Market cut · China

Leading Quick Service Restaurants Brands in AI Search in China

The Quick Service Restaurants index re-ranked using only prompts and answers from China.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, In-N-Out Burger leads AI search visibility in Quick Service Restaurants in China with a Goodie visibility score of 73.8, ahead of Raising Cane's (73.3) and Starbucks (70.9). The median score across the 18 ranked brands is 35.7, and a score above 35.2 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is youtube.com at 7.0% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 2.8%.

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

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Quick Service Restaurants · China
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
35.7
Half of the 18 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
35.2
Clearing 35.2 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 0.5 points below the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
8.3
A typical answer names eight brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Index-wide average is 7.9
Citation mix
  • UGC 4%
  • Editorial 6%
  • Video 2%
  • Reference 7%
  • Other 81%
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
2.8%
Owned content is weak here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 26.8%
Industry sentiment
56/100
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
18 ranked here · 510 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 monthSentimentTop cited source
01In-N-Out Burger
73.8
10.3%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 1.068foodandwine.com
02Raising Cane's
73.3
10.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity·68mashed.com
03Starbucks
70.9
9.9%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 4.453posterbooking.com
04Wendy’s
70.2
9.8%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.854tastingtable.com
05Dave's Hot Chicken
55.0
7.7%ChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 1.169mashed.com
06McDonald’s
54.3
7.6%AI ModeCopilotPerplexity▲ 1.055youtube.com
07Five Guys
53.7
7.5%AI ModeCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.168foodandwine.com
08Taco Bell
51.9
7.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot▲ 0.863tastingtable.com
09Subway
36.2
5.0%AI ModeCopilot▲ 0.548posterbooking.com
10KFC
35.2
4.9%AI ModeCopilot▼ 3.561wikipedia.org
18 ranked · visibility is a six-month averageTop 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
7.0%
—
02qsrmagazine.com
6.5%
▼ 0.9
03sec.gov
5.3%
—
04facebook.com
4.7%
—
05axios.com
4.2%
—
06wikipedia.org
4.1%
▲ 0.8
07yahoo.com
3.9%
▲ 8.5
08thebeijinger.com
3.8%
—
09statista.com
3.6%
—
10allrecipes.com
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
01Fried chicken chains expanding rapidly74168
02Fast food brands with strong global presence50135
03Best burger chains96118
04Which fast food chains offer best value?58118
05哪家快餐吃完不会觉得被宰了?922
5 of 34k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
▲ 1.1
McDonald’sscore 54.3
▲ 1.0
Taco Bellscore 51.9
▲ 0.8
Falling
Starbucksscore 70.9
▼ 4.4
KFCscore 35.2
▼ 3.5
Slim Chickensscore 19.1
▼ 1.5
12 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±1.3/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
This edition

What Changed This Month

In-N-Out Burger leads Quick Service Restaurants this edition with a visibility score of 73.8, ahead of Raising Cane's at 73.3.

youtube.com is the most-cited source grounding quick service restaurants answers, at roughly 7.0% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 2.8% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked quick service restaurants brands is 35.7, and a score above 35.2 reaches the industry top ten.

Free brand check · no signup

Where Does Your Brand Stand in AI Search?

Enter a domain to see its visibility score, strongest industry, model gaps, competitors ahead, and the sources grounding its answers.

31 industries4 models355m+ citation observationsFree unlimited checks
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.

In-N-Out Burger currently leads AI search visibility in quick service restaurants with a Goodie visibility score of 73.8, measured across the tracked AI models.

youtube.com is the most-cited source in quick service restaurants AI answers, grounding roughly 7.0% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked quick service restaurants brands is 35.7. A score above 35.2 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.