5WPR Study Finds 85.5% of AI Citations Come from Earned Media

5WPR announced in a press release the release of a new research study titled *AI and the Israeli Brand*, which examines how generative AI is changing brand discovery in Israel and globally. The study finds that 85.5% of AI citations come from earned media sources, compared to just 14.5% from brand websites.

According to data cited in the report, AI search visitors convert at a rate of 14.2%, roughly five times higher than visitors from Google. The analysis also shows that distributing content across multiple third party publications can increase the likelihood of being cited by AI systems by more than threefold. Brands appearing on four or more external platforms are almost three times more likely to be referenced by ChatGPT than those limited to a single platform.

The study highlights the growing use of AI for product and business discovery, with 35% of consumers now using AI tools at the start of their search process, compared to 13.6% who begin with traditional search engines. Among B2B decision makers, 42% use large language models in the early stage of purchasing decisions.

5WPR’s report also notes that Israel’s digital advertising market, projected to reach $1.58 billion in 2025, is heavily concentrated in Google and Meta channels, leaving local companies underexposed in AI discovery environments. The full study is available on 5WPR’s website.