Data analysis · Web traffic
Which AI chatbot does each industry depend on? Referral shares for 2,429 top websites (September 2026)
Not every industry gets its AI referrals from the same chatbot. We split each top website's chatbot visits by chatbot and grouped the sites by industry.
Similarweb now splits a website's AI chatbot referrals by chatbot: what share came from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and the rest. Our first look at AI chatbot traffic asked how big that channel is. This one asks a different question: which chatbot does each industry depend on?
On 19 October 2026 we looked up the top 5,000 domains of the Tranco list (8PX8V, infrastructure host names removed). 3,038 of them had a per-chatbot split from Similarweb. We kept the 2,429 that got at least 5,000 AI chatbot visits in the month, left out AI companies' own sites, and sorted them into 23 industries built from Similarweb's categories. All the figures are Similarweb estimates for September 2026. Similarweb names only the top three chatbots for each site, so the smaller chatbots' shares are floors (more on that in the method notes).
Five findings:
- Universities depend on ChatGPT most. ChatGPT sent 83.5% of the AI referrals to the average university or college website, and it was the top chatbot at all 109 of them. Across all 2,429 sites it sent 54.3% on average.
- Search portals and news depend on it least. ChatGPT sent 36.6% of AI referrals at search engines and portals and 39.6% at news and media sites. News is where the challengers win most often: another chatbot came first at 36 of 250 news sites.
- Gemini is the second chatbot almost everywhere. It ranks second by average share in 22 of the 23 industries, with 8.6% of the average site's AI referrals. It is strongest at search engines and portals (13.2%) and sports-betting sites (21.6%, 17 sites), and comes first at 127 sites, youtube.com among them.
- Claude is the software chatbot. It sends 4.5% of AI referrals at software and developer tool sites, 2.5 times its average. 21 of the 28 sites where Claude comes first are software, tech or business services, among them duosecurity.com (96.2%), okta.com (79.2%), figma.com (49.9%) and hubspot.com (49.2%).
- Perplexity leans to news and the Russian-language web. It comes first at 52 sites, 13 of them news sites such as nytimes.com, nu.nl and spiegel.de. At the 71
.rusites it sent 11.2% of AI referrals on average, against 2.2% elsewhere. At shopping sites it sent 0.9%.
Which chatbot each industry depends on
The average share of a site's AI chatbot referrals that came from each chatbot, by industry. Each site counts once, however big it is.
Similarweb estimates, September 2026, average over sites; number of sites in brackets; † fewer than 30 sites. Table below.
| Industry | Sites | ChatGPT | Gemini | Perplexity | Claude | Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek | ChatGPT leads at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Universities and education | 158 | 77.8% | 8.7% | 2.7% | 1.1% | 0.0% | 97.5% |
| Jobs and careers † | 18 | 69.0% | 3.4% | 1.2% | 3.9% | 0.0% | 100.0% |
| Science and research | 98 | 65.2% | 8.0% | 4.3% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 92.9% |
| Government and law | 143 | 64.7% | 7.7% | 2.8% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 97.9% |
| Real estate † | 17 | 63.1% | 5.4% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 100.0% |
| Software and developer tools | 303 | 62.2% | 10.3% | 2.9% | 4.5% | 0.4% | 89.4% |
| Telecoms and electronics | 95 | 60.7% | 6.7% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 97.9% |
| Health | 40 | 58.0% | 7.7% | 3.8% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 95.0% |
| Business services and marketing | 72 | 57.4% | 8.5% | 4.3% | 3.7% | 0.3% | 88.9% |
| Food and drink † | 29 | 56.5% | 5.0% | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 96.6% |
| Finance and crypto | 109 | 55.4% | 6.2% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 0.9% | 94.5% |
| Other tech and web services | 228 | 54.2% | 11.2% | 2.2% | 3.8% | 0.8% | 85.5% |
