AEO INDEX OCTOBER 2026 USA: Netflix leads AI’s streaming answers, but seven services split the ten top spots and Gemini never put Netflix first
Gemini chose Max first four times. Hulu was named in 77% of all answers and ranked first in none.
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Netflix had the highest AI Rank Score, 50.0, of the 30 streaming services that ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews named in October. It was named first in 6 of the 30 answers, level with Disney+. Gemini contributed none of those six. It named Netflix in eight of its ten answers and still put Max first on four questions.
We collected the answers on 21 October 2026 from one U.S. location, for ten questions that run from kids and anime to live sports and bundles. Seven services won at least one question, and none won more than two. Details are in the full October 2026 report.
How close is the race at the top?
The AI Rank Score weights where a service appears in each answer, on a scale of 0 to 100; a service named first by all three engines on every question would score 100. After Netflix’s 50.0 come Disney+ at 41.3, Max at 37.0 and Hulu at 36.7, with Apple TV+ fifth at 26.3.
Disney+ was named more often than Netflix, in 83% of answers against 73%, and it was the most visible service on both Gemini and AI Overviews.
Hulu is the odd one in the table. It was named in 77% of answers and had the largest share of voice in the category, 13.7%. Of the 81 cited pages we could read, Hulu was the most-mentioned service on 18, more than Netflix (13) or Disney+ (7). No engine ranked it first for any question. It was second on bundles and live TV, and tied with Max for second on TV shows. Nothing in the data explains that placement.
Who wins each kind of viewing?
Seven services split the ten questions:
- Netflix: best streaming service overall (93) and TV shows (87).
- Disney+: kids (100) and bundles (100), with all three engines agreeing on both.
- YouTube TV: live TV (100) and sports (67).
- Max: movies (87).
- Apple TV+: ad-free streaming (80).
- Crunchyroll: anime (100).
- Peacock: cheapest streaming service (57).
The cheapest-service question was the most open of the ten. The engines named 21 services for it and each picked a different one first: Peacock on ChatGPT, Tubi on Gemini and Frndly TV on AI Overviews. Sports split the same way, with Fubo, YouTube TV and Apple TV+ as the three first picks.
A couple of expected names were missing. No engine named Prime Video for anime or Paramount+ for movies, though each turns up in more than 40% of all answers.
Why does Gemini see a different market?
The three engines agreed on the first service for four questions: kids, live TV, anime and bundles. On the other six, Gemini was usually the one going its own way. It put Max first for overall, movies, ad-free and TV shows, four questions where ChatGPT and AI Overviews both chose Netflix or Apple TV+.
Its sources look different too. The engines cited 151 sources from 75 websites, and 16 of them (10.6%) were the services’ own sites. Most of those came from Gemini, which drew 28.6% of its citations from brand pages, four of them from hulu.com. ChatGPT cited no Reddit threads or YouTube videos at all. AI Overviews took 62.3% of its citations from editorial and review sites, and the most cited site overall was cnet.com, with 14 citations, none of them from ChatGPT.
What does this mean for streaming brands?
To me, streaming is the clearest example of how question-specific these answers are. Crunchyroll appears in only 10% of all answers and YouTube TV in 27%, yet Crunchyroll scored a perfect 100 on anime and YouTube TV did the same on live TV. Showing up in lots of answers is a different result from being the one named first. The number I’d watch is first places, per question and per engine.
Gemini’s habit of citing brand pages matters for PR and content teams. If one engine is reading your plan and catalog pages directly, those pages are part of your AEO work.
What to watch next
The November edition will show whether Gemini keeps choosing Max over Netflix, and whether Hulu turns its reach into a first place on any question. The least settled of the ten is the cheapest-service question, where three engines gave three different answers. The analysis runs on markaeo.com, and the per-question data is in the full October 2026 report.
How we measured: we asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews 10 questions, 30 answers in all, collected on 21 October 2026 from a single U.S. location. AI answers vary by time, place and user. The full method and notice are in the report.
Sources
- Answer Engine Daily AEO Index: Streaming Services, October 2026
