Santa checks his list twice. We check AI’s every night.
259 brands ranked4 AI engines measured nightly 1,444 questions a night
Updated nightly. Last updated Nov 12, 2026.
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Play with them: serve a slice of pie, clink a glass, tap a stack of boxes, lift a bag. Hover any shape for its exact value and date.
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Tap a cart to follow it through the replay. Tap a name for its full read.
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Open raceClear leaderWinner takes mostBox size is the aisle's share of holiday questions.
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Tap a site for what it drives.
Illustrative until the pilot
Tap a person for their full profile.
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Tap a brand to open it.
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Bar length is the share of the brand's category answers that name the rival first.
Three people to brief first
The three people AI cites most in holiday answers, by role. Your brand's plan names the actual reporters and creators in your aisle.
One new finding a day, Thanksgiving to New Year's Day
Each morning one door opens with the overnight data: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, the solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve. Tap a door to see what's coming.
One brand's season in 11 cards
Pick any brand and open its season one present at a time: its rank, best week, favorite engine, shopping persona, aisle, rival and how AI sizes it up against revenue. The full Unwrapped edition lands in mid January.
Tap the right side for the next card, the left side to go back, press and hold to pause. Arrow keys work too.
Built from the index
Every card is computed from the same data as the leaderboard, aisles and engines, so nothing here is written by hand.
Holiday AI Score blends visibility, first mention, sentiment, source authority and accuracy across every engine. Open a present to see what is inside its score.
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Head to head
Pick any two brands. The tale of the tape across every measure.
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Badges
Earned from the data, refreshed every edition.
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Shopper questions in this aisle
Who wins on which engine
First-mention strength, top brands by engine.
Who wins at each step
From first idea to returns.
Everyone AI names in this aisle
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Ten weeks
Score parts
Orange is this brand, gray the aisle median.
By AI engine
Against your rivals
Holiday AI Score. Rivals outside the Fortune 500 attach after the pilot.
Holiday facts checked
What AI says against the brand's own pages.
Three moves before Cyber Week
People who move this brand
Journalists and creators whose AI-cited work names it. Illustrative until the pilot.
Prompt
ChatGPT
AI Overviews
AI Mode
Gemini
Perplexity
Every prompt, every answer and every citation behind this page, plus the journalists and creators who move your aisle.
Is this your brand? Use your work email
An email on the brand's own domain opens the full report straight away. Agencies get access once That Random Agency approves them.
Tap a person for their full profile.
People on the left, what they made in the middle, and on the right the AI engines that cite it and the communities that pass it on. Hover to trace a path, tap to open it.
Journalist and their workCreator and their workAI engineCommunityMentions the highlighted brand
Seeding plan
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Each source by how much more AI cites it in holiday answers than in October (up) and how long its citations last (right). Size is citation share.
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Every site AI cites in holiday answers
Where the roster starts: the 2026 Fortune 500
The index covers about 363 of the largest consumer brands sold in the US: the Fortune 500's consumer companies, plus large private, foreign-owned and other major consumer brands. B2B sets join the week of Nov 16.
How the index is built
Questions
Each brand's set is built from real holiday demand (Google Trends, People Also Ask, autocomplete, related searches and search volume) and public social conversation (Socialgist), rewritten the way shoppers ask, then reviewed. About two thirds are unbranded, so rankings never lean on a brand's own name.
Collection
Every question runs on every AI engine in the plan, logged out, from US residential connections, in a real browser, daily through the season. An engine with no logged-out version is asked logged in, the way a real user would be.
Holiday AI Score
Visibility 35%, first mention 25%, sentiment 15%, source authority 15%, accuracy 10%. Reported per intent across wordings, never on one prompt.
People
Journalists and creators are tied to their work only through confirmed links in the Lighthouse influence graph: bylines, channel ownership and identity matches at 0.85 confidence or higher, never a name alone. Each person carries their public accounts and audience, every piece AI cites with its citations, engines and social shares, the questions it answers and the brands it moves.
Celebrations
Gift sets carry occasion-tagged questions for Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year and Three Kings Day, asked the way people who celebrate each one ask them. Each celebration is reported as its own lens with its own leaders. Diwali joins next season, when collection starts in October.
Brands and parents
Answers are matched against the 363-company roster, its brands and sub-brands, plus any other brand AI names often enough across engines. Everything rolls up to the parent, so brands and holding companies rank separately.
Season schedule
Nov 9 to 11 Pilot, 237 consumer sets
Week of Nov 16 Baseline edition, B2B sets added
Dec 3 Cyber Week edition
Mid January Unwrapped: season recap and returns
Get your brand's full holiday read
Built from the same Lighthouse data as this index, for one brand and its rivals.
Every question and answer across seven AI engines, every day of the season
The publishers, journalists and creators shaping your aisle, and who to brief first
Holiday facts AI gets wrong about you, with the pages to fix
Search and AI side by side, and where paid search is buying answers AI already gives
A 30-day plan to move your Holiday AI Score before the Cyber Week edition
Lighthouse by That Random Agency.Request a readout from John and the RANDOM team.
About the index
Which brands AI recommends to holiday shoppers, checked every day
Which brands does AI recommend to holiday shoppers?
The Holiday AI Index asks AI engines the questions US holiday shoppers ask, every night through January 10, and records which brands each answer names and which it names first. ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews are measured now, and Perplexity, Copilot and Claude join soon.
Aisles join as their nightly runs start, across about 363 of the largest consumer brands sold in the US. Every number on this page comes from the latest published night.
How it’s built
The questions come from real search demand and public social conversation, and they’re reviewed before they run. Each one is asked logged out, from a US residential connection, in a real browser. An engine with no logged-out version is asked logged in, the way a real user would be.
Want your brand’s read?
We’ll walk you through every question and answer behind your aisle, and who AI names instead of you.