| Travel | 55 | 54.1% | 6.0% | 2.8% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 96.4% |
| Vehicles † | 23 | 51.8% | 6.3% | 2.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 95.7% |
| Games | 80 | 50.0% | 8.3% | 2.3% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 92.5% |
| Shopping and e-commerce | 168 | 49.9% | 6.8% | 0.9% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 95.2% |
| Social networks and forums | 48 | 49.0% | 5.8% | 1.3% | 2.1% | 2.5% | 95.8% |
| Reference † | 29 | 48.4% | 8.9% | 3.5% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 89.7% |
| Entertainment and streaming | 176 | 43.7% | 7.5% | 1.8% | 1.1% | 0.8% | 87.5% |
| Sports and betting | 70 | 43.7% | 10.5% | 1.2% | 1.4% | 0.1% | 90.0% |
| Adult | 76 | 40.1% | 10.8% | 3.8% | 0.3% | 2.9% | 76.3% |
| News and media | 250 | 39.6% | 8.6% | 3.4% | 1.1% | 0.6% | 85.6% |
| Search engines and portals | 81 | 36.6% | 13.2% | 1.4% | 0.6% | 2.4% | 80.2% |
| All 2,429 sites | 2,429 | 54.3% | 8.6% | 2.5% | 1.8% | 0.6% | 90.8% |
Similarweb estimates, September 2026. Average of each site's share of its AI chatbot referrals; a chatbot outside a site's top three counts as 0, so the shares are floors and don't add up to 100. "ChatGPT leads at" is the share of sites where ChatGPT had the biggest share. † fewer than 30 sites: read with care. 55 sites in smaller industries and 8 without a category are in the "All" row only.
The spread is wide. At universities ChatGPT sent at least 80% of AI referrals at 60.1% of sites; at news sites only 8.4% got that much from it. Government and law (64.7%) and science and research (65.2%) sit near the top too. Sites people use to study or to get official information get their chatbot visits mostly from ChatGPT.
At the bottom are search portals, news, adult sites, entertainment and sports. One small sub-category stands out: weather sites (17 sites, so treat it as a hint): ChatGPT sent 28.9% on average there, and Perplexity came first at 4 of them.
Where the smaller chatbots over-index
Claude and Perplexity each send a small slice on average, 1.8% and 2.5%. But they are not spread evenly:
Similarweb estimates, September 2026, average over sites, sorted by Claude. All sites: Claude 1.8%, Perplexity 2.5%. Exact figures in the table above.
Claude's best industries are all business ones: software and developer tools (4.5%), other tech and web services (3.8%), business services and marketing (3.7%) and finance (2.8%). In games it sent 0.1%, in shopping 0.5%.
Perplexity is highest at business services and marketing (4.3%) and science and research (4.3%), and lowest at shopping sites (0.9%).
The most Claude-dependent sites
Sites with at least 20,000 AI chatbot visits a month, by Claude's share of them:
| # | Site | Industry | AI referrals a month | Claude | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ovh.net | Software and developer tools | 28k | 97.4% | 2.6% |
| 2 | duosecurity.com | Software and developer tools | 1.8M | 96.2% | – |
| 3 | snowflakecomputing.com | Software and developer tools | 31k | 93.2% | 6.8% |
| 4 | okta.com | Other tech and web services | 1.5M | 79.2% | 11.1% |
| 5 | zoho.eu | Other tech and web services | 36k | 66.2% | 27.5% |
| 6 | run.app | Software and developer tools | 90k | 58.0% | 35.4% |
| 7 | zapier.com | Software and developer tools | 118k | 57.4% | 19.7% |
| 8 | klaviyo.com | Business services and marketing | 66k | 54.7% | 38.2% |
| 9 | tilda.ws | Other tech and web services | 30k | 53.2% | 17.2% |
| 10 | figma.com | Other tech and web services | 1.3M | 49.9% | 47.8% |
Similarweb estimates, September 2026. Share of each site's AI chatbot referrals; – means ChatGPT is not in Similarweb's top three for that site. AI companies' own sites left out.
Cloud hosting, sign-in and security, design, automation and email marketing: tools people use at work. Other sites where Claude came first include visualstudio.com, docusign.com, asana.com, box.com and airtable.com. Claude also came first at 4 news sites: thehill.com, usnews.com, newsweek.com and lenta.ru.
