We analyzed our Brand Radar database of 9.6 million ChatGPT queries to find the most visible, pitch-worthy publishers in ChatGPT responses.

Pitching these outlets means your brand gets in front of readers, circulates on social media, ranks in search, and now resurfaces in AI.

Health.com.

Condé Nast publications also showed up multiple times (e.g. Wired, Vogue, GQ).

Here’s what this data means for anyone looking to turn ChatGPT citations into PR opportunities:

  • AI comes with big PR Potential: Out of the top 100 most cited domains in ChatGPT, 54% are open to receiving pitches. There’s considerable opportunity to work your brand into AI answers by pitching for mentions on these sites. According to our own research, brand mentions correlate strongly with AI visibility.
  • Prioritize high-visibility outlets. Forbes, Business Insider, and The Spruce consistently rank among the most-cited domains in ChatGPT responses, making them prime targets for PR pitching if your goal is to be mentioned in AI answers.
  • Don’t overlook vertical specialists. Vertical-specific sites like Car and Driver and Architectural Digest also appear frequently, showing that industry-focused publications can still deliver strong AI visibility.
  • Make the most of all PR channels. A handful of domains on this list don’t explicitly accept PR pitches, but they’re still worth mentioning because they provide PR visibility in other ways—for example, PR Newswire syndicates press releases, while WebMD pays select medical professionals to contribute content that may reference their brand.
  • Look at parent company clusters. As the pie chart shows, a significant share of PR opportunities come from just a few parent companies like People Inc. and Condé Nast. Targeting these groups may multiply your chances of PR and AI visibility, since family-owned publishers are known to syndicate content across their titles.
Ahrefs Brand Radar.

A screenshot of the Cited Domains export interface in Ahrefs Brand Radar, with an arrow pointing to 'First 1,000 number of rows'. Export format is set to Google Sheets, and the export button on the UI is circled.

To understand whether the site was open to receiving pitches, I did one of two things:

1. Performed an “according to” site search in Google

I performed a Google site search for the words “According to” to get an idea of whether a publisher had accepted pitches from brands in the past.

A Google "site:" search for business insider and the words "According to" showing one returning example search result

Obviously not every instance of the phrase “According to” gives way to a PR mention.

But, generally speaking, if a publisher does reference an external source, this is a good catch-all term to spot those mentions.

I only included instances where brands had been mentioned. If the publication cited universities or research bodies–not brands–I left them out.

A screenshot of a three bullet point TL;DR overview of a Business Insider article. Yellow highlight over the words "According to Compass' CEO" in the first bullet point, and one additional highlight of the brand name in the third bullet point.

2. Checked for evidence on the publisher’s site

If things were still a bit unclear, I looked for confirmation of pitch acceptance on the site’s media, editorial, and contact pages.

How to find PR opportunities in your own niche

While it’s smart to target media outlets that dominate in citation volume, what matters even more is getting coverage on trusted domains that are relevant to your audience and your niche.

AI systems prioritize contextually relevant information, so being featured on an industry-appropriate site can carry more weight than appearing in a high-volume but less relevant publication.

Here are two ways you can find PR opportunities that are both highly visible and highly relevant.

1. Find publishers citing your competitors

Find the publications that routinely mention your competitors but not you.

Just head to Ahrefs Brand Radar, navigate to the “Cited domains” report, then configure filters to find AI queries and responses that contain your competitor, but don’t contain your brand.

Ahrefs Brand Radar platform configured for Asana showing 33.8K AI responses across all 6 AI platforms (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot)

While Clickup is cited 14.8K times…

Ahrefs Brand Radar platform configured for Clickup showing 14.8K AI responses across all 6 AI platforms (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot)

If Clickup is aiming for more AI visibility (because, who isn’t?) they may want to pitch major publications like Tech Radar, Forbes, The Guardian, Lifewire, and Wired…

Ahrefs Brand Radar Cited Domains report showing a publisher gap analysis for Clickup based on Asana's publisher citations. A list of publisher domains are checked including major publications like Tech Radar, Forbes, The Guardian, Lifewire, and Wired

Together, these publications generate 800+ AI mentions for Asana.

Tracking who promotes your competitors—and how that shows up in AI—is a great way to find new pitching leads.

2. Find publishers cited in topically-relevant AI responses

Ahrefs Brand Radar now shows you the overarching topics you’re visible for in AI…

Ahrefs Brand Radar Topics report for Ahrefs topics.

You can find PR opportunities from the publishers cited alongside those target topics.

For example, here are all the major press sites being referenced in ChatGPT alongside the topic of AI…

Ahrefs Brand Radar Topics report showing a list of publisher domains linked to the topic of "AI"

If you want to tie your brand to the topic of AI, Tech Radar is the go-to publisher to pitch.

Wrapping up

The shift from link building to AI visibility changes how and where you pitch.

Having a list of the most-cited ChatGPT publishers is a strong starting point, but the real opportunity is in the overlap: outlets that are visible and relevant to your niche.

If you pitch where your topics and competitors already get coverage, you’ll give yourself the best shot at appearing in AI results.

Similar Posts