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Leading Quick Service Restaurants Brands in AI Search

Benchmarks, the brands AI recommends, and the sources grounding those answers across 4 AI models.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, Dave's Hot Chicken leads AI search visibility in Quick Service Restaurants with a Goodie visibility score of 64.9, ahead of In-N-Out Burger (62.8) and Starbucks (61.2). The median score across the 16 ranked brands is 45.9, and a score above 35.3 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is youtube.com at 6.9% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 2.0%.

34k prompts · 2.5m AI answers · 11.3m citations · Goodie AI Visibility Index

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Quick Service Restaurants
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
45.9
Half of the 16 ranked quick service restaurants brands score below this. The midpoint, not the average, so a few dominant brands do not distort it.
Score to enter the top 10
35.3
Clearing 35.3 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 10.6 points below the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
8.0
A typical answer names eight brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Citation mix
  • UGC 2%
  • Editorial 3%
  • Video 1%
  • Reference 4%
  • Other 90%
Other leads the third-party sources grounding quick service restaurants answers. Brand-owned citations sit in the next cell and are not counted here. “Other” covers domains we have not classified into a type yet.
Brand-owned citation share
2.0%
Owned content is weak here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 26.8%
Industry sentiment
57/100
Mean tone of mentions across the ranked brands that carry a measured value. Per-brand sentiment sits on each brand profile.
Prompts sampled
34k
Real buyer phrasing, 4 models
AI answers analysed
2.5m
291k in October · ▲ 17.3% vs September
Citations parsed
11.3m
1m in October · ▲ 13.9% vs September
Brands observed
528
16 ranked here · 512 unranked

Brand Visibility Leaderboard

Brand visibility leaderboard for Quick Service Restaurants, ranked by six-month average AI visibility score
#BrandVisibility scoreShare of voiceModelsΔ vs last monthSentimentMarketsTop cited source
01Dave's Hot Chicken
64.9
9.3%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 1.36713/13mashed.com
02In-N-Out Burger
62.8
9.0%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 1.86312/13youtube.com
03Starbucks
61.2
8.7%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.84913/13wikipedia.org
04McDonald’s
55.1
7.9%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.15613/13youtube.com
05Subway
53.3
7.6%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.54313/13wikipedia.org
06Five Guys
52.1
7.4%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.66113/13jackintheboxfranchising.com
07Raising Cane's
51.9
7.4%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.96313/13mashed.com
08Taco Bell
49.3
7.0%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 1.06113/13youtube.com
09KFC
42.5
6.1%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 1.55512/13youtube.com
10Wingstop
35.3
5.0%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.46112/13mashed.com
16 ranked · visibility is a six-month average · worldwide ranking requires presence in at least 5 of 13 marketsTop source = most frequent source in answers mentioning the brand · Δ compares Oct with Sep

Most-Cited Domains

The answer supply chain
Most-cited domains in AI answers for Quick Service Restaurants
#DomainCitation shareΔ vs last month
01youtube.com
6.9%
▲ 8.0
02apple.com
5.9%
—
03lefigaro.fr
5.3%
—
04marmiton.org
4.4%
—
05thebeijinger.com
3.8%
—
06facebook.com
3.6%
▲ 6.5
07breakroom.cc
3.6%
—
08nine.com.au
3.6%
—
09bing.com
3.6%
—
10foodserviceweb.it
3.5%
—
Top 10 of 1k domains observedΔ compares Oct with Sep, in percentage points

Prompts, Topics & Movers

What's driving this month's answers

Sampled prompts

Prompts sampled for Quick Service Restaurants, with distinct brands named and sources cited
#PromptBrandsSources
01Fast food brands with strong global presence61147
02Best burger chains70141
03Are halal fast food chains growing globally?50124
04Which fast food chains offer best value?62121
05Fried chicken chains expanding rapidly51116
5 of 34k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
▲ 1.3
Bojanglesscore 24.7
▲ 1.2
Taco Bellscore 49.3
▲ 1.0
Falling
In-N-Out Burgerscore 62.8
▼ 1.8
KFCscore 42.5
▼ 1.5
Shake Shackscore 31.1
▼ 1.1
16 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±0.8/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
5,282,647 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Quick Service Restaurants, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States4.3M
02United Kingdom345K
03Canada252K
04Australia145K
05Germany78K
06France72K
07Italy25K
08Japan25K
09Egypt23K
10United Arab Emirates22K
11Singapore20K
12Saudi Arabia17K
12 tracked markets

How the Models Differ

Same industry, 4 verdicts
AI Mode
0 of 0 brands visible
01 McDonald’s72.8
02 Five Guys72.7
03 Starbucks72.0
04 Taco Bell71.7
05 Raising Cane's71.2
ChatGPT
0 of 0 brands visible
01 In-N-Out Burger70.5
02 Raising Cane's70.2
03 Dave's Hot Chicken69.5
04 Wingstop69.3
05 Chick-fil-A68.4
Copilot
0 of 0 brands visible
01 In-N-Out Burger74.7
02 Dave's Hot Chicken74.6
03 McDonald’s73.8
04 Layne's Chicken Fingers73.3
05 Raising Cane's72.9
Perplexity
0 of 0 brands visible
01 Dave's Hot Chicken77.3
02 Raising Cane's77.1
03 In-N-Out Burger76.9
04 Shake Shack76.4
05 McDonald’s76.1
This edition

What Changed This Month

Dave's Hot Chicken leads Quick Service Restaurants this edition with a visibility score of 64.9, ahead of In-N-Out Burger at 62.8.

youtube.com is the most-cited source grounding quick service restaurants answers, at roughly 6.9% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 2.0% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked quick service restaurants brands is 45.9, and a score above 35.3 reaches the industry top ten.

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Where Does Your Brand Stand in AI Search?

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What you get
  • Visibility score
  • Industry rank
  • Brands ahead of you
  • Model and source gaps
Our Methodology

Our Approach to Gathering AI Visibility Data

We process millions of real prompts across AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity, then track which brands, products, and domains show up in the answers. That's the raw data behind every score in the Index.

Real Intent Capture

This data results from processing millions of real user prompts. We use advanced semantic and agentic processing to categorize them and define intent, filtering out noise to focus on high-value queries.

Global Model Interrogation

We run these prompts across the tracked models and across every market we cover, so each market is scored on its own answers rather than on a global average applied everywhere.

Attribution Mapping

We analyze the generated answers to capture the "Kingmaker" domains: the specific sources models cite most often in the answers that name a brand, so you can see which sources the models lean on where you appear and where you do not.

Three-dimensional logo of Goodie, an end-to-end AI search visibility platform.
FAQ · Quick Service Restaurants

Questions?
We Have
the Answers.

Dave’s Hot Chicken currently leads AI search visibility in quick service restaurants with a Goodie visibility score of 64.9, measured across the tracked AI models.

youtube.com is the most-cited source in quick service restaurants AI answers, grounding roughly 6.9% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked quick service restaurants brands is 45.9. A score above 35.3 places a brand in the industry top ten.

Each edition samples the same tracked prompt set across the models Goodie follows, then ranks brands by how often they are named in those answers.

Monthly. Each edition re-samples the tracked prompt set so month-over-month figures are directly comparable.