Which smartphone AI recommends most, by category

Key Findings

• The most dominant phone model within the categories tested was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, named first in 87.7% of "best foldable" answers.
• The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro takes the top spot in 59.7% of gaming answers, the Google Pixel 10a 57.6% of $300–$700 answers, the OnePlus 15 53.0% of battery-life answers and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 51.2% of flagship answers.
• On a brand level, Samsung takes the top slot in more categories than any other brand (three of the eight queried). A Samsung handset is the first phone named in 91.1% of foldable answers, 74.3% of under-$300 answers and 51.9% of flagship answers. Google takes two categories (85.6% of $300–$700 answers, 54.7% of camera answers), and OnePlus (67.4% of battery) and Asus (69.9% of gaming) take one each.
• The most general phone-buyer queries saw Apple devices dominate as the top recommendation. For example, when asking "What smartphone should I buy?", the iPhone 17 led in 34% of answers, with the iPhone 17 Pro Max close behind at 32.7%.

AI chatbots already tend to provide a much shorter list of recommendations to buyers than traditional search engines do. But just like on a search engine's results page, being recommended first leads to considerably more clicks in AI search.

According to a new analysis of AI chatbot smartphone recommendations by Searchable, the AI visibility platform, users in the US market are most likely to be recommended Apple devices in response to general and 'all-rounder' questions about which phone is best to buy.

However, for specific buyer categories, Apple fails to come top. Ask about a budget, a camera or a battery instead, and it drops out of first place entirely.

First-place recommendations were concentrated in roughly a quarter of all devices that surfaced. The chatbots named 1,159 different devices in total as part of their recommendations, but only 295 of them ever came recommended in first place.

Which phone lands at the top of the answer can also depend heavily on which chatbot you ask. Across the eight categories the gap between the highest and lowest engine, measured on that category's own leading phone, runs to 57 percentage points at the median. The Google Pixel 10a is named first in 87.6% of Gemini's $300–$700 answers and just 7.8% of ChatGPT's.

The chatbots tested were ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Mode. Between them, they cited 331,480 sources from 2,584 domains, and just over four in ten of those citations came from only ten websites. TechRadar and Tom's Guide were cited in 9% and 7% of answers respectively.

Methodology

Searchable prompted ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Mode over 30,000 times with 184 unique phone-buying questions, which covered: under $300, $300–$700, camera, battery, flagship, foldable, gaming, and general all-rounder questions. The number one placed recommendation was then counted and ranked by model and by brand. Data collected July 2026.