Walmart tops Ahrefs count of brand mentions across 5.5 million ChatGPT answers

Walmart is the brand ChatGPT names most often when it writes answers for US users. Ahrefs counted brand mentions across 5.5 million US ChatGPT answers in November 2026. It published the top 100 on its blog today. Walmart was named in 95,605 answers, almost twice as many as the second-placed brand.

The post was written by Si Quan Ong and reviewed by Ryan Law. Ahrefs says its Brand Radar system tracked mentions across 5,516,381 US responses. The figure for each brand is the number of answers that named it.

The top ten, and what sector each one is in

Target came second with 52,096 mentions. Then Apple with 45,297, Amazon with 38,795 and The Home Depot with 34,876. Nike came sixth with 33,327, Google seventh with 30,775 and Toyota eighth with 30,261. Costco was ninth with 29,186 and Best Buy tenth with 24,746.

Retail stores take six of the top ten slots: Walmart, Target, Amazon, The Home Depot, Costco and Best Buy. Apple and Google are the two technology brands in the top ten. Nike covers fashion and Toyota is the first carmaker on the list.

Carmakers are the other big group

Fifteen of the top 100 brands are carmakers, Ahrefs says. The list names Toyota, Honda, Ford, BMW, Chevrolet, Lexus, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla among them. That is the largest sector share outside retail.

A reader can see why both groups do well. ChatGPT is often asked where to buy a thing, or which car to pick. The answer has to name sellers and makers. Buying questions give the top brands in a category the most slots.

What the figures do not say

The count is a share of answers in the November 2026 sample. It does not say how often a brand is recommended. It only says how often the brand's name appears somewhere in an answer. A mention can be a comparison or a warning. It can also be a parent company reference, or a store that happens to sell the thing.

The count also does not include brands under their parent. ChatGPT may write "Amazon's Audible" or "Alphabet's Google" in some answers, and the two names count separately.

ChatGPT's own output changes with each model update. A team using this list has to re-run the count after a fresh release.

What a team building for ChatGPT visibility can do with it

The list tells a brand which question it is competing in. A clothing brand reads Nike's score and knows it needs to be named in answers about athletic wear. A grocery brand sees Walmart, Target and Costco. The question "where should I shop" is already decided for most users.

A team that wants to break in should pick one question first. Write a page that answers it with facts the brand owns. Then watch whether ChatGPT starts to name the brand. The post is dated November 2026 in its title. A second count later will give a brand a before and after to measure.

Source

• The 100 Most Mentioned Brands in ChatGPT (November 2026), Ahrefs, Si Quan Ong