In AI answers on Canadian policy, The Hub is cited ahead of every mainstream outlet but one

When Canadians ask AI assistants about the economy, trade, Alberta or federal politics, The Hub is cited as a source more often than The Globe and Mail, the National Post, CTV News, Global News and every other Canadian outlet measured, trailing only CBC News. On the economy, The Hub is cited more than any outlet in the country.

The findings come from a recent internal Hub study that measures which news sources the major AI assistants rely on when Canadians ask them policy questions. It put 30 questions on each of four issues to six AI answer engines, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, and read 557 answers for which outlets each one cited as a source.

Across those answers, The Hub was cited in 12.2 percent, second among 15 Canadian outlets and ahead of The Globe and Mail at 9.7 percent, Policy Options and Global News at 5.6 percent each, The Tyee at 4.7 percent, CTV News at 2.5 percent, The Logic at 2.3 percent, and the National Post and The Narwhal at 1.8 percent apiece. CBC News led at 16.5 percent.

Rudyard Griffiths, publisher of The Hub, said the results confirm a shift the publication has been tracking for more than a year. “AI citations are the new frontier of influence and our latest tracking data shows The Hub is well positioned to help clients win the influence war of LLMs,” he said. Griffiths has argued that two decades of digital influence built on landing pages and targeted advertising is being dismantled by AI-generated answers. “The priority is ensuring AI summaries include content that reflects factual information on the issues and ideas you care about,” he said. “Here, digital news media outlets have an advantage, as they are much more likely to be scored by AIs as factually reliable and trustworthy.”

The Hub‘s strongest ground is the economy. On questions about economic policy, it was cited in 14.3 percent of answers, ahead of The Globe and Mail at 9 percent and CBC News at 7 percent, and it was the first source cited more often than any other outlet. Perplexity and Claude each cited The Hub in one economy answer in five, and ChatGPT in one in six.

The publication placed second on the other three issues. On Canadian politics and government, it was cited in 13.6 percent of answers, behind CBC News at 16 percent and ahead of The Globe and Mail at 12 percent, with Google’s two AI surfaces citing The Hub in three answers out of ten. On Alberta politics and business, it was cited in 11.6 percent, ahead of the Globe at 10 percent, with Claude citing it in nearly one answer in four. On Canada-U.S. trade, it was cited in 9.4 percent, ahead of the Globe at 7 percent, and Google AI Mode cited it in one answer in five.

Being cited and being mentioned are not the same thing, and the gap between them is where The Hub stands out. AI assistants named The Globe and Mail in 27.1 percent of answers but linked to it in 9.7 percent; they named the National Post in 12.7 percent and linked to it in 1.8 percent. The Hub was named in 18.5 percent and linked in 12.2 percent, the closest match between reputation and actual sourcing among the leading outlets. The link is what matters: it is the citation a reader can follow and the signal the assistant is treating the outlet as evidence rather than as a name it knows.

By assistant, The Hub was cited in 17.5 percent of Google AI Mode answers, 15.8 percent of Google AI Overviews and Claude answers, 14.3 percent of Perplexity answers and 13.3 percent of ChatGPT answers. Gemini was the exception, naming The Hub in 28.3 percent of its answers but linking to it in 2.5 percent, a pattern it showed toward every outlet measured.

The shift in how people find information is now measurable. Pew Research Center reported in June that about half of American adults now use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024, and roughly a quarter use one every day. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report found that one in ten people worldwide now turn to an AI chatbot for news each week, up from 7 percent a year earlier, rising to 16 percent among those under 35. In that environment, the sources an assistant chooses to cite decide whose reporting shapes the answer.

The Hub is now offering its advertising clients detailed tracking on LLM citations of their campaign content on a per-model and per-issue basis as a standard service, an industry first in Canada.

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A recent study reveals that The Hub is increasingly cited by AI assistants for Canadian policy questions, surpassing most mainstream media outlets. The Hub was cited 12.2% of the time, second only to CBC News at 16.5%. It leads in citations related to the economy, with 14.3%, and ranks second in Canadian politics, Alberta issues, and Canada-U.S. trade. Publisher Rudyard Griffiths emphasizes the importance of AI citations in shaping influence and highlights the advantage of digital news media in being perceived as factually reliable. The Hub is now offering detailed tracking on LLM citations for its advertising clients.

The Hub was cited in 12.2% of AI answers, second among 15 Canadian outlets.

CBC News led with a citation rate of 16.5%.

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