The most Perplexity-dependent sites
| # | Site | Industry | AI referrals a month | Perplexity | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | cloudflarestorage.com | Software and developer tools | 87k | 99.6% | 0.4% |
| 2 | scan-manga.com | Entertainment and streaming | 44k | 74.4% | 25.6% |
| 3 | evernote.com | Software and developer tools | 173k | 70.5% | 27.8% |
| 4 | sng.link | Games | 756k | 64.8% | – |
| 5 | sjtu.edu.cn | Universities and education | 39k | 61.4% | 37.2% |
| 6 | cdek.ru | Business services and marketing | 26k | 54.4% | 9.4% |
| 7 | saby.ru | Business services and marketing | 35k | 50.1% | 0.7% |
| 8 | cbr.ru | Government and law | 40k | 44.8% | 8.7% |
| 9 | banki.ru | Finance and crypto | 88k | 41.7% | 18.6% |
| 10 | earthlink.net | Telecoms and electronics | 31k | 41.6% | 48.4% |
Similarweb estimates, September 2026. Share of each site's AI chatbot referrals; – means ChatGPT is not in Similarweb's top three for that site. Sites with at least 20,000 AI chatbot visits a month.
Four of the ten are Russian business, finance or government sites (cdek.ru, saby.ru, cbr.ru and banki.ru). Among all the sites where Perplexity came first, the biggest are naver.com, dzen.ru, vk.ru, sng.link and nytimes.com. Of its 52 first places, 19 are .ru sites.
Gemini, Grok and Copilot
Gemini comes first at 127 sites. The biggest are youtube.com, ilovepdf.com, archiveofourown.org, sportybet.com, google.com.hk and kompas.com. Among sites with at least 100,000 AI chatbot visits, its highest shares are at sportybet.com (73.9%), 163.com (70.2%), savefrom.net (69.5%), dreamstime.com (61.6%) and google.com.hk (59.8%). Across the 17 sports-betting sites it sent 21.6% of AI referrals on average.
Grok is in the top three at only 2.3% of sites, but where it shows up it can be big: stripe.com (44.3%), twitter.com (23.2%) and robinhood.com (9.0%). Leaving out adult sites, it is strongest at social networks (2.3% on average).
Copilot is in the top three at 2.8% of sites. Its big numbers are on Microsoft's own sites: live.com (92.7%), cloud.microsoft (62.9%) and bing.com (10.3%).
Methodology and caveats
- Domains. The top 5,000 registrable domains of Tranco list
8PX8V, down to rank 5,080, after removing 80 infrastructure host names (CDN, API and telemetry domains), the same list as our earlier studies. 4,253 had a Similarweb traffic estimate and 3,038 had a per-chatbot split. - Sample. We dropped 586 sites with fewer than 5,000 AI chatbot visits in the month, where a split rests on a handful of clicks, and 23 AI companies' own sites (chatgpt.com, claude.ai and the like), where a chatbot linking to its maker answers a different question. That leaves 2,429 sites.
- Shares. Similarweb's AI-referral data for September 2026, read on 19 October 2026 with our website-traffic tool. Similarweb gives each site's share for its top chatbots only: three at 1,949 sites, two at 348, one at 132. The listed shares add up to 67.7% at the median site; the rest isn't broken down. A chatbot outside a site's list counts as 0, so the averages for the smaller chatbots are floors. These are modelled estimates, not measurements. Credit: Similarweb.
- Averages. Each site counts once (an unweighted mean), so the figures describe the typical site in an industry, not the industry's total visits. A visit-weighted version is in results.json; it is dominated by a few giants such as google.com.
- Industries. Our own groups of Similarweb's categories (the mapping is in the analysis script). Groups with fewer than 15 sites are folded into "Everything else"; groups with fewer than 30 are marked †. Adult sites count in the averages but are not named in the site lists.
- Reproducible. Two scripts run the lookups and compute every figure (results.json); a third writes this article from the results. The data covers websites only; no personal data was collected.
Source: Tranco list 8PX8V (tranco-list.eu); AI referral estimates by Similarweb for September 2026, collected by locaihost data on 19 October 2026.
The data comes from our website-traffic tool on Apify.