Cloud Storage & Web Hosting,
according to AI
Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about cloud storage & web hosting — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Google Drive owns the conversation.
0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated
Google Drive is the default answer.
Named in 53% of cloud storage & web hosting answers, typically in position 2.9. Apple iCloud follows at 50%, Sync.com at 50%.
Every brand AI names, ranked.
Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google Drive | 53% | 2.9 | 15% | 24% |
| 2 | Apple iCloud | 50% | 3.1 | 9% | 43% |
| 3 | Sync.com | 50% | 4.4 | 0% | 0% |
| 4 | Microsoft OneDrive | 48% | 3.4 | 9% | 29% |
| 5 | Dropbox | 42% | 4.8 | 6% | 10% |
| 6 | Google Photos | 35% | 4.1 | 0% | — |
| 7 | Google One | 27% | 3.9 | 0% | — |
| 8 | GitHub Pages | 17% | 3.7 | 14% | 33% |
| 9 | Backblaze | 15% | 4.3 | 2% | 8% |
| 10 | pCloud | 15% | 5.6 | 3% | 100% |
| 11 | Idrive | 12% | 5.4 | 2% | 17% |
| 12 | Vercel | 12% | 5.4 | 0% | — |
| 13 | Hostinger | 10% | 1.5 | 5% | 29% |
| 14 | Netlify | 10% | 4.8 | 0% | — |
| 15 | Proton Drive | 10% | 5.3 | 5% | 17% |
Google Drive is named most. That is not the same as being wanted.
Being named is visibility. Underneath it, asked to rate each brand directly, the AI assistants judge it three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. They put 20% of the 66 brands rated above indifference. Google Photos leads the brands the answers name, at 77% of maximum Desire. On attachment, the most divided driver, Google Photos indexes 145 against VM6 Networks at 56, on a category average of 100.
Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared (84 / 92 / 100 / 108 / 116). Above indifference means Desire above two-thirds of its maximum. See the full cloud storage & web hosting desire edition →
The referees of cloud storage & web hosting.
The independent sources AI models cite when answering cloud storage & web hosting questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.
Apple iCloud converts reads into citations. Sync.com doesn't.
When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Apple iCloud converts 43% of reads; Sync.com just 0%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.
Full data table
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google Drive | 53% | 2.9 | 15% | 24% |
| 2 | Apple iCloud | 50% | 3.1 | 9% | 43% |
| 3 | Sync.com | 50% | 4.4 | 0% | 0% |
| 4 | Microsoft OneDrive | 48% | 3.4 | 9% | 29% |
| 5 | Dropbox | 42% | 4.8 | 6% | 10% |
| 6 | Google Photos | 35% | 4.1 | 0% | — |
| 7 | Google One | 27% | 3.9 | 0% | — |
| 8 | GitHub Pages | 17% | 3.7 | 14% | 33% |
| 9 | Backblaze | 15% | 4.3 | 2% | 8% |
| 10 | pCloud | 15% | 5.6 | 3% | 100% |
| 11 | Idrive | 12% | 5.4 | 2% | 17% |
| 12 | Vercel | 12% | 5.4 | 0% | — |
| 13 | Hostinger | 10% | 1.5 | 5% | 29% |
| 14 | Netlify | 10% | 4.8 | 0% | — |
| 15 | Proton Drive | 10% | 5.3 | 5% | 17% |
Three models. Three different answers.
Ask about cloud storage & web hosting and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Sync.com, Gemini → Google Drive, ChatGPT → Apple iCloud. Their top-five lists share just 67% of names.
Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.
The data behind this chart
| Brand | Claude | Gemini | ChatGPT | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft OneDrive | 30% | 60% | 55% | 30pp |
| Google One | 10% | 30% | 40% | 30pp |
| Apple iCloud | 35% | 55% | 60% | 25pp |
| Google Photos | 20% | 45% | 40% | 25pp |
| Google Drive | 45% | 65% | 50% | 20pp |
| Dropbox | 30% | 45% | 50% | 20pp |
| GitHub Pages | 5% | 20% | 25% | 20pp |
| Vercel | 5% | 25% | 5% | 20pp |
| pCloud | 20% | 20% | 5% | 15pp |
| SiteGround | 15% | 10% | 0% | 15pp |
Comparisons carry cloud storage & web hosting.
Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Comparisons supply the most citations; Listicles convert best — 100% of the ones models opened were actually cited.
The data behind this chart
| Page type | Cited | Read but not cited | Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comparisons | 51 | 8 | 86% |
| How-to guides | 43 | 9 | 83% |
| pricing | 22 | 13 | 63% |
| Editorial | 22 | 8 | 73% |
| Documentation | 21 | 18 | 54% |
| Listicles | 10 | 0 | 100% |
| Community threads | 9 | 6 | 60% |
| Product pages | 8 | 10 | 44% |
Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.
Of the cloud storage & web hosting pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 30 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 7pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.
The data behind this chart
| Feature | Pages with | Cited % | Pages without | Cited % | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured data | 392 | 81% | 161 | 51% | +30pp |
| Named author | 271 | 82% | 282 | 62% | +20pp |
| Updated this year | 241 | 81% | 312 | 65% | +17pp |
| Comparison table | 212 | 79% | 341 | 67% | +12pp |
| Specifications | 51 | 75% | 502 | 72% | +3pp |
| Answer up front | 149 | 69% | 404 | 73% | -4pp |
| Hard statistics | 133 | 67% | 420 | 74% | -7pp |
Proton Drive builds pages AI can quote.
Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Box is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.
| Brand | Readiness | Pages cited | Pages profiled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proton Drive | 46 | 57% | 7 |
| Box | 46 | 0% | 26 |
| Hostinger | 45 | 38% | 13 |
| Replit | 42 | 33% | 3 |
| IONOS | 41 | 5% | 44 |
| Mega | 36 | 14% | 22 |
| Modal | 33 | 33% | 3 |
| GoDaddy | 33 | 20% | 5 |
| OVHcloud | 30 | 40% | 5 |
| Cloudflare | 29 | 31% | 26 |
Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.
The questions cloud storage & web hosting pages have to settle.
Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.
Nineteen more categories.
Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:06:35 GMT.