--- title: "Household shopping in Slovakia. Which shops AI recommends." author: "Peter Vidovič (GEO strategist)" published: 2026-10-22 url: https://www.petervidovic.com/en/ai-pulse/household-shopping/ translation_of: https://www.petervidovic.com/sk/ai-sondy/nakup-do-domacnosti/ language: en --- # Household shopping in Slovakia. Which shops AI recommends. > 35 questions about household shopping in Slovakia, three AI tools, eight runs per question. Which retail chains AI mentions, how consistently and which sources it draws on. - Category: Household shopping - Measured: September 2026 - AI tools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode - Questions: 35 - Runs per question: 8 - Answers evaluated: 840 - Different brands in answers: 380 ## Key finding: Which shop does AI mention most often for household shopping? Tesco. AI mentioned it in 86% of answers, with the true value between 78 and 91%. Kaufland (82%), Lidl (74%) and Billa (70%) follow. ## Conclusions 1. **Four chains dominated the answers.** Tesco, Kaufland, Lidl and Billa appear in 70 to 86% of answers. COOP Jednota ranks fifth at 41%. 2. **Google AI Mode has a different favourite.** ChatGPT and Gemini mention Tesco most often, while Google AI Mode mentions Kaufland. 3. **AI looks to communities for people's experiences.** Modrý koník is the third most cited website out of 257 sources and the only Slovak community platform among the main sources. ## Who AI mentions most often Visibility is the share of answers in which AI mentions a brand. Across 840 answers covering the Slovak market, AI mentioned 380 different brands in total, but four retail chains dominated the answers. **Brand visibility in AI answers** | Item | Value | Interval | | --- | --- | --- | | Tesco | 86% | 78%–91% | | Kaufland | 82% | | | Lidl | 74% | | | Billa | 70% | | | COOP Jednota | 41% | | | K-Classic | 17% | | | Terno | 12% | | | Kraj | 12% | | Source: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode · 840 answers · 9/2026 ## How often and how reliably Stability shows how many of the eight runs of the same question included a mention of the brand. It is calculated only from questions where the brand appeared at least once. ChatGPT and Gemini mention Tesco most often, while Google AI Mode favours Kaufland. | Tool | Brand | Visibility | Stability (out of 8 runs) | Questions (out of 35) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ChatGPT | Tesco | 93% | 7.6 | 34 | | ChatGPT | Kaufland | 84% | 7.2 | 33 | | ChatGPT | Billa | 79% | 6.5 | 34 | | Gemini | Tesco | 89% | 7.1 | 35 | | Gemini | Kaufland | 79% | 7.1 | 31 | | Gemini | Lidl | 74% | 7.1 | 29 | | Google AI Mode | Kaufland | 83% | 7.2 | 32 | | Google AI Mode | Tesco | 76% | 6.1 | 35 | | Google AI Mode | Lidl | 74% | 6.5 | 32 | ## Mentions and citations A mention is a brand name directly in the answer text. A citation is a link in the list of sources. For a brand, a mention matters more: only a fraction of people click on citations. - **59%** of people plan to visit the brand's website after a mention [1] - **25.1%** of mentions appear without a citation [2] - **~1%** of visitors click on a citation [3] - **61.7%** of citations are ‘silent’: AI does not mention the brand in its answer [2] In this AI Pulse, AI drew on a brand's website without mentioning the brand in its answer in only 3% of cases. ## Which sources AI drew on A ranking of websites, not brands: the share of answers in which AI cited each website. There were 257 different sources in total, with retail chain websites leading the ranking. ChatGPT is the only one of the three tools that also shows the websites it read. In this measurement, it read 553 and cited 93. **Most cited sources** | Item | Value | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | kaufland.sk | 35% | brand website | | tesco.sk | 31% | brand website | | modrykonik.sk | 22% | community | | billa.sk | 21% | brand website | | lidl.sk | 18% | brand website | | aktuality.sk | 12% | media | | itesco.sk | 11% | brand website | | coop.sk | 10% | brand website | Source: 257 cited sources · 9/2026 ## Where AI found people's experiences Websites where consumers themselves write about brands, and their ranking among all 257 sources. In this category, AI drew on people's experiences primarily from Modrý koník. It is the only Slovak community platform among the main sources. **Sources of consumer experiences** | Item | Value | | --- | --- | | modrykonik.sk (3rd) | 22% | | reddit.com (9th) | 9% | | facebook.com (13th) | 6% | | instagram.com (59th) | 1% | Source: ranking among 257 sources · 9/2026 ## Methodology We did not invent the questions. They came from more than a million discussions and 20 million comments on Modrý koník (the Slovak section): we extracted real questions about household shopping, semantically matched them to the category description and removed brand names. Only questions that AI answers with specific names made it into the final set. - 35 questions × 3 tools × 8 runs = 840 answers evaluated - ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, anonymously and without logging in - eight runs per question, because AI answers slightly differently each time [4] - the measurement took place in September 2026 and captures the state of the market at that time > **Statistical note** > > Runs of the same question are correlated, so uncertainty is calculated at question level, not binomially. For Tesco, DEFF is 7.1, the effective sample is approximately 120 independent measurements and ICC is 0.26. Ranges are calculated using the Wilson method on the effective sample and are reported only for brands that appeared in at least five different questions. They capture variability between questions, not selection bias or errors in recognising brands in the text, and are not a test of differences between brands. ## Sources 1. [Fractl, survey of behaviour after a brand mention in an AI answer](https://www.frac.tl/ai-search-study/) 2. [Semrush and Kevin Indig, study of mentions and citations in AI answers](https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-ghost-citations-study/) 3. [Pew Research Center, measurement of clicks on sources in AI answers](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/) 4. [Don't Measure Once (2026), study of repeated measurement of AI answers](https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07585) PDF: /pdf/ai-sonda-nakup-do-domacnosti-september-2026.pdf --- Author: Peter Vidovič, GEO strategist. https://www.petervidovic.com/en/