AI visibility benchmark · first-party data
How often AI recommends hardware and equipment suppliers
We asked AI engines the questions buyers ask, like "supplier for this equipment", and counted how often each of 17 hardware and equipment suppliers was named.
What we found
AI named the average hardware business in 7.6% of the answers we checked, below the 20.8% average across all 1,584 businesses we measured.
15 of the 17 were never named in any answer. 1 was named in half or more.
On their own websites, the weakest signal in this category is brand recognition and the strongest is site health. Across all our research, off-site brand recognition is the signal that most separates the businesses AI names from the ones it ignores.
Method: the latest report for each business in the Are you found by AI? corpus, 27 June to 29 September 2026. A business's percentage is the share of saved AI answers that named it, counting every repeat of each question. Failed or missing answers don't count against it, and businesses without countable answers are left out. Only categories with 12 or more businesses are published. Aggregates only, never an individual business.
Where do you sit?
The category average is not your number. The free scan asks ChatGPT and Gemini two of your buyers' questions and shows who they name.
Scan your hardware business free →
Already scanned? The SEO and AI Visibility Sprint (A$2,500 + GST) implements the fix plan, start to finish. Or book a free pre-discovery call.
Building for this industry? See AI for manufacturing.