SA-AEO-Bench v1 · open dataset

How AI search treats South African brands. Measured. Open. Free.

We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini about 100 of South Africa's biggest brands across 10 industries. 14,826 responses. 188,877 citations classified. Every number traces back to a specific AI response you can audit.

Browse all 100 brandsThe five biggest discoveries
Discovery 01

MTN comes up in 99% of unprompted SA telecom queries. Bidvest Bank comes up 0% of the time.

When South Africans ask AI "what is the best telecom in SA," MTN appears almost every time. When they ask "what is the best banking in SA," Bidvest Bank never appears. That gap is invisible until you measure it.

Top 5 most-visible SA brands
  1. MTN99% · 3/3
  2. Vodacom97% · 3/3
  3. Takealot96% · 3/3
  4. Pam Golding96% · 2/3
  5. Seeff95% · 2/3
5 SA brands AI most often forgets
  1. Bidvest Bank0% · 0/3
  2. Afrihost0% · 0/3
  3. Webafrica0% · 0/3
  4. MWeb0% · 0/3
  5. RSAWeb0% · 0/3
Discovery 02

AI quotes SA sources 72% of the time for short-term insurance — and 30% of the time for restaurants.

A 42-percentage-point gap separates the most-protected SA category from the least. Your AEO strategy depends on which side of the line you sit.

Short-term insurance72.7% SA-shareAutomotive71.8% SA-shareTelecom60.5% SA-shareBanking59.8% SA-shareMedical aid57.2% SA-shareStreaming52.9% SA-shareRetail51.5% SA-shareReal estate45.1% SA-shareE-commerce32.9% SA-shareRestaurants29.8% SA-shareHotels18.0% SA-shareSafari lodges3.0% SA-share
Discovery 03

Some brands only show up when you name them. Without the prompt, AI forgets they exist.

The brands below have near-zero organic visibility but score 98-100% when prompted by name. Their AI visibility is partly an artefact of being named first.

  1. Vox (telecom)+100pp
  2. BoxOffice (streaming)+100pp
  3. Vidi (streaming)+100pp
  4. ooba Home Loans (real_estate)+100pp
  5. eVOD (streaming)+100pp
  6. Private Property (real_estate)+99pp
  7. MWeb (telecom)+98pp
  8. OneDayOnly (ecommerce)+98pp
  9. Cape Union Mart (ecommerce)+98pp
  10. Pedros (restaurants)+98pp
Discovery 04

Gemini cites Reddit 853 times. ChatGPT and Claude cite Reddit zero times.

Different engines, different channels. Your AEO playbook depends on which models your customers actually use.

Top SA citation sources across all models
Discovery 05

14,826 AI responses. 188,877 citations. Three frontier models. One pre-registered methodology.

The methodology was deposited on the Open Science Framework two days before data collection began. Reproducible. Auditable. 99% complete.

Brands
100
Industries
10
Responses
14,826
Citations
188,877
Bench provenance
  • Dataset: sa-aeo-bench-v1
  • Snapshot: 2026-05-19 · 17 days old · budget 270 days
  • Pre-registration: osf.io/w4az2
  • 14,826 responses · 188,877 citations · 100 brands · 10 industries
Compliance & trust
  • POPIA-compliant · Information Officer registered
  • Data residency: SA + EU only
  • Methodology: pre-registered before data collection · audit trail per record
  • Models measured: OpenAI GPT-5 · Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 · Google Gemini 2.5 Pro