ChatGPT cited YouTube in 0.2% of its responses across 1,905 AmICited tracked prompts (June 24, 2026–July 23, 2026, 2026). Here is the full breakdown — by engine, by rank, and over time — with the raw numbers behind every figure.
Between June 24, 2026 and July 23, 2026, AmICited ran 1,905 tracked prompts through ChatGPT and recorded every source it cited. Of the 5,119 ChatGPT responses in that window, 11 included at least one link to YouTube — a citation rate of 0.2%. In other words, roughly one in 465 of ChatGPT’s answers to these prompts pointed readers to YouTube. A response is counted as citing YouTube whenever any of the source URLs ChatGPT attached resolves to youtube.com (including subdomains ); the figures below break that number down by engine, by rank, and over time.
YouTube citation rate in ChatGPT vs. other AI search engines
YouTube’s 0.2% citation rate in ChatGPT looks very different next to the other AI engines AmICited tracks. ChatGPT cites YouTube less than any other engine here — Google AI Mode leads at 8.1%, about 38× more often, and even the mid-pack engines clear ChatGPT. Across the four other engines the average YouTube citation rate is 3.7%, so ChatGPT runs below the cross-engine norm for this prompt set. That spread matters: it means whether YouTube shows up as a source depends heavily on which AI engine a user asks, not just on YouTube’s own content.
The raw ChatGPT citation data for YouTube
The table below is the exact data behind the chart — the number of responses analyzed for each engine, how many cited YouTube, and the resulting rate. Every percentage on this page is computed from these counts.
| AI engine | Responses analyzed | Responses citing YouTube | Citation rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Mode | 3,975 | 321 | 8.1% |
| Google AI Overviews | 2,010 | 97 | 4.8% |
| Gemini | 5,123 | 55 | 1.1% |
| Perplexity | 3,052 | 26 | 0.9% |
| ChatGPT (this page) | 5,119 | 11 | 0.2% |
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Where YouTube ranks among ChatGPT’s most-cited sources
Ranking every domain ChatGPT cited by how many responses linked to it, YouTube comes in at #178 of 3,243. The chart highlights where YouTube sits inside ChatGPT’s ten most-cited domains , led by reddit.com. Sitting at #178 puts YouTube well outside ChatGPT’s core set of go-to sources, even though it is cited from time to time. Placement within an answer matters too: when ChatGPT cites YouTube, the link sits on average at position 8.0 in the response’s source list, and 8% of those 12 citations land in the top three slots — the ones a reader is most likely to actually click.
YouTube citations in ChatGPT over time
Day by day, YouTube’s citation rate in ChatGPT averages 0.2% but moves around that line as daily sample sizes shift (smaller markers are lower-volume days, where a single citation swings the percentage). Its strongest well-sampled day was June 25, 2026 at 4.4% (2 of 45 responses). Comparing the first and second halves of the window, the rate is roughly flat (0.5% then 0.1%) — YouTube’s standing in ChatGPT looks stable rather than trending.
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The prompts that make ChatGPT cite YouTube
YouTube citations in ChatGPT are concentrated in specific queries: 9 of the 1,771 tracked prompts (1%) surfaced a YouTube link at least once. These are the kinds of questions that pulled YouTube into ChatGPT’s answers:
- “Compare latest laptop processors M5 vs M4 for video editing”
- “What coffee beans are best for making cold brew at home?”
- “What’s the best DIY PPF kit for a Tesla Model Y?”
- “top affiliate tracking software”
- “digital marketing trends 2026”
- “Best alternatives to Zendesk”
- “affiliate software”
The pattern is worth noting: YouTube’s visibility in ChatGPT is driven by these query themes rather than spread evenly across every prompt, so the source matters most when users ask questions like the ones above.
What YouTube’s ChatGPT citation rate means for AI search visibility
For AI-search visibility, YouTube is a weak-to-moderate channel for ChatGPT — at 0.2% it trails the 3.7% cross-engine average, so it should not be the first place you invest to win ChatGPT citations. The broader lesson from the by-engine spread is that AI-search visibility is engine-specific: a source that Google AI Mode leans on (8.1%) can be nearly invisible in ChatGPT (0.2%). Because these numbers come from AmICited’s tracked prompts — weighted toward SaaS , e-commerce and customer-support questions — they describe YouTube’s pull for that kind of query, and your own prompt mix may differ. The reliable way to know your own numbers is to track the exact prompts your audience asks and watch which sources each engine cites back.
Methodology: how AmICited measured YouTube citations in ChatGPT
This report is built from AmICited’s own tracking data, not third-party estimates. AmICited runs a fixed set of 1,905 tracked prompts through each AI engine on a recurring schedule and stores every answer together with the source URLs the engine cited. For this page we looked at the 5,119 ChatGPT responses collected between June 24, 2026 and July 23, 2026, 2026.
A response counts as citing YouTube when at least one of its cited source URLs resolves to youtube.com or any subdomain of it (for example www.youtube.com or other youtube.com hosts); each response is counted once regardless of how many YouTube links it contains. Domains are compared at the registrable level, so all youtube.com addresses roll up together. The citation rate is simply that count divided by the total ChatGPT responses. Citation position is the rank of a YouTube link within a response’s source list (1 = first source cited), and the triggering prompts are the distinct tracked prompts for which at least one ChatGPT response cited YouTube.
Two caveats worth stating plainly. First, the tracked prompts skew toward SaaS, e-commerce, customer-support and related B2B topics, so these figures describe YouTube’s pull within that prompt set, not a random sample of the whole web. Second, the five engines compared are ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews , Google AI Mode and Gemini ; Microsoft Copilot is tracked by AmICited but returned no citation data in this window, so it is excluded here.
