Machine Relations Index (MRI)

Measurement window2026-05-10 to 2026-10-22

Published 2026-10-22 from the current dataset release covering 33,211 cited domains and 214,121 source events.

Sample threshold10/7

Rates publish after enough answer runs across distinct observation dates.

Segment coverage82.8%

125 of 151 measurable segments validated, 26 still collecting observations. A further 6 of the 157 segments in the full universe cannot accumulate evidence and are excluded from every rate.

Citation leaders

Top cited domains

Reddit#1 overall · Community and social platform100th percentile overall · 2,518 cited runs · 4 enginesYouTube#2 overall · Search or media platform100th percentile overall · 2,001 cited runs · 6 enginesLinkedIn#3 overall · Community and social platform100th percentile overall · 1,562 cited runs · 6 enginesForbes#1 of 1101 classified editorial publications · Editorial publication100th percentile overall · 1,109 cited runs · 6 enginesMedium#5 overall · Community and social platform100th percentile overall · 993 cited runs · 6 enginesTechRadar#2 of 1101 classified editorial publications · Editorial publication100th percentile overall · 835 cited runs · 6 enginesArxiv.org#7 overall · Academic and government source100th percentile overall · 765 cited runs · 6 enginesG2#8 overall · Market and company database100th percentile overall · 703 cited runs · 6 engines

Source universe

Cited source index

Initial view shows the top 50 domains from 33,211 total.

Data through 2026-10-22

All classesEditorial publicationAnalyst and consulting researchMarket and company databaseAcademic and government sourceCommunity and social platformWire and press-release distributionSearch or media platformVendor-owned sourceOther observed sourceAll enginesChatGPTClaudeGeminiGoogle AI ModeGoogle AI OverviewsPerplexityAll confidenceConfidence AConfidence B

Row	Source	Class	Citation rate	Cited runs	Engines	Confidence	Strata
1	Redditreddit.com · #1 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	8.38%	2,518		Confidence A	128
2	YouTubeyoutube.com · #2 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Search or media platform	6.66%	2,001		Confidence A	131
3	LinkedInlinkedin.com · #3 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	5.20%	1,562		Confidence A	117
4	Forbesforbes.com · #1 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	3.69%	1,109		Confidence A	83
5	Mediummedium.com · #5 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	3.31%	993		Confidence A	81
6	TechRadartechradar.com · #2 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	2.78%	835		Confidence A	75
7	Arxiv.orgarxiv.org · #7 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Academic and government source	2.55%	765		Confidence A	44
8	G2g2.com · #8 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Market and company database	2.34%	703		Confidence A	57
9	NIHnih.gov · #9 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Academic and government source	2.17%	652		Confidence A	52
10	Yahoo Newsyahoo.com · #3 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	1.92%	578		Confidence A	71
11	Gartner.comgartner.com · #11 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Analyst and consulting research	1.81%	545		Confidence A	40
12	Healthlinehealthline.com · #4 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	1.66%	500		Confidence B	14
13	Microsoft.commicrosoft.com · #13 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	1.56%	468		Confidence A	45
14	NerdWalletnerdwallet.com · #5 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	1.42%	426		Confidence A	15
15	Amazon.comamazon.com · #15 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Other observed source	1.40%	421		Confidence A	53
16	Guideflow.comguideflow.com · #16 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Other observed source	1.34%	401		Confidence A	44
17	TechTargettechtarget.com · #6 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	1.28%	384		Confidence A	45
18	Ibm.comibm.com · #18 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	1.25%	375		Confidence A	34
19	Hubspot.comhubspot.com · #19 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	1.13%	339		Confidence A	26
20	Dev.todev.to · #20 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	1.10%	329		Confidence A	42
21	Paloaltonetworks.compaloaltonetworks.com · #21 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	1.06%	319		Confidence A	15
22	Substack.comsubstack.com · #22 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	1.05%	316		Confidence A	52
23	The New York Timesnytimes.com · #7 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	1.03%	310		Confidence B	27
24	Landbase.comlandbase.com · #24 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	1.01%	304		Confidence A	10
25	Wikipediawikipedia.org · #25 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Academic and government source	0.97%	292		Confidence B	62
26	Github.comgithub.com · #26 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	0.95%	286		Confidence B	38
27	Facebook.comfacebook.com · #27 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Community and social platform	0.94%	281		Confidence B	79
28	Crunchbase.comcrunchbase.com · #28 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Market and company database	0.93%	280		Confidence B	11
29	CNBCcnbc.com · #8 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	0.89%	268		Confidence B	22
30	Alibaba.comalibaba.com · #30 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Other observed source	0.88%	264		Confidence B	36
31	Sentinelone.comsentinelone.com · #31 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.88%	263		Confidence B	12
32	Zapier.comzapier.com · #32 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.85%	254		Confidence B	32
33	Erpresearch.comerpresearch.com · #33 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Market and company database	0.84%	252		Confidence B	11
34	People Managing Peoplepeoplemanagingpeople.com · #9 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	0.83%	249		Confidence B	17
35	Tom's Guidetomsguide.com · #10 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	0.82%	245		Confidence B	31
36	PCMagpcmag.com · #11 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	0.80%	240		Confidence B	29
37	PR Newswireprnewswire.com · #37 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Wire and press-release distribution	0.78%	234		Confidence B	35
38	Rippling.comrippling.com · #38 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.78%	233		Confidence B	19
39	Experian.comexperian.com · #39 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.77%	230		Confidence B	9
40	Harvard.eduharvard.edu · #40 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Academic and government source	0.72%	216		Confidence B	21
41	Stripe.comstripe.com · #41 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.72%	215		Confidence B	9
42	Deloitte.comdeloitte.com · #42 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Analyst and consulting research	0.71%	214		Confidence B	14
43	Monday.commonday.com · #43 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.71%	212		Confidence B	32
44	Worldmetrics.orgworldmetrics.org · #44 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Analyst and consulting research	0.70%	211		Confidence B	36
45	Bankrate.combankrate.com · #45 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Other observed source	0.70%	210		Confidence B	8
46	Clevelandclinic.orgclevelandclinic.org · #46 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Academic and government source	0.67%	201		Confidence B	13
47	Nvidia.comnvidia.com · #47 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.67%	200		Confidence B	17
48	WebMDwebmd.com · #12 of 1101 classified editorial publications · source site	Editorial publication	0.67%	200		Confidence B	14
49	Salesforce.comsalesforce.com · #49 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.64%	191		Confidence B	25
50	Databricks.comdatabricks.com · #50 of 33,211 observed domains · source site	Vendor-owned source	0.63%	190		Confidence B	15

