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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.

August 2026 edition

Across the six months through August 2026, Dave's Hot Chicken leads AI search visibility in Quick Service Restaurants with a Goodie visibility score of 75.1, ahead of Raising Cane's (75.0) and McDonald’s (74.1). The median score across the 19 ranked brands is 35.4, and a score above 35.4 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is youtube.com at 7.7% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 1.4%.

5k prompts · 1.7m AI answers · 7.9m citations · Goodie AI Visibility Index

Industry Benchmarks

August 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
35.4
Half of the 19 ranked quick service restaurants brands score below this. The midpoint, not the average, so a few dominant brands do not distort it.
Index-wide median is 71.9
Score to enter the top 10
35.4
Clearing 35.4 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 0.0 points above the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
7.9
A typical answer names eight brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Index-wide average is 8.8
Citation mix
  • UGC 5%
  • Editorial 6%
  • Video 3%
  • Reference 3%
  • Other 83%
Other leads the third-party sources grounding quick service restaurants answers. Brand-owned citations sit in the next cell and are not counted here.
Brand-owned citation share
1.4%
Owned content is weak here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 24.2%
Industry sentiment
63/100
Mean tone of mentions across all ranked brands. Per-brand sentiment sits on each brand profile.
Prompts sampled
5k
Real buyer phrasing, 4 models
AI answers analysed
1.7m
200k in August · ▼ 3.4% vs July
Citations parsed
7.9m
1m in August · ▲ 0.4% vs July
Brands observed
389
19 ranked here · 370 unranked

Brand Visibility Leaderboard

All models AI Mode ChatGPT Copilot Perplexity
Brand visibility leaderboard for Quick Service Restaurants, ranked by six-month average AI visibility score
#BrandVisibility scoreShare of voiceModelsΔ vs last monthSentimentTop cited source
01Dave's Hot Chicken
75.1
10.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 2.883mashed.com
02Raising Cane's
75.0
10.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 1.682mashed.com
03McDonald’s
74.1
10.1%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.982en.wikipedia.org
04Subway
73.5
10.0%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 1.182posterbooking.com
05Starbucks
72.9
9.9%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 2.681posterbooking.com
06KFC
54.6
7.4%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot▼ 1.672qsrmedia.com.au
07In-N-Out Burger
39.2
5.3%ChatGPTCopilot▲ 1.165foodrepublic.com
08Bojangles
37.0
5.0%AI ModePerplexity—63youtube.com
09Shake Shack
36.5
5.0%ChatGPTCopilot▼ 1.363foodrepublic.com
10Culver’s
35.4
4.8%ChatGPTPerplexity—63youtube.com
19 ranked · visibility is a six-month averageTop source = most frequent source in answers mentioning the brand · Δ compares Aug with Jul

Most-Cited Domains

The answer supply chain
Most-cited domains in AI answers for Quick Service Restaurants
#DomainCitation shareΔ vs last month
01youtube.com
7.7%
▼ 3.6
02instagram.com
5.1%
▲ 5.5
03facebook.com
5.0%
▲ 4.5
04breakroom.cc
4.5%
—
05monkish.com.au
3.8%
—
06nine.com.au
3.6%
—
07linkedin.com
3.5%
—
08wikipedia.org
3.4%
·
09reddit.com
3.1%
▲ 1.8
10kantar.com
3.1%
—
Top 10 of 840 domains observedΔ compares Aug with Jul, in percentage points

Prompts, Topics & Movers

What's driving this month's answers

Top prompts

Top prompts sampled for Quick Service Restaurants, with distinct brands named and sources cited
#PromptBrandsSources
01Fast food brands with strong global presence30181
02Best burger chains77158
03Are halal fast food chains growing globally?29144
04Fried chicken chains expanding rapidly35123
05Which fast food chains offer best value?33112
Top 5 of 5k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Aug vs Jul
Rising
Five Guysscore 18.0
▲ 4.0
Starbucksscore 72.9
▲ 2.6
Burger Kingscore 18.6
▲ 2.4
Falling
Dave's Hot Chickenscore 75.1
▼ 2.8
KFCscore 54.6
▼ 1.6
Domino’s Pizzascore 18.1
▼ 1.4
14 ranked brands scored in both Jul and AugIndustry avg ±1.6/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
10,372,523 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Quick Service Restaurants, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States8.4M
02United Kingdom696K
03Canada497K
04Australia273K
05Germany146K
06France142K
07Japan49K
08Italy48K
09Egypt47K
10United Arab Emirates44K
11Singapore40K
12Saudi Arabia33K
12 tracked markets

How the Models Differ

Same industry, 4 verdicts
AI Mode
64 of 114 brands visible
01 Subway74.3
02 Bojangles73.7
03 Wendy’s72.7
04 Domino’s Pizza72.3
05 McDonald’s72.2
Full AI Mode cut →
ChatGPT
62 of 114 brands visible
01 Dave's Hot Chicken78.7
02 In-N-Out Burger77.8
03 Raising Cane's77.2
04 McDonald’s74.7
05 Subway73.3
Full ChatGPT cut →
Copilot
58 of 114 brands visible
01 In-N-Out Burger78.9
02 Dave's Hot Chicken78.5
03 McDonald’s78.3
04 Raising Cane's78.2
05 Starbucks77.1
Full Copilot cut →
Perplexity
55 of 114 brands visible
01 Raising Cane's75.5
02 Burger King74.6
03 Starbucks74.3
04 Bojangles74.3
05 Dave's Hot Chicken73.8
Full Perplexity cut →
This edition

What Changed This Month

Dave's Hot Chicken leads Quick Service Restaurants this edition with a visibility score of 75.1, ahead of Raising Cane's at 75.0.

youtube.com is the most-cited source grounding quick service restaurants answers, at roughly 7.7% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 1.4% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked quick service restaurants brands is 35.4, and a score above 35.4 reaches the industry top ten.

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What you get
  • Visibility score
  • Industry rank
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  • 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 execute these prompts across different models, including GPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, and more, and across different regions. This allows us to map model understand exactly "how they think" in each market.

Attribution Mapping

We analyze the generated answers to capture the "Kingmaker" domains; the specific sources the models cite giving you a causal link between source authority and brand visibility.

Read the full methodology → Read the full methodology →
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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 75.1, measured across the tracked AI models.

youtube.com is the most-cited source in quick service restaurants AI answers, grounding roughly 7.7% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked quick service restaurants brands is 35.4. A score above 35.4 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.