Recommendation Rate

Recommendation Rate measures how often AI engines actively recommend your brand — not just mention it — when users ask purchase-intent questions in your category. It is the highest-signal metric in Machine Relations because a recommendation carries direct commercial intent.

Why Recommendation Rate Matters

Not all AI citations are equal. Being mentioned in a list of ten alternatives is categorically different from being the AI's top recommendation. When ChatGPT says "I recommend [Brand] for this use case," conversion rates are 3.2x higher than when a brand appears as a passive mention. Recommendation Rate isolates the citations that actually drive revenue.

AI engines typically recommend 2-3 brands per query. That is the entire addressable surface. If your Recommendation Rate is zero, you are not in the consideration set for AI-mediated purchases — regardless of your Google rankings or social following.

How to Measure Recommendation Rate

1. Define 20-50 high-intent queries buyers ask in your category ("best X for Y," "which tool should I use for Z")
2. Run each query across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews
3. Classify each brand appearance as either recommendation (active endorsement) or mention (passive inclusion)
4. Calculate: Recommendations / Total Queries = Recommendation Rate

A Recommendation Rate above 15% indicates strong category authority. Below 5% signals an urgent gap.

How to Increase Recommendation Rate

AI engines recommend brands they trust through multiple corroborating signals:

• Earned media density — Tier-1 publications citing your brand as a leader, not just a participant. 82-89% of AI recommendations trace back to earned media sources.
• Specificity — Content with concrete stats, named features, and differentiated positioning gives the AI something specific to recommend.
• Recency — Fresh coverage from the last 90 days weights heavily in recommendation decisions.

Pair Recommendation Rate with AI Mention Rate for the full picture: mention rate tells you if AI knows you exist, recommendation rate tells you if it trusts you enough to endorse. Both feed into your AI Visibility Score.