Showing 1-50 of 50

The Machine Relations Index measures how often AI answer engines cite each source domain when people ask real buying and research questions. It observes six engines — Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews — across a fixed basket of 24 measured subject categories plus a legacy news-topic bucket (25 taxonomy nodes in all). Findings are grouped into strata, where a stratum is one subject category paired with one question type. A stratum publishes a citation rate only after it clears the evidence floor of at least 10 observed runs across at least 7 distinct dates; below that line it is marked collecting rather than scored, so early or thin signal is never shown as settled. An engine-day is left out of the denominator when its runs cannot reach the numerator. History collected before per-engine-day collection health was recorded is excluded when that engine was asked at least five times and returned no eligible citation; each such day is marked with that backfill rule. From the day collection health is stamped at collection, a day is excluded only when that stamp says the engine was silent or dark. Quiet days and days whose health was not measured stay in the denominator. Every excluded engine-day is listed, with its run count and the rule that excluded it, in the denominator_exclusion block of each release. Every domain an engine cites is measured on equal terms — membership in any external catalog is recorded only as a label and is never used to decide what gets scored. The public Index reports rates and rankings; it excludes raw cited URLs, internal query identifiers, and provider payloads. Validated source segments currently cover 82.8% of the measurable benchmark, which is the 151 segments that can accumulate evidence out of 157 in the full stratum universe.

Release mri_score_v2.1+2026-10-22+ceab08a3b958. Degraded coverage: 5 of 6 answer engines are currently returning answers. gemini quiet (3 of 111 collected calls returned an answer, 3%). Coverage across the window is uneven: gemini answered on 137 of 159 observed days (2,183 of 6,831 returned runs produced a citation); google_ai_mode answered on 117 of 159 observed days (1,580 of 2,036 returned runs produced a citation); google_ai_overviews answered on 100 of 159 observed days (952 of 1,432 returned runs produced a citation). Engines below 90% of the window are named here; per-engine day and run counts for all 6 are in engine_roster.

ChatGPT runs. They go through OpenAI's API with web search switched on, using the model each release names in its engine roster: gpt-4.1-mini-2025-04-14 in current releases, while earlier runs in the window were answered by gpt-4o-mini-search-preview-2025-03-11. That is the retrieval layer apps and research agents built on OpenAI's API use. The signed-in ChatGPT app answers with its own models and search pipeline and cites differently: a preprint submitted on 2026-10-11 and not yet peer reviewed found that Google Search and OpenAI's API on comparable models together recovered about half of the hostnames ChatGPT Web cited (48.7 and 50.3 percent on two model settings) and 26 to 28 percent of its exact URLs (arXiv 2610.15382v1). Claude, Gemini and Perplexity runs are likewise API runs with web search, on the models the roster names.

Method note, 2026-09-25. From that date, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews runs come through a different collection path than earlier runs, with no overlapping days, and answers collected on the two paths differ in how many distinct domains each cites. Per-answer figures for those two engines are read within one side of 2026-09-25, not as a trend across it.