Citations, which influence consumer perception and drive purchases, are crucial in AI search queries because they act as digital footnotes by linking to source webpages and establishing the
credibility of AI-generated answers. They also drive a path to explore original content and verify information.
Amazon’s strongest citation share resides
in Microsoft Copilot results–21% share vs. 7% for Ulta, which accounted for 14% of citations in April compared with Amazon’s 2%, according to Tinuiti data released Wednesday.
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Tinuiti
developed a method for tracking AI citations through the Profound platform, an independent AI tool. For this study, nine categories–including apparel, beauty, electronics, food and beverage, and
technology–were tracked through AI platforms ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta AI.
On ChatGPT, Amazon’s citation
share is below its multi-platform average, but Amazon still has a significant ecommerce presence across prompt categories.
For beauty prompts, Amazon accounted for just more than 1% of ChatGPT
citations in April, compared with 3.5% for leader Ulta. For electronics prompts, Best Buy led among ecommerce sites with 7% of ChatGPT citations in April, while Amazon accounted for 2%. For home and
garden prompts, Home Depot led with 7% of citations, while Amazon accounted for 2%.
The average share of citations attributed to social platforms was 33% higher in April 2026 than in October
2025. Average share declined in March; April followed three straight months of growth.
Tinuiti attributes the decline to a “steep reduction in the share of Perplexity citations attributed
to social platforms, which fell from 31% in February to 13% in April. Citation share dipped during that timeframe for several social platforms on Perplexity, but the biggest swing was attributed to
Reddit, which dropped from 25% of all Perplexity citations in February to just 7% in April.”
Perplexity remained the AI platform with the highest share of citations coming from Reddit in
April, but it barely beat Google AI Overviews, which saw Reddit share grow from 5% in February to 7% in April. Tinuiti could not identify the reasons why.
All three Google platforms studied
saw overall social share of citations grow when comparing January through April.
Reddit contributed to that growth of all three, but AI Mode and AI Overviews sharing socially also benefited
from jumps in the prevalence of YouTube. In April, YouTube share of AI Mode citations was more than four times compared with January. Share more than doubled for AI Overviews during the same
timeframe.
Instagram’s share of citations in AI Mode rose from 0.1% in October 2025 to 0.6% in April 2026. In AI Overviews, it increased from 0.3% to 0.7% over the same period. As a
result, Instagram’s average share of AI citations across all platforms also increased, reaching a seven-month high of 0.2% in April.
When citations are broken down by market category,
Tinuiti found social citation share in the apparel industry saw the highest social share of the categories tracked in April 2026 at 13%, while over-the-counter (OTC) health prompts saw just 3% of
citations attributed to social media platforms, the lowest share.
Social media platform citations are tied to the prompt, with some clearly more relevant for particular prompt categories than
others. For example, while Instagram and TikTok only accounted for an overall average of 0.2% and 0.1% of AI citations in April, those figures jump to 0.7% and 0.6% for beauty prompts.
LinkedIn is absent from citations for beauty-related prompts, but it accounts for more than half of a percentage point of all citations related to manufacturing, technology, and transportation and
logistics, which makes complete sense.
The prompt category that had the closest citation shares attributed to Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn in April was electronics, which, in my opinion, is
not obvious.
Interestingly, AI tools are more hesitant to include social media platforms in citations for OTC health than other verticals and product categories. In the case of Meta AI and
Microsoft Copilot, these platforms don’t include any social media citations for OTC health prompts at all.
Amazon and Walmart consistently rank well across major ecommerce verticals for
AI citation share.
Best Buy has not seen as large a lift in Copilot citation share, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it outpaces Amazon and Walmart in average citation share for
electronics-related prompts.
Best Buy in April 2026 accounted for a bit more than 6% of citations for electronics prompts, ahead of Amazon at 4% and Walmart at just under 2%. Best Buy led
Amazon in April electronics citation share on all platforms except for Copilot. Best Buy’s largest lead over Amazon was on Meta AI where it took 10% of electronics citations compared to 3% for
Amazon.
