Two Defense Tech Companies Out-Cite the Five Largest U.S. Defense Primes Combined Across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, New 5W Benchmark Finds

Anduril and Palantir capture 35.0% of AI Citation Share in the defense and aerospace category — more than Lockheed, Northrop, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics combined (21.1%) — despite operating at roughly 1/70th the revenue, according to the first two-wave AI Visibility Index of the sector.

MIAMI, May 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- 5W, the AI Communications Firm, today released the Defense & Aerospace AI Visibility Index 2026 — a two-wave benchmark of 28,400 prompts measuring how often U.S. defense, aerospace, and space companies are named, cited, and recommended across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

The headline finding: Anduril Industries (19.8%) and Palantir Technologies (15.2%) together accounted for 35.0% of AI Citation Share across the test set. The five largest legacy defense primes — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing Defense, and General Dynamics — collectively accounted for 21.1%.

The two defense technology firms operate at approximately $3.5 billion combined annual revenue. The five primes operate at approximately $247 billion. In this dataset, revenue did not predict Citation Share — the relationship trended negative.

Additional findings:

— SpaceX registered 12.7% Citation Share across three categories — defense, space, and adjacent technology — the broadest cross-category presence in the test set.

— Defense trade press — Defense News, Breaking Defense, The War Zone, War on the Rocks, Defense One — accounted for 36.9% of all cited sources. Wikipedia anchored the dataset at 20.7%. Mainstream financial press (Reuters, Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ, FT combined) accounted for 12.7%.

— Substack-hosted war journalism accounted for 4.4% of citations — larger than Defense One and roughly equal to Bloomberg defense coverage.

— Named-founder content output correlated with higher Citation Share. Palmer Luckey (Anduril), Alex Karp (Palantir), Elon Musk (SpaceX), and Brandon Tseng (Shield AI) were associated with the highest individual founder citation density. No legacy prime exhibited comparable founder content output during the testing window.

— Reputational events persist in retrieval. References to the Boeing 737 MAX episode appeared in 31% of Boeing Defense responses. References to F-35 cost overruns appeared in 28% of Lockheed Martin responses. References to Palantir contractor and contract-related discussions appeared in 19% of Palantir responses — stable across both waves.

— Topic-specific prompts about autonomous weapons and military AI drove Anduril's Citation Share to 28.1% and Shield AI's to 11.4%.

"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."

"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 Index tested 25 companies — 10 modern defense tech firms, 8 space and launch companies, and 7 legacy primes — across seven query categories including procurement, autonomous systems, AI-in-warfare ethics, and earth observation. Wave 1 ran January 15 – February 12, 2026. Wave 2 ran April 8 – May 6, 2026. Only findings stable across both waves within ≤1.5 percentage-point tolerance are published.

Citation Share — the composite metric used in the Index — measures the proportion of AI responses in which a company is mentioned, recommended, or cited as a referenced source. It is a proxy for model surface frequency, not for market share, contract activity, or operational performance.

The full Index, methodology, and per-engine datasets are published at 5wpr.com/ai-visibility-index/defense-aerospace.

About 5W

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.

Learn more at 5wpr.com.

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SOURCE 5W Public Relations