Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which outdoor retailer led the AI recommendation benchmark in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands recorded the largest coverage gains this month?

REI led the Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces benchmark with 44.4% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 32.4% in August 2026, holding a lead of 11.1 percentage points over second-place Bass Pro Shops at 33.3% in October 2026. The largest coverage increase from baseline was REI. Bass Pro Shops recorded the largest single-month move, climbing from 21.0% in September 2026 to 33.3% in October 2026, while REI posted the second-largest single-month gain, from 32.8% in September 2026 to 44.4% in October 2026, and Cabela's climbed from 16.1% to 26.7% over the same interval. No tracked brand registered a significant decline this month. Five brands moved beyond normal month-to-month variation to the upside: Academy Sports + Outdoors, Backcountry, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, and REI.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 484 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the six canonical AI/search surface families observed in the public benchmark: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. September 2026 recorded 534 qualified observations, the highest of the three months in the series.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Outdoor Retail and Gear Marketplaces

Research Scope and Qualification

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. For formulas and denominator rules, see the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands received the highest valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do presence rate, top-three rate, and rank-one rate differ across the outdoor retailers?

Sorted by valid recommendation coverage in October 2026.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand was mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appeared in a valid recommendation context.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand was recommended in one of the first three positions.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand was the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: Average sentiment among mentions, scaled from negative to positive.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which outdoor retailers gained the most valid recommendation coverage since the August 2026 baseline?
• Which brands moved beyond normal month-to-month variation?

Every tracked brand held or gained valid recommendation coverage from baseline to October 2026. Five brands moved beyond normal variation: Academy Sports + Outdoors, Backcountry, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, and REI. Several of these gains were concentrated in the most recent month. Academy Sports + Outdoors climbed from 10.7% in September 2026 to 19.0% in October 2026, Bass Pro Shops from 21.0% to 33.3%, and Cabela's from 16.1% to 26.7% over the same interval. REI added 11.6 points in that single month, from 32.8% in September 2026 to 44.4% in October 2026.

Largest Increase: REI

REI rose from 32.4% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026 to 44.4% in October 2026, a gain of 12.0 points, the largest baseline-to-current rise in the benchmark. REI holds a two-month streak of coverage increases, moving from 32.4% in August 2026 to 32.8% in September 2026 to 44.4% in October 2026. Its top-three rate advanced from 22.0% in August 2026 to 38.0% in October 2026, and its rank-one rate from 16.6% to 27.9%, meaning the brand was not only recommended more often but placed first more often.

Category Leader: REI

REI led the benchmark with 44.4% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, compared with 32.4% in August 2026. Raw mention presence reached 85.5% in October 2026, up from 81.1% in August 2026. Its lead over Scheels widened from 17.4 points in August 2026 to 28.7 points in October 2026, and its gap over CampSaver widened from 29.9 points to 41.7 points, in both cases expanding in every month of the series.

Other Movers

Academy Sports + Outdoors rose from 11.2% in August 2026 to 19.0% in October 2026, a 7.8 point gain, with most of it arriving in the latest month. Bass Pro Shops gained 11.3 points from baseline, from 22.0% to 33.3%, and Cabela's gained 8.0 points, from 18.7% to 26.7%. Backcountry rose from 14.1% in August 2026 to 18.8% in October 2026, its second consecutive month of gains. The remaining five brands, CampSaver, evo, Public Lands, Scheels, and Sierra, held within normal month-to-month variation.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Why can two brands with similar recommendation coverage show very different rank-one rates?
• How prominently were REI, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela's placed in AI recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. REI and Bass Pro Shops illustrate how similar coverage can accompany very different first-position rates. REI's rank-one rate of 27.9% in October 2026 was well above Bass Pro Shops' 6.2%, despite both brands appearing near the top of the standings.

Two brands with close coverage can still show very different first-position rates, which matters for which retailer a shopper encounters first.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

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

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

Historical Measurement Record

Evidence and Source Layer

This 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. It is 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. It records what AI research surfaces presented in response to controlled prompts over the measurement period.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI responses in the outdoor retail category?
• Which retailer domains appeared among the top-cited sources?

Across all AI responses in this measurement period, 6,941 citations were observed across 1,820 unique domains.

Citations are concentrated at the top of the list: the ten domains shown account for a minority of a broadly distributed citation base spread across 1,820 unique domains. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: rei.com, academy.com, and basspro.com, with scheels.com also present. Retailer and marketplace domains form the largest cluster among the most-cited sources, alongside search, community, and video platforms.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index is a neutral, repeatable industry benchmark that tracks how often brands are mentioned and recommended across major AI research surfaces. This public index reports category-level standings built from qualified observations across six canonical AI/search surface families.

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

Get a Company-Level Authority Index

The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper with brand-specific analysis.

Get my free AI Company Index