Why do tech and service-journalism outlets beat hard news?

Because most AI answers are recommendations and explanations, not breaking news. Outlets built on "best X" and "how to Y" writing, such as TechRadar, PCMag and Tom's Guide, match the questions people ask AI, so they get cited far more than newsrooms built on reporting. In the founding study, tech media took 51.9% of all news-outlet citations.

Why does The New York Times rank so low?

Traditional newspapers are cited, just less often. The New York Times ranked 10th in our July 2026 study with 3,628 citations, well behind TechRadar's 14,311. AI reaches for reviews and service journalism first and hard news second.

Which AI engine cites the press most?

Gemini and ChatGPT leaned on the press most in the founding study (4.63% and 4.31% of their citations), while Google AI Overviews leaned on it least (2.75%). Each engine also has a favorite outlet, so the per-model pages above differ from the aggregate.

How is this different from the global news publishers report?

This ranking is US-scoped, so it only counts citations shown to US users. It also adds the tech and service-journalism outlets that dominate US answers, which is the main difference from the global Top News Publishers report.

How often is this ranking updated?

The ranking is rebuilt daily over a 28-day rolling window. The snapshot date in the hero shows the last refresh.

ChatGPT · Top US News Outlets cited by AI

US news outlets cited most by ChatGPT

The US news outlets ChatGPT cites most in its answers. 28-day rolling window.

Updated Aug 8, 2026

US news outlet citation share: last 90 days

Stacked 100%

Share of US AI answers that cite each news outlet. 28-day rolling window.

Top US news outlets cited by AI

Share is the percentage of US AI answers in the 28-day window that cited at least one link on each outlet.

Rank	News outlet	Value
1	techradar.com	8.82%
2	forbes.com	4.62%
3	tomsguide.com	3.75%
4	techtarget.com	2.6%
5	wired.com	1.65%
6	consumerreports.org	1.58%
7	reuters.com	1.28%
8	yahoo.com	1.28%
9	goodhousekeeping.com	1.15%
10	nbcnews.com	1.06%

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What this report covers

In our July 2026 study of 5.35 million AI citations to non-branded US questions, only 3.26% went to news and media outlets, and TechRadar led the ranking ahead of Forbes, PCMag and Mashable, with The New York Times back in 10th. This page keeps that ranking live on the LLM Pulse dataset.

The pattern behind the numbers is that AI answers reward hands-on product and service journalism over hard news, because most answers are recommendations and explanations. The ranking below is rebuilt daily over a 28-day window, so it moves as the engines change what they cite.

How we measure this

LLM Pulse tracks every citation in every answer across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews.
This report keeps citations shown to US users on non-branded questions, filters to a curated list of US news and media outlets, and ranks each by the share of those US answers that cited at least one link on it. Answers pointing to a tracked brand's own domain are excluded.
An outlet counts once per answer, and outlets that appear in only a narrow slice of question sets are dropped. 28-day rolling window, rebuilt daily.

Why this matters

For publishers, being cited by AI is becoming as important as ranking in Google Search, because AI often surfaces your content without sending the click. The outlets at the top of this list wrote the kind of practical, recommendation-led content the models reuse.

For brands, coverage on these outlets is what AI turns into received wisdom about your category. PR that ignores AI citation share leaves results on the table, and LLM Pulse tracks that share for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

: Because most AI answers are recommendations and explanations, not breaking news. Outlets built on "best X" and "how to Y" writing, such as TechRadar, PCMag and Tom's Guide, match the questions people ask AI, so they get cited far more than newsrooms built on reporting. In the founding study, tech media took 51.9% of all news-outlet citations.
: Traditional newspapers are cited, just less often. The New York Times ranked 10th in our July 2026 study with 3,628 citations, well behind TechRadar's 14,311. AI reaches for reviews and service journalism first and hard news second.
: Gemini and ChatGPT leaned on the press most in the founding study (4.63% and 4.31% of their citations), while Google AI Overviews leaned on it least (2.75%). Each engine also has a favorite outlet, so the per-model pages above differ from the aggregate.
: This ranking is US-scoped, so it only counts citations shown to US users. It also adds the tech and service-journalism outlets that dominate US answers, which is the main difference from the global Top News Publishers report.
: The ranking is rebuilt daily over a 28-day rolling window. The snapshot date in the hero shows the last refresh.

The industry's leading AI citation dataset, pointed at your brand

This page is the public tip of the LLM Pulse iceberg. Internally we track millions of AI answers every week across every major AI search engine, rolled up to the citation, the brand mention and the sentiment level. Point it at your own domain in under a minute.

5.35 million US AI citations analyzed in the founding study
Five AI search engines tracked: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews
Tech and service journalism outlets included, not just legacy newspapers

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