DENVER, CO, Dec. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NEWMEDIA.COM today released new national benchmark data showing that 87% of U.S. businesses do not appear in AI-generated search results, even when many of those businesses rank on the first page of Google. The findings come from the 2025 RankOS™ AI Visibility Benchmark, a national analysis conducted using RankOS™, the company’s proprietary operating system for brand visibility across AI-powered and traditional search platforms.
Developed and refined over several years through active client deployment across more than 500 brands spanning D2C ecommerce, retail, B2B and SaaS, RankOS™ was built to measure how brands are represented, cited, and evaluated by AI systems as search behavior shifts from results pages to direct answers.
“AI search has fundamentally changed what it means to be visible online,” said Steve Morris, Founder and CEO of NEWMEDIA.COM. “Ranking well on Google no longer guarantees that a brand will be seen, cited, or trusted when AI systems generate answers. RankOS™ was created to quantify that gap and give businesses a way to address it.”
____
Key Findings from the 2025 RankOS™ AI Visibility Benchmark
The benchmark analyzed thousands of branded, non-branded, and category-level queries across multiple AI-powered search platforms and traditional search environments. Key findings include:
- 87% of businesses do not appear in AI-generated search answers
- Despite strong traditional SEO performance, the vast majority of brands lack the authority and citation signals required for AI inclusion.
- Only 13% of businesses were cited by AI systems at least once
- AI engines showed a strong preference for a small subset of highly verifiable brands.
- Brands with third-party media citations were 4× more likely to be referenced by AI
- AI systems disproportionately favored brands supported by authoritative external sources.
- Less than 20% of mid-market companies had complete, AI-readable structured data
- Missing or inconsistent schema was one of the most common barriers to AI visibility.
- Entity ambiguity remains a leading exclusion factor
- AI systems frequently failed to distinguish between similarly named brands without clear entity validation.
- AI visibility correlates with downstream business impact
- Brands appearing in AI answers showed higher branded search volume, increased inbound inquiries, and stronger trust signals.
____
Why AI Visibility Differs from Traditional SEO
Traditional SEO is primarily optimized for ranking web pages. AI-powered search systems, by contrast, evaluate brands as entities, relying on signals such as:
- Consistent entity representation across the web
- Verified third-party citations and references
- Structured data that clearly defines brand identity
- Trust signals derived from authoritative sources
RankOS™ was designed to measure these factors continuously and translate them into actionable insights.
____
The Role of RankOS™
RankOS™ functions as both a measurement platform and operating methodology, allowing NEWMEDIA.COM to assess how brands are interpreted by AI systems and to identify the specific signals preventing inclusion in AI-generated answers.
The platform evaluates:
- Entity Authority: how clearly and consistently a brand is defined
- Citation Strength: quality and volume of verifiable mentions
- Visibility Signals: structured data, profiles, and schema completeness
- AI Answer Share: frequency of brand inclusion across AI responses
By consolidating these metrics, RankOS™ provides businesses with a practical framework for AI Engine Optimization (AEO).
____
A Market-Wide Shift
As AI platforms increasingly serve as the first point of discovery for consumers and B2B buyers, the benchmark suggests that AI visibility is emerging as a new competitive differentiator.
“AI systems are becoming arbiters of trust,” Morris added. “This data shows that most businesses are not yet prepared for that reality. RankOS™ exists to make AI visibility measurable, repeatable, and improvable.”
NEWMEDIA.COM plans to release additional industry-specific and geographic benchmarks through the remainder of 2025 and throughout 2026.
____
About NEWMEDIA.COM
Founded in 1996, NEWMEDIA.COM is a nationally recognized digital agency specializing in strategy, design, development, and performance-driven marketing for growth-focused brands. With nearly three decades of experience, the agency has partnered with startups, mid-market companies, and enterprise organizations across industries including technology, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and professional services to drive billions of impressions, hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue growth, and billions of dollars in EV appreciation.
NEWMEDIA.COM is known for its integrated approach to digital growth combining brand strategy, user experience design, advanced web development, SEO, paid media, and AI-driven visibility optimization through its proprietary RankOS™ platform. The agency’s work has been recognized by leading industry organizations and has helped drive measurable revenue growth for clients nationwide.
With offices in Denver, Chicago, and New York, and over a dozen cities supporting a distributed team from coast to coast, NEWMEDIA.COM operates as a long-term growth partner focused on durable results, technical excellence, and data-driven decision making.
- Figure: RankOS™ benchmark data reveals that 87% of U.S. businesses remain invisible in AI-generated search results despite ranking in traditional search.