Family cars in Slovakia. Which brands AI recommends to families.
39 questions from parents choosing a car, three AI tools, eight runs per question. Which brands and models appear in the answer, how stably, and where AI draws its information from.
- answers evaluated
- 936
- questions without brand names
- 39
- AI tools
- 3
- runs per question
- 8
- different brands in answers
- 62
Three conclusions
- 1The stable core consists of only two brands. Škoda and Volkswagen appear in all eight runs.
- 2A strong brand fragments into models. Volkswagen appeared in 63% of answers, but its strongest model, the Touran, in only 21%.
- 3Being among the sources is not enough. In 30% of cases AI drew on the brand website and still did not mention the brand in its answer.
Who AI mentions most often
Visibility is the share of answers in which a brand appears. Across 936 answers, 62 different brands and 565 different names of brands and models came up.
Stable core and flickering tail
Stability shows in how many of the eight runs of the same question a brand appeared.
- Stable core (8 out of 8 runs): Škoda, Volkswagen
- On the edge (5 to 7 out of 8): Hyundai, Citroën
- Flickering tail (1 to 4 out of 8): Toyota, Kia, Ford, Peugeot
Models
Models show how a brand’s visibility gets divided. Volkswagen appeared in 63% of answers, but its mentions were spread across 42 names of models and variants, so the strongest, the Touran, has only 21%. Dacia appeared in 39% of answers but has only 14 names, so its Jogger reached 26%.
By tool
Each tool received all 39 questions, each one eight times, i.e. 312 answers per tool. Google AI Mode concentrates its answers on a single brand more strongly than the other tools.
| Tool | 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Volkswagen 61% | Škoda 56% | Ford 50% |
| Gemini | Hyundai 71% | Volkswagen 67% | Škoda 65% |
| Google AI Mode | Škoda 77% | Volkswagen 61% | Hyundai 52% |
Mention and citation
A mention is the brand name directly in the text of the answer. A citation is a link in the list of sources. For a brand, the mention matters more; only a fraction of people click on citations.
In this AI Pulse study, in 30% of cases AI drew on the brand website and still did not mention the brand in its answer.
Where AI drew its information from
A ranking of websites, not brands: the share of answers in which AI cited a given website. 584 different sources in total.
Where AI found people’s experiences
Websites with consumer reviews and discussions, and their rank among all 584 sources. Modrý koník is the only Slovak community platform among the main sources.
Methodology
We did not make up the questions. They come from discussions on Modrý koník: we extracted the real questions of parents choosing a car, semantically matched them with the category description and removed brand names from them.
- 39 questions × 3 tools × 8 runs = 936 evaluated answers
- ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, anonymously and without logging in
- eight runs per question, because AI answers slightly differently each time4
- stability bands are evaluated within a single tool: stable core 8 out of 8, on the edge 5 to 7, flickering tail 1 to 4
- the measurement took place in August 2026 and is a snapshot of the market at the time of measurement
Sources
Download the full study (PDF) (in Slovak)
cite:Vidovič, P. (2026). Family cars in Slovakia. Which brands AI recommends to families. https://www.petervidovic.com/en/ai-pulse/family-cars/
About the author
Peter Vidovič
GEO strategist. Co-founder of Etarget, CEO of Modrý koník, columnist for Forbes Slovensko. Has worked on SEO since 2018 and has focused on GEO since 2025.