AEO INDEX OCTOBER 2026 USA: Peet’s leads AI’s coffee recommendations with a score of just 34.3, and nine different brands win the ten questions
The engines treat coffee as a cluster of small markets, and several supermarket names were missing from the answers.
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Peet’s is the coffee brand AI names first most often, though not by much. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews ranked it first in 5 of 30 answers in the October 2026 AEO Index for Coffee, and it leads the category with an AI Rank Score of 34.3. The score runs from 0 to 100 and weights each mention by its position, so a brand named first by all three engines on every question would get 100. Breville is second at 23.3, then Stumptown (22.0) and Counter Culture (19.0).
The bigger story is how spread out the category is. The engines named 68 brands, and nine different ones won at least one of the ten questions. Some of the most familiar supermarket names were missing where we expected them. Folgers was not named on 5 of the 6 questions we expected it on, and Illy was not named on any of its 3.
The answers were collected on 21 October 2026 from one U.S. location, and the analysis is by markaeo.com. Scores for every brand and question are in the full October 2026 report.
Why is no brand far ahead?
Partly because the questions cover different products. Beans, instant, cold brew, K-cups, decaf, ground and dark roast sit next to espresso machines, drip coffee makers and grinders, and a roaster can’t win the grinder question.
Four questions had a clear result, each with a perfect score:
- Espresso machines: Breville, at 100.
- Drip coffee makers: Moccamaster, at 100.
- Grinders: Baratza, at 100.
- Dark roast: Peet’s, at 100.
All four brands were first on all three engines, and those are the only four questions where the engines agreed.
The bean questions were much tighter. Peet’s and Counter Culture tied on coffee beans at 47, and each engine named a different brand first: Counter Culture on ChatGPT, Onyx on Gemini and Peet’s on AI Overviews. Cold brew was another tie, with La Colombe and STōK both at 73. Instant coffee went to Mount Hagen at 60, even though it didn’t top any single engine’s list. ChatGPT put Illy first, Gemini went with Waka and AI Overviews with Sudden.
Which big names are missing?
Starbucks is the interesting case. It was the most-mentioned brand on 12 of the 64 cited pages we read, more than any other brand, and it appears on 41% of them. In the answers it was named 23% of the time, and it was missing from 3 of the 7 questions where we expected it: coffee beans, cold brew and decaf. Its AI Rank Score is 12.0.
Dunkin’ was missing from 3 of its 6 expected questions, and Lavazza and La Colombe from 2 each. The data records where these brands were absent. It doesn’t say why.
Where do the engines learn about coffee?
Mostly from independent blogs, and on Google from shopping cards. Brand websites supplied 2 of 137 citations, or 1.5%. ChatGPT took 69.4% of its citations from blogs and smaller publishers and cited no YouTube videos or Reddit threads. Google AI Overviews took 21 of its 59 citations (35.6%) from Google Shopping product cards. Gemini wrote answers of about 1,200 words but cited sources in only 2 of its 10.
What should coffee brands make of this?
Coffee looks to me like one of the more open categories for a brand that does AEO on purpose. A winning score of 47 on coffee beans means no roaster owns that answer yet. Compare that with Breville’s 100 on espresso machines, where moving all three engines would take far more work.
Any team that measures AEO by how much coverage it gets should look at the Starbucks numbers. Being the brand the cited pages talked about most did not make it the brand the engines named first. Coverage and recommendation are related, but in this data they came apart.
What to watch next
Coffee beans and instant coffee are the two to follow in November, since the engines split three ways on both. The other is whether Folgers and Illy start showing up where they were missing this month. The October baseline is in the full October 2026 report.
How we measured: we asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews 10 non-branded coffee questions, for 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: Coffee, October 2026
