Copilot cut

Leading Quick Service Restaurants Brands in AI Search in Italy

The same monthly sample, re-ranked using only Copilot answers.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, Dave's Hot Chicken leads AI search visibility in Quick Service Restaurants on Copilot in Italy with a Goodie visibility score of 77.6, ahead of In-N-Out Burger (75.1) and Starbucks (75.0). The median score across the 10 ranked brands is 72.6, and a score above 69.4 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is qsrmagazine.com at 12.3% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 19.4%.

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

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Quick Service Restaurants · Copilot
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
72.6
Half of the 10 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
69.4
Clearing 69.4 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 3.2 points below the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
5.3
A typical answer names five brands, so the consideration set is narrow and a mention is hard-won.
Index-wide average is 5.8
Citation mix
  • Editorial 4%
  • Reference 9%
  • Other 87%
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
19.4%
Owned content is weak here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 26.8%
Industry sentiment
67/100
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
10 ranked here · 518 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
01Dave's Hot Chicken
77.6
10.7%Copilot—75finance.yahoo.com
02In-N-Out Burger
75.1
10.3%Copilot▲ 10.375qsrmagazine.com
03Starbucks
75.0
10.3%Copilot—57starbucks.com
04McDonald’s
74.2
10.2%Copilot▼ 0.165qsrmagazine.com
05Pizza Hut
72.6
10.0%Copilot—46kfc.com
06KFC
72.6
10.0%Copilot▼ 1.867kfc.com
07Shake Shack
70.9
9.7%Copilot▲ 8.070qsrmagazine.com
08Five Guys
70.4
9.7%Copilot▲ 7.972qsrmagazine.com
09Wendy’s
70.2
9.6%Copilot—63qsrmagazine.com
10Culver’s
69.4
9.5%Copilot—80qsrmagazine.com
10 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
01qsrmagazine.com
12.3%
▼ 0.4
02statista.com
3.4%
—
03nrn.com
3.1%
—
04restaurantbusinessonline.com
2.7%
—
05mcdonalds.it
2.7%
—
06mcdonalds.com
2.3%
▼ 0.2
07wikipedia.org
2.1%
—
08brandfinance.com
1.8%
—
09fortunebusinessinsights.com
1.8%
—
10mashed.com
1.8%
—
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 rapidly2434
02Which fast food chains offer best value?1627
03Are halal fast food chains growing globally?823
04Fast food brands with strong global presence2522
05Quale fast food trovi davvero in un sacco di paesi?55
5 of 34k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
In-N-Out Burgerscore 75.1
▲ 10.3
Shake Shackscore 70.9
▲ 8.0
Five Guysscore 70.4
▲ 7.9
Falling
KFCscore 72.6
▼ 1.8
McDonald’sscore 74.2
▼ 0.1
5 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±5.6/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
81,169 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Quick Service Restaurants, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States63K
02Canada4K
03Japan4K
04United Kingdom4K
05Australia2K
06Germany1K
07France1K
08Egypt400
09Italy395
10United Arab Emirates353
11Singapore329
12Saudi Arabia275
12 tracked markets
This edition

What Changed This Month

Dave's Hot Chicken leads Quick Service Restaurants this edition with a visibility score of 77.6, ahead of In-N-Out Burger at 75.1.

qsrmagazine.com is the most-cited source grounding quick service restaurants answers, at roughly 12.3% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 19.4% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked quick service restaurants brands is 72.6, and a score above 69.4 reaches the industry top ten.

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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 77.6, measured across the tracked AI models.

qsrmagazine.com is the most-cited source in quick service restaurants AI answers, grounding roughly 12.3% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked quick service restaurants brands is 72.6. A score above 69.4 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.