B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
82%
82% -- share of ai citations from earned media for AI search engines (AI citations) (2026)
82% of AI citations come from earned media, defined as third-party editorial coverage rather than brand-owned content.
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
·
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Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
82%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
75
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
Onely
Primary
Tier B
https://betteraisearch.com/tactics/authoritative-sources-ai-search ↗
Source Article
Citing Sources SEO for AI Search Citations
Original Research
Onely
· Original study ↗
Methodology
Onely large-scale study
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
AI search engines (AI citations): 82% share of ai citations from earned media. Source: Onely (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-citations-earned-media-82pct
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<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-citations-earned-media-82pct" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>82%</strong> -- share of ai citations from earned media for AI search engines (AI citations)<br><small>Source: Onely (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/ai-citations-earned-media-82pct" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
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