries and high-authority university sites. The appearance of wag.com (.25%) also shows that niche, app-based services are a key part of this subindustry.

Summary

The future of digital discovery belongs to the Consumer Discretionary brands that understand that AI visibility isn’t a nice-to-have metric—it’s the next frontier of search performance. Having informed, data-driven KPIs for both SEO and AEO / GEO enables digital teams to measure their total search visibility and adapt their strategies from clicks to zero-click citations.

Leverage the Consumer Discretionary industry benchmarks featured here to understand how your brand performs and where there are opportunities to improve.

Remember, the shift to AI is accelerating. While AI referral traffic is a small (but high-intent) channel today, now is the time to secure your market share in these new, answer-driven results to ensure you show up first—and keep showing up first.