The Southlume Index
Who AI recommends in Australia – the Index
Who AI recommends in Australia. That’s the question The Southlume Index exists to answer. When Australians ask an AI assistant who to buy from, hire or see, some businesses get named and most don’t. The Index measures who makes the list, and how consistently.
It works by asking the assistants the same real buyer questions, again and again, and counting the recommendations. The results are published as rates, with dates and stability bands, category by category. The method is public.
The stability band, in one breath
Ask an AI the same question four times and the answers shift. The band is that range. A change only counts as movement once it clears it.
The method in full →What the Index publishes
Each edition covers a set of Australian categories. For each one, we publish who the assistants recommend and how often a business is named. That’s the mention rate.
We also publish how often each business’s website is linked as a source. That’s the citation rate. The two stay separate, because a business can be named constantly and cited never.
Every reading is drawn with its stability band. Movement against the previous edition is shown the same way – beyond the band or inside it, said plainly.
Each edition ships with its date, its question-set version, its market and a downloadable CSV of the full table.
Edition 1 is measuring
There is no ranking to show you yet, and we won’t invent one. When it publishes, it publishes complete – the tables, the bands, the movement rules, and the method behind them, which is already public.
If that patience reads as odd for a new brand, it’s the point. A measurement house that rushed its first number wouldn’t be worth citing.
Get edition 1 the day it lands
That email doesn’t look complete.
One email when edition 1 publishes – nothing else. What edition 1 will publish →
Why an independent index
A business trying to understand its AI visibility today has two options. Ask a tool with something to sell, or believe the loudest claim. It’s noisy on the surface, and noisier underneath.
The Index is built to be the quiet third option. Nobody can pay to appear in it, move up in it, or keep a bad quarter out of it. Businesses appear in the data on the data’s terms, and we publish the falls as faithfully as the rises.
The seat was genuinely empty. In July 2026 we asked four AI assistants, on the record, whether an independent, cross-industry index of who AI recommends in Australia existed. None could point to one.
If you’re newer to this territory, start with what AI visibility actually is – the measured answer, not the sales pitch.