Our earlier study found that a model's own recommendation last month explains 61.4% of what it recommends this month, more than store quality, brand fame, or web presence combined, measured over a 15-day window. We wanted to know if that holds over something longer and messier: six independently triggered runs, spread across two full months, not one clean before-and-after comparison. We tracked the same 50 shopping intents across 10 categories, from June 30 to August 26 2026, same model, same temperature, every time. In 86% of intents, the model named the exact same #1 brand in all six sweeps. For the seven that didn't fully agree, we doubled the sample size to find out whether we were looking at real change or ordinary noise.
The Model Predicts Itself showed that June's recommendation position predicts July's at R² 61.4%, and that the ranking does not move across a 15-day window. Both of those measurements came from controlled, single comparisons: two snapshots pulled and lined up against each other. This study asks the same underlying question a rougher way, closer to how the system actually gets used: repeated, independently triggered calls to the same model, spread across two months, with no single "before and after" pair to lean on.
We picked 50 shopping intents across 10 categories, from action cameras to ashwagandha supplements, and asked gpt-4o-mini to name its top 10 picks for each, ten times per intent per sweep, temperature held at 0.7 throughout. We ran that sweep six separate times over eight weeks. Then we asked one blunt question, harsher than a correlation: is the #1 pick the exact same brand, every single time?
Across six sweeps and eight weeks, 43 of 50 intents, 86%, returned the exact same #1 brand every single time. GoPro won "best action camera" in five of six sweeps at 10 out of 10 runs, and in the sixth at 1 out of 10, still first place. Lululemon, Levi's, Vital Proteins, Optimum Nutrition, and PetSafe never lost their #1 spot once, in any sweep, across two months.
Seven intents did not return the same #1 in every sweep. Three of them looked genuinely close: a near-tie in one 10-run sweep, not the kind of runaway win we saw everywhere else. Rather than call that "drift," we doubled the sample size, 20 runs instead of 10, and re-ran all three the same day to see whether the tie was real or just noise at a small sample.
Put the two findings together and the practical takeaway splits in two. For the 86% of intents that are locked, daily monitoring buys you very little, the same conclusion the original study reached: there is nothing to catch because nothing is moving. But the 14% that are genuinely contested are exactly the opposite case. Those are the categories where the model has not settled, where a well-timed piece of content or a clearer product page has somewhere real to land, because the #1 spot is not already spoken for.
The practical filter is simple: before spending on visibility work for a category, check whether it is locked or contested first. Fighting for a spot GoPro or Lululemon has held for two straight months is a different bet than fighting for a spot that is already splitting 50/40.
Average position of category specialists like Lululemon, GoPro, and Optimum Nutrition, versus generalist retailers like Target and Amazon, which appear across more categories than anyone, 17 to 21, but average position 7.4 and rarely win #1.
Borderline #1 finishes that looked like they might be shifting resolved into clear, stable winners once we doubled the sample size. Only ceramic dinnerware held up as a genuine, ongoing split.
The most consistent #1 across the ashwagandha-related intents was not a company at all. KSM-66 is a patented ashwagandha extract licensed by dozens of supplement brands, not a business you can buy from directly. For intents like that, there is no single competitor to outrank, because the winning name is an ingredient spec, not a retailer.
We flag it here rather than folding it into the 86%, since it changes what "winning the #1 spot" would even mean for a brand trying to compete in that category. There is nothing to out-market, no store to outrank; the fix is a formulation choice, not a content one.
If your category is already decided, the fight is somewhere else. If it isn't, this is where you'd want to know.
This follows directly from the strongest number in the whole series. Read the original for the full method and the four null results it stands against.
Illustrative example · single-site signal for atomfoundry.dev.
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