Semrush 2025: The Year in Review
When the Ground Beneath Marketers Shifted
December 23, 2025
Powered by the AI Visibility Index, the Awards recognize brands winning visibility in today’s AI search landscape
Semrush (NYSE: SEMR), the leading online visibility management SaaS platform, today announced Semrush AI Visibility Awards, a recognition program honoring top-performing brands across some of the most prominent AI search engines.
As consumers continue leaning into AI as a trusted source for product recommendations, financial decisions, travel planning, and everyday problem-solving; one dynamic has become clear: the brands that appear in AI answers are the ones that people will choose. It’s not an easy discipline to master, however, with only 45% of marketers globally reporting they feel confident about their ability to apply AI successfully.
Yet some are rising to the top of generative answers consistently. The Semrush AI Visibility Awards celebrate brands that have been quick to experiment, innovate, and tackle this new domain to ensure they’re consistently cited and referenced. Powered by the Semrush Enterprise AI Visibility Index, the Awards transform one of the industry’s most robust AI search datasets into a celebration of leadership, momentum, and breakthrough performance.
This year marks a turning point in how brands earn visibility. The Semrush AI Visibility Awards celebrate the marketing teams who have worked tirelessly to crack the new code of search and earn trust inside AI-generated answers. This isn't through submissions or panels, but through real user behavior. We’re proud to recognize the marketers driving this shift and shaping the way discovery now works.”
Andrew Warden, Chief Marketing Officer at Semrush.
Remarkably, the majority of this year’s winners are Semrush customers, highlighting a clear pattern: the brands investing in visibility intelligence are the ones advancing fastest in AI search.
What the AI Visibility Awards Recognize
Each industry brings its own nuances of brand visibility success, and thus the inaugural Awards span four key industries: Business & Professional Services, Consumer Electronics, Digital Technology & Software and Fashion & Apparel. There are three types of performance spotlighted:
- Category Leaders — the brands with the strongest visibility footprint in AI search
- Growth Engines — the brands gaining momentum fastest
- Challengers — rising players that LLMs increasingly surface as credible alternatives
The AI Visibility Index analyzes LLM responses from 2,500+ real prompts, identifying which brands are most frequently cited, trusted, or recommended across ChatGPT and Google AI Mode. Using data from August through December 2025, Semrush measured Share of Voice, sentiment signals, and the diversity of authoritative sources to map leadership, momentum, and breakthrough visibility.
Industry Trends Revealed by the Awards
Beyond individual winners, the 2025 Awards reveal clear patterns in how AI search is reshaping brand competition across industries:
- Category leaders are stable. The top brands show less than ±20% volatility in monthly AI SOV, indicating strong, enduring authority.
- Niches win in AI search. Patagonia (ethical fashion), Logitech (gaming accessories), and Nothing Technology (design-led hardware) demonstrate that concentrated topical relevance drives outsized visibility.
- Challengers can break through. Brands like UNIQLO demonstrate that momentum, innovation, and user-focused positioning allow new entrants to challenge incumbents in AI-driven categories.
- Verticals behave differently. Business & Professional Services remains the most diverse and competitive.
2025 AI Visibility Award Recipients
Business & Professional Services
Category Leader: Google
Growth Engine: Intuit
Challenger: Rippling (Founded 2017)
Growth Engine: Intuit
Challenger: Rippling (Founded 2017)
Consumer Electronics
Category Leader: Samsung
Growth Engine: Logitech
Challenger: Nothing Technology (Founded 2020)
Growth Engine: Logitech
Challenger: Nothing Technology (Founded 2020)
Digital Technology & Software
Category Leader: Microsoft
Growth Engine: Freshworks
Challenger: Anthropic (Founded 2021)
Growth Engine: Freshworks
Challenger: Anthropic (Founded 2021)
Fashion & Apparel
Category Leader: Patagonia
Growth Engine: UNIQLO
Challenger: Nuuly (Founded 2019)
Growth Engine: UNIQLO
Challenger: Nuuly (Founded 2019)
Award Winners 2025 - AI Visibility Awards - Semrush Enterprise
What This Means for Marketing Teams
While the AI Visibility Awards spotlight category leaders and breakout performers, the broader takeaway is clear: AI visibility is no longer out of reach. Thousands of marketing teams are already using Semrush Enterprise AIO to understand how AI systems surface brands, identify citation gaps, and take practical steps to improve visibility in AI-driven discovery.
