Universities,
according to AI
Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about universities — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, University of Oxford owns the conversation.
0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated
University of Oxford is the default answer.
Named in 23% of universities answers, typically in position 1.1. University of Cambridge follows at 23%, University College London at 17%.
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 | University of Oxford | 23% | 1.1 | 4% | — |
| 2 | University of Cambridge | 23% | 1.9 | 7% | — |
| 3 | University College London | 17% | 3.9 | 7% | 67% |
| 4 | University of Edinburgh | 17% | 5.4 | 4% | — |
| 5 | Imperial College London | 13% | 3.0 | 4% | 100% |
| 6 | University of Bristol | 12% | 7.0 | 11% | 33% |
| 7 | University of Warwick | 12% | 7.9 | 0% | 0% |
| 8 | London School of Economics and Political Science | 12% | 8.1 | 0% | — |
| 9 | University of Manchester | 8% | 6.6 | 7% | 0% |
| 10 | King's College London | 7% | 6.5 | 7% | — |
| 11 | Durham University | 7% | 10.0 | 7% | — |
| 12 | University of Leeds | 5% | 8.7 | 0% | — |
| 13 | University of Glasgow | 5% | 9.0 | 0% | — |
| 14 | University of St Andrews | 5% | 9.7 | 0% | — |
| 15 | The Open University | 3% | 1.0 | 7% | 20% |
University of Cambridge is named most. That is not the same as being wanted.
Being named is visibility. Underneath it, every answer describes a brand in three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. In universities, University of Cambridge leads attraction at 128 against Queen Mary University of London at 87, indexed on the category at 100.
Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared. See the full universities desire edition →
The referees of universities.
The independent sources AI models cite when answering universities questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.
University College London converts reads into citations. The Open University doesn't.
When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? University College London converts 67% of reads; The Open University just 20%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.
Full data table
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Oxford | 23% | 1.1 | 4% | — |
| 2 | University of Cambridge | 23% | 1.9 | 7% | — |
| 3 | University College London | 17% | 3.9 | 7% | 67% |
| 4 | University of Edinburgh | 17% | 5.4 | 4% | — |
| 5 | Imperial College London | 13% | 3.0 | 4% | 100% |
| 6 | University of Bristol | 12% | 7.0 | 11% | 33% |
| 7 | University of Warwick | 12% | 7.9 | 0% | 0% |
| 8 | London School of Economics and Political Science | 12% | 8.1 | 0% | — |
| 9 | University of Manchester | 8% | 6.6 | 7% | 0% |
| 10 | King's College London | 7% | 6.5 | 7% | — |
| 11 | Durham University | 7% | 10.0 | 7% | — |
| 12 | University of Leeds | 5% | 8.7 | 0% | — |
| 13 | University of Glasgow | 5% | 9.0 | 0% | — |
| 14 | University of St Andrews | 5% | 9.7 | 0% | — |
| 15 | The Open University | 3% | 1.0 | 7% | 20% |
The models do not agree on who leads.
Ask about universities and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → University of Oxford, Gemini → University of Cambridge, ChatGPT → University of Cambridge. Their top-five lists share just 43% 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Edinburgh | 20% | 20% | 10% | 10pp |
| King's College London | 10% | 10% | 0% | 10pp |
| University of St Andrews | 5% | 0% | 10% | 10pp |
| University of Leeds | 0% | 10% | 5% | 10pp |
| University of Oxford | 20% | 25% | 25% | 5pp |
| University of Cambridge | 20% | 25% | 25% | 5pp |
| Imperial College London | 15% | 15% | 10% | 5pp |
| University College London | 15% | 20% | 15% | 5pp |
| University of Warwick | 10% | 15% | 10% | 5pp |
| London School of Economics and Political Science | 10% | 15% | 10% | 5pp |
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 Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:12:30 GMT.