Industry breakout · Original research
AI visibility for e-commerce in 2026: the one industry the engines already recommend.
We scanned 50 of Australia's most search-visible e-commerce and retail brands on 30 July 2026 as part of our 300-business national study. They average 55 out of 100 for AI visibility, the best of the six industries and well clear of the national mean of 38.3, and only 9% of the 22 brands with complete records from both engines were never named by ChatGPT or Gemini.
Key numbers
Six numbers from the e-commerce sample
Every figure comes straight from the e-commerce rows of the national dataset, scanned 30 July 2026. Never-named percentages are counted over the 22 brands with complete records from both engines, because blank Gemini rows cannot be counted either way. Site checks are counted over all 50 brands.
The average e-commerce brand in our sample scores 55 out of 100 for AI visibility, the highest of the six industries. The median is 56. The national mean is 38.3.
Only 9% of the 22 brands with complete records from both engines, 2 brands, were never named by ChatGPT or Gemini. Nationally the figure is 41%.
E-commerce websites average 77.2 out of 100 for on-site AI readiness, against a national mean of 74.9.
12% of the 50 brands block AI crawlers outright in robots.txt, so the engines cannot read their websites at all.
28% of the 50 have no structured data (JSON-LD) on their site, the equal highest missing rate of the six industries and a striking gap for product businesses.
44% of the 50 have no llms.txt file, the lowest missing rate of the six industries. We report it as a legibility signal only: Google has said it does not use llms.txt.
Fame still is not a guarantee. MECCA and THE ICONIC were each named five times by ChatGPT across our buyer questions, while July, a nationally recognised brand, was not named by ChatGPT once. That is a statement about our questions on one day, not about the business. Even in the strongest industry, the engines pick a shortlist and stick to it.
Who leads
The five most AI-visible e-commerce brands we scanned
AI visibility score out of 100, from the 50-brand e-commerce sample scanned 30 July 2026.
| Rank | Brand | City | AI visibility score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bondi Sands | Melbourne | 89 |
| 2 | MECCA | Melbourne | 87 |
| 3 | Modibodi | Sydney | 81 |
| 4 | Single O | Sydney | 81 |
| 5 | The Oodie | Adelaide | 81 |
The household names
How often the anchor brands were actually named
The e-commerce sample included recognisable national brands as anchors. The counts below are factual tallies of how many times each engine named the brand across our test questions on 30 July 2026. They describe our questions on one day, not the quality of anyone's work. Where the Gemini field is blank in the dataset, the brand has no complete Gemini record; it is shown as such, not counted as zero.
| Brand | AI visibility score | Times named by ChatGPT | Times named by Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| MECCA | 87 | 5 | 5 |
| Who Gives A Crap | 81 | 5 | No complete record |
| THE ICONIC | 80 | 5 | 5 |
| Adore Beauty | 76 | 4 | 4 |
| Koala | 76 | 3 | 5 |
| Princess Polly | 64 | 2 | 3 |
| Cotton On | 60 | 3 | 3 |
| July | 25 | 0 | No complete record |
By city
Melbourne brands edge out Sydney and Brisbane
Mean AI visibility score for the brands the dataset groups into a city cohort. Brands headquartered elsewhere in Australia are not grouped into a city cohort and are not shown here, though they count in every industry-level figure above.
| City | Brands scanned | Mean score |
|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 19 | 57.3 |
| Brisbane | 5 | 54.2 |
| Sydney | 19 | 52.8 |
What it means
What this means for an e-commerce brand
If you sell online, the shortlist already exists. The question is not whether AI recommends e-commerce brands. It is whether it recommends yours.
This is the only industry in the study where the engines answer buyer questions with confidence: a mean visibility score of 55 against a national 38.3, and just 9% of complete two-engine records never named. When a shopper asks ChatGPT or Gemini what to buy, Australian brands do get named, which means the brands that are not on the shortlist are losing to the ones that are, every time the question is asked.
Fame alone does not decide the shortlist either. The anchor table above runs from household names named five times by ChatGPT to a household name never named at all. What separates the top of the table is the footprint the engines read: reviews, press, rankings, comparison pages and other people's pages.
And the basics still trip brands up. 12% of the 50 block AI crawlers in robots.txt, and 28% carry no structured data at all, which for a product business leaves the engines guessing at products, prices and reviews. Our AI visibility service for e-commerce and retail covers both halves, the full method and caveats are in the national report with the raw data free to download under CC BY 4.0, and the glossary explains any term on this page. For the other end of the spectrum, see how accountants did with the same questions.
Keep reading
Where to go from here
The full study
State of AI Visibility in Australia 2026
All 300 businesses across six industries, the full methodology, and the raw data free to download.
Read the report →For your brand
AI visibility for e-commerce & retail
What we check, what we fix and what it costs to get an online brand named by the engines.
See the service →Industry breakout
Accountants in the same study
The best-prepared websites in the study, yet 47% of complete records were never named by either engine.
See the data →Questions
Common questions about the e-commerce data
How visible are Australian e-commerce brands to AI?
How many e-commerce brands were never named by ChatGPT or Gemini?
Which Australian e-commerce brands does AI name most?
What site problems do e-commerce brands still have?
Find out whether AI names your brand at all.
The same scan we ran on these 50 e-commerce brands is free for yours. See whether ChatGPT and Gemini name you, who they name instead, and you keep the report.