LEOPRD Report Found AI Excludes Brands from Results
New research shows AI shopping tools often fail to recommend brands, impacting billions in potential retail sales.
Updated on Oct. 13, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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Do you trust AI-generated recommendations when making shopping or purchasing decisions?
A new report from LEOPRD has revealed that AI systems frequently exclude brands from shopping recommendations, leaving them out of 36% of responses to unbranded queries. The study analyzed over 31,000 AI responses to understand how emerging technologies influence consumer decision-making.
Why it matters
As users rely more on AI for shopping, the exclusion of businesses poses a significant financial risk to retailers. The systems often fail to include brands if users provide insufficient information or if there is not enough public evidence available online.
The analysis reviewed 420,903 anonymized prompts to assess brand presence across 31,200 AI responses. Results indicate that consumers followed AI advice 80% of the time even when the recommendations provided were factually incorrect.
The players
LEOPRD
LEOPRD is a research organization that produces data-driven reports on market trends and the impact of emerging technologies.
Prompt Cowboy
Prompt Cowboy is a data platform that stores and tracks anonymized user prompts used for analyzing AI behavior.
The details
The report highlights that brand visibility varies greatly, with 35% of responses mentioning a brand without recommending it. Researchers estimate that this digital invisibility represents A$2.9 million in potential exposure for every A$100 million spent in the Australian online retail sector.
Timeline
Requests for AI commercial assistance doubled between March 2026 and August 2026.
The findings were published in the LEOPRD report on October 13, 2026.
The Tech Race
This development highlights a critical shift in the evolution of search and recommendation technology, where algorithmic preference is replacing traditional brand discovery. It signals a move away from legacy search engines toward closed AI ecosystems that control consumer exposure.
Shoppers should remain cautious, as the study found users followed incorrect AI advice 80% of the time. Relying solely on AI for product recommendations may lead to missing out on preferred brands due to automated filtering.
The takeaway
Consumers should verify AI shopping suggestions with secondary sources to ensure they are not missing quality options excluded by algorithms. Retailers must focus on improving public data presence to ensure their brands remain visible to automated systems.
Further reading
Learn more about how algorithms impact information flow in our Artificial Intelligence section.
Live Poll
Do you trust AI-generated recommendations when making shopping or purchasing decisions?
