Grocery Delivery Services: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Amazon led the category with 61.4% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026, tied with Instacart at 61.4%, leaving no gap between the top two brands. July 2026 coverage for both brands was higher, with Amazon at 67.3% and Instacart at 65.7%.

The largest coverage decline belonged to Shipt, falling from 43.7% in July 2026 to 33.6% in August 2026, a move beyond normal month-to-month variation. FreshDirect recorded the second-largest decline, dropping from 31.9% in July 2026 to 22.9% in August 2026. Seven of ten tracked brands declined beyond normal variation in August 2026. Walmart Pet Care was the only brand to record a coverage increase, rising from 8.3% in July 2026 to 9.1% in August 2026, though this move was within normal month-to-month variation.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 533 qualified observations in July 2026 and 541 qualified observations in August 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Grocery Delivery Services

Research Scope and Qualification

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. AI Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the top three recommended positions
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation
• Net sentiment: positive mentions minus negative mentions divided by total mentions

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Largest Decline: Shipt

Shipt recorded the largest coverage decline, from 43.7% in July 2026 to 33.6% in August 2026, a drop of 10.1 points beyond normal month-to-month variation. Presence also fell from 66.6% in July 2026 to 59.7% in August 2026, and the top-three rate declined from 12.4% to 8.1%.

Category Leader: Amazon

Amazon led the category with 61.4% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026, tied with Instacart at 61.4%. Amazon's coverage declined from 67.3% in July 2026, a move beyond normal variation. The top-three rate fell from 53.7% in July 2026 to 44.0% in August 2026, and the rank-one rate declined from 7.1% to 4.2%. Presence remained effectively flat at 93.2% in August 2026, up from 92.3% in July 2026.

Instacart's coverage held steady but its first-choice preference weakened, with the top-three rate declining from 56.3% to 46.2% and the rank-one rate from 35.8% to 29.0%.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Instacart and Amazon both reached 61.4% coverage in August 2026, but their placement profiles differed sharply. Nearly identical coverage hides very different first-position rates: Instacart was ranked first in 29.0% of qualified observations in August 2026, while Amazon was ranked first in 4.2%.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment, not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index tracks how often and how prominently brands are recommended across major AI chat and search surfaces. The index is built from a structured, repeatable research protocol designed for comparability across months and categories.

• AI Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Authority Value

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