Highlights
- The dataset: We analyzed over 540,000 AI source citations from industry-specific prompts across 5 AI models and 12 countries in Q3 2026.
- timeshighereducation.com makes up 9% of Google AI Mode's citations, the largest share for a single domain in that model's list.
- 45% of ChatGPT's citations are from institutional domains, its leading source category.
- Sweden has a 65% local-domain citation rate in non-English prompts, using country-domain endings as the measure.
- About 26% average top-domain overlap: the models draw on different combinations of sources, measured by Jaccard similarity.
Which sources should you target to get cited as a university?
Times Higher Education leads ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Mode. QS Top Universities leads Gemini, while YouTube leads Google AI Overview. The ranking publishers recur across the source lists, but Google AI Overview has a different first-place domain.
| Model | Top five sources | Leading source's share |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | timeshighereducation.com, topuniversities.com, edurank.org, reddit.com, unirank.org | 6% |
| Microsoft Copilot | timeshighereducation.com, edurank.org, college-council.com, tesify.fr, usnews.com | 10% |
| Google AI Overview | youtube.com, topuniversities.com, timeshighereducation.com, reddit.com, facebook.com | 9% |
| Google AI Mode | timeshighereducation.com, topuniversities.com, reddit.com, usnews.com, youtube.com | 9% |
| Gemini | topuniversities.com, timeshighereducation.com, mextudia.com, unirank.org, rankia.com.ar | 5% |
A university team should check ranking and course-directory information alongside its own admissions pages. Institution-wide rankings and course-level information answer different prospective-student questions.
How have AI source rankings changed over time in the university sector?
uba.ar rose from #167 to #19, while reddit.com fell from #2 to #2613. These are ChatGPT's domain ranks in the first and second halves of Q3 2026.
The change is suggestive rather than proof of a lasting shift. Follow your priority sources in the live industry rankings, checking the period shown before comparing results.
What type of content do AI models cite for universities?
ChatGPT has the largest institutional share, at 45% of citations, compared with 6% for Microsoft Copilot.
The user-generated content share also differs: 25% for Google AI Overview, compared with 4% for ChatGPT. UGC includes community and review content; Other retains unclassified sources.
Do AI models cite local-language content for universities?
Sweden has the highest local-domain citation rate among this study's non-English markets, at 65%. Spain has the lowest, at 30%. We count domains with an ending that matches the prompt's country.
The country ending is a proxy for local sourcing, not a measurement of language. Locally relevant pages on .com domains are outside this count.
Which AI model relies most on local sources for universities?
ChatGPT has the highest overall local-domain share, at 62% of citations in the reportable non-English market cells. Google AI Mode has the lowest, at 39%.
Sweden shows why the country-level comparison matters: Google AI Overview cites local domains at 80%, compared with 39% for Microsoft Copilot. Compare models within your target country; overall rates also reflect the mix of countries each model covers.
Should universities optimize for each AI model separately?
Yes. Their top-source lists overlap by 26% on average, measured as shared domains divided by all distinct domains across each pair's lists (Jaccard similarity). timeshighereducation.com appears in all five models' top 20. This shared source offers a starting point for work across models, alongside the sources specific to each one.
Google AI Mode and Google AI Overview have the highest observed overlap, at 60%; Google AI Overview and ChatGPT have the lowest, at 11%. Both figures compare domain sets; they do not measure brand visibility.
How many sources does each AI model cite per answer?
Google AI Overview cites the most sources per answer, averaging 7.7 among answers with at least one citation. Google AI Mode averages 3.0, the lowest of the five.
ChatGPT follows at 4.7 sources per citing answer. Several cited pages can belong to the same website; the chart counts cited source records rather than distinct websites.
Context
We used Temso's AI visibility monitoring data to examine industry-specific prompts across 12 countries during Q3 2026. The study includes ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overview, Google AI Mode and Gemini. It covers citations in observed answers, not traffic, conversions, brand recommendation rates, or the quality of the organizations mentioned.
The findings describe the monitored prompts and markets and may not generalize to every buyer question. The industry rankings are a separate view; check their displayed period before comparing them with this quarterly study.
Methodology
How we measured this
The observation window is July 1 through September 30, 2026, using UTC dates and an exclusive October 1 cutoff. We recorded 126,683 responses and 546,189 cited source records across 91 of 92 calendar days. July 9 has no observations. The country set is Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Sweden, United States.
We rank domains by cited source count, with alphabetical ordering to break ties. Shares use each model's cited sources as the denominator. Category labels come from the domain registry and describe domains rather than individual page formats; unclassified citations remain in Other. The overlap figure is the unweighted average across 10 model pairs, each comparing its top-20 domain sets.
For movement, we split the window on August 16 and rank all cited domains separately in each half for ChatGPT. The chart selects the six largest absolute rank changes among domains present in both halves and in the top 20 of at least one half. Labels show true ranks; line spacing shows relative order among the selected domains. Model coverage varied across the observation window, so the movement finding is read as suggestive rather than proven re-ranking. Prompt and country mix may also affect ranks.
Local-source rates count citations whose domain ending matches the prompt's country, excluding English-language prompts. Country and prompt language remain separate cells; markets that share a language are not merged. Cells require at least 30 citing responses and 50 citations; missing cells are not zero. Overall model rates weight eligible country cells by citation count. The proxy cannot determine content language or capture all locally relevant .com sites.
| Model | Observed days | Answers with citations | Mean cited sources | Nominal 95% CI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 91 | 24,036 | 4.75 | 4.66–4.84 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 91 | 25,787 | 3.82 | 3.81–3.84 |
| Google AI Overview | 91 | 24,778 | 7.72 | 7.68–7.76 |
| Google AI Mode | 84 | 20,983 | 2.97 | 2.97–2.97 |
| Gemini | 88 | 19,826 | 4.02 | 4.00–4.05 |
Source-breadth means exclude answers with no citations. Their intervals use the response as the unit of observation. Repeated prompts and citations within responses are correlated, so these nominal intervals may understate uncertainty. We make no causal or statistical-significance claims. Rounded chart labels are for readability; the underlying calculations retain precision.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI models cite different sources for universities?
Yes. Their top-20 lists have an average Jaccard similarity of 26%. Google AI Mode and Google AI Overview are the closest pair at 60%. These percentages compare sets of domains, rather than the proportion of citations shared.
Which AI model cites the most sources per answer for universities?
Google AI Overview, averaging 7.7 cited source records per answer with at least one citation, compared with 3.0 for Google AI Mode.
What kinds of websites do AI models cite for universities?
ChatGPT has the largest institutional share, at 45% of citations, compared with 6% for Microsoft Copilot. The user-generated content share also differs: 25% for Google AI Overview, compared with 4% for ChatGPT.
Does local-language content matter for universities in AI search?
Our data measures country-domain endings, so it cannot establish the effect of publishing in a particular language. Sweden has a 65% local-domain rate and Spain has a 30% rate. Inspect the cited pages themselves when planning language-specific content.
Which AI model relies most on local sources for universities?
ChatGPT has the highest pooled share, at 62% across reportable non-English market cells. The ordering can differ by country; use the market-by-model table for a local comparison.
Did AI source rankings change during the quarter?
uba.ar rose from #167 to #19, while reddit.com fell from #2 to #2613. That comparison is within ChatGPT between July 1–August 15 and August 16–September 30. It describes the observed change, rather than predicting what happens next.
Is one AI ranking enough to plan for universities?
No. Average top-20 overlap is 26% across model pairs. timeshighereducation.com appears in all five models' top 20. This shared source offers a starting point for work across models, alongside the sources specific to each one.
