Mid-band Cited (7/18). When buyers ask AI assistants "best Android phone 2026" or "phone with best camera 2026", the answer comes from Tech Advisor, PCMag, and Reddit. Not samsung.com. Samsung's own pages surface strongly for the brand name (Bing #1 for the S26 Ultra, five Samsung UK URLs in Brave's top 10), but the structural extractability gap on /smartphones/* pages means the brand wins recognition and loses the category.
Of 5 globally-famous brands tested under F&T's AI Search methodology in May 2026, 0 reached Recommended · 4 Cited · 0 Emerging · 0 Invisible · 1 Blocked.
The pattern across the Cited cohort: AI knows these brands by name, not by category. Branded queries surface the brand's own URLs; category queries route to editorial reviewers, comparison sites, or Reddit. The 1 Blocked brand is structurally different: robots.txt closure, not content gap.