5W, the AI Communications Firm, has released the Defense & Aerospace AI Visibility Index 2026, a benchmark study analyzing how leading defense, aerospace, and space companies appear across AI-powered platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
The study evaluated 28,400 prompts across two testing waves to measure AI Citation Share — a metric that tracks how often companies are mentioned, cited, or recommended within AI-generated responses. The findings highlight a growing disconnect between company size and AI visibility in the defense technology landscape.
According to the report, Anduril Industries secured 19.8% AI Citation Share, followed by Palantir Technologies at 15.2%. Combined, the two defense technology firms accounted for 35% of the measured AI visibility across the dataset.
In comparison, major legacy defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing Defense, and General Dynamics collectively represented 21.1% of Citation Share despite generating substantially higher annual revenues.
The report noted that the relationship between revenue scale and AI Citation Share trended negatively within the testing dataset, suggesting that visibility in AI-generated responses is being influenced by factors beyond company size and market dominance.
"In a category where revenue has historically been the measure of weight, the AI systems we tested are surfacing a different pattern," said Ronn Torossian, Founder and Chairman of 5W. "Two defense technology companies account for a higher combined Citation Share than the five largest legacy primes. The observation is reproducible. The interpretation is open — but the structural shift is hard to ignore."
The Index also found that SpaceX achieved 12.7% Citation Share across defense, space, and adjacent technology categories, giving it the broadest cross-category AI visibility in the study.
Founder-driven content presence emerged as another significant factor influencing AI retrieval patterns. The report identified Palmer Luckey of Anduril, Alex Karp of Palantir, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and Brandon Tseng of Shield AI as leaders in founder citation density.
According to the study, no legacy defense prime demonstrated comparable founder-driven content activity during the testing period.
The study revealed that defense-focused trade publications play a significantly larger role in AI citation ecosystems than mainstream financial outlets.
Defense News, Breaking Defense, The War Zone, War on the Rocks, and Defense One collectively accounted for 36.9% of all cited AI sources in the dataset. Wikipedia represented 20.7%, while Reuters, Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times together accounted for 12.7%.
The report also highlighted the growing influence of independent defense journalism, with Substack-hosted war journalism contributing 4.4% of all citations.
"Defense trade press accounted for nearly 37% of cited sources," Torossian added. "That is the inverse of what we observed in financial-services categories, where mainstream financial press dominated. The earned-media playbook for defense and aerospace has to be rebuilt around the publishers AI engines actually cite."
The research found that historical reputational issues continue to influence AI-generated retrieval results.
References to the Boeing 737 MAX crisis appeared in 31% of Boeing Defense-related responses, while Lockheed Martin responses referenced F-35 cost overruns in 28% of cases. Palantir responses included contractor and contract-related discussions in 19% of results across both testing waves.
Additionally, prompts focused on autonomous weapons systems and military AI significantly increased visibility for emerging defense AI companies, pushing Anduril’s Citation Share to 28.1% and Shield AI’s to 11.4%.
The Defense & Aerospace AI Visibility Index evaluated 25 companies across seven query categories related to procurement, autonomous systems, AI ethics in warfare, and earth observation.
The study included:
Wave 1 testing was conducted between January 15 and February 12, 2026, while Wave 2 ran from April 8 to May 6, 2026. Only findings stable across both testing waves within a 1.5 percentage-point tolerance were included in the final report.
According to 5W, Citation Share measures the frequency with which AI systems surface companies within generated responses and should not be interpreted as a measure of market share, operational performance, or contract activity.
The report underscores how generative AI platforms are reshaping visibility dynamics in the defense and aerospace sectors, with specialized media coverage, founder presence, and AI-related positioning increasingly influencing discoverability within AI-driven research environments.
5W is the AI Communications Firm — building brand authority across the platforms where decisions now happen: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, alongside earned media, digital, and influencer channels. 5W combines public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and proprietary AI visibility research to help clients measure and grow their presence in AI-driven buyer research.
Founded in 2002, 5W is recognized as a Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's, named Agency of the Year in the American Business Awards®, honored as a 2026 Top Place to Work in Communications by Ragan, and named to Digiday's WorkLife Employer of the Year list. 5W serves clients across B2C sectors — Beauty & Fashion, Consumer Brands, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Health & Wellness, Travel & Hospitality, Technology, and Nonprofit — and B2B specialties including Corporate Communications, Reputation Management, Public Affairs, Crisis Communications, and Digital Marketing across Social, Influencer, Paid Media, GEO, and SEO.
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