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Duke Energy · Energy & Utilities

In AI answers, Duke Energy is a list name in investing and employer questions

Assistants named Duke Energy most in questions about who to avoid, who leads and who employs, and least in questions about value and clean-energy options. The press story this month is data centers, gas buildout and AI grid tools, and it barely shows up in the sampled answers.

Measured September 29, 2026ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and GrokCheck your own brand →

In AI answers

Visibility

10%

Share of answers that named Duke Energy, with a 95% range of 9–12%. Measured September 29, 2026 · 5 assistants · 1,250 answers.

Answers naming it

127 / 1,250

Position by visibility

#5 of 15

In this snapshot only

In the press

News mentions

5,446

PeakMetrics news index, last 30 days.

Duke Energy in the headline

1,547

Rank by press volume

#10 of 15

Within this sector

Duke Energy gets more AI mentions than press. It ranks #5 of 15 by AI visibility but #10 by news volume. The sampled answers named it more often than its share of coverage would predict.

Named in 64 of 250 questions, the 12 most-named shown

Question
I'm a retired investor looking for a financially rock-solid utility with decades of dividend payments. Which ones are considered the market leaders?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Rank the top US power producers by carbon emissions.Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
What are the biggest electric utilities in America by generating capacity?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Which utilities have been criticized for lobbying against rooftop solar?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Which US utilities have done the best job cleaning up coal ash?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Who are the biggest nuclear power plant operators in the US?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Which electric utilities have been criticized the most for shutting off power to customers in extreme heat or cold?Named by: Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
I live in a hurricane-prone part of Florida and want to know which power companies restore service fastest after storms. Who does it best?Named by: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok
Which power companies have paid the biggest fines for pollution violations?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok
I'm a veteran looking for a career in energy. Which companies have the best veteran hiring programs?Named by: Claude, Gemini, Grok
Which utilities have been accused of hiding or downplaying their role in climate change or lobbying against clean energy?Named by: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok
Who are the top employers for women in the energy industry?Named by: ChatGPT, Claude, Grok

and 52 more questions whose answers named Duke Energy.

The evidence

One snapshot, measured September 29, 2026. These figures come from one quarterly run of 1,250 answers (95% range 9–12%), not a ranking or a trend. The questions never named Duke Energy.

How the answers frame Duke Energy

This snapshot (29 September 2026) covers 250 benchmark questions across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, 1,250 answers in all. None of the questions named a brand. Duke Energy was named in 127 of those answers. That put it fifth among the 15 energy peers in the data, behind ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and NextEra Energy. Grok accounted for 49 of the 127 appearances. Claude named Duke in 16 answers and ChatGPT in 18.

By question intent, Duke's visibility was highest on "avoid" questions (23%), then leadership (19%), sustainability (17%) and employer (16%). It was lowest on value (1%), clean energy options (3%) and trust (4%). Reliability sat at 7% and service at 5%.

In the 16 sampled answers, Duke most often appears as one name in a list. It shows up among retiree dividend picks from ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok. It shows up among the largest utility employers in a Gemini answer. Claude's employer answer cited a 2026 ranking that put Duke 42nd overall. In answers on lobbying against rooftop solar, Gemini and Grok both placed Duke alongside FPL and Tampa Electric as a utility critics have singled out. Grok's coal-retirement answer grouped it with other large investor-owned utilities.

On the reliability question, ChatGPT's storm-restoration answer named Duke for self-healing technology. Its visible reasoning pointed to FPL as the utility with the strongest restoration reputation. Gemini's cybersecurity answer said Duke was "Frequently cited in industry research as a leader in implementing comprehensive cybersecurity measures". That is one of the few passages that credits Duke with a specific strength.

The credited-for tags are thin. Six credits were classed Not Substantive, two Labour & Workplace, and one each Reliability & Operations, Price & Value, Sustainability & Ethics and Financial Performance.

Frequently cited in industry research as a leader in implementing comprehensive cybersecurity measures…
Gemini, answering “Which electric utilities have invested the most in protecting the grid from cyberattacks?”

What the press is saying

PeakMetrics' news index shows 5,446 mentions of Duke Energy over the last 30 days, 1,547 with the company in the headline. Recent headlines fall into a few storylines. One is community giving: a Duke Energy Foundation award of $100,000 for upward mobility in Florida. One is grid technology: AWS and Duke Energy using AI agents to speed up interconnection studies. One is customer tools during a heat wave in Ohio and Kentucky. The last is scrutiny of load growth, with headlines on more gas power amid criticism that data centers are the reason, and on what data centers could cost Duke Energy Florida customers, which is redacted.

Most large US utilities (primarily investor-owned ones like Duke Energy, Southern Company subsidiaries, Dominion, Entergy, and others) are retiring coal plants slowly…
Grok, answering “How do the largest US utilities rank on retiring their coal plants?”

The gap

The press coverage centers on the data-center buildout, gas capacity and who pays for it, alongside AI-driven grid work. In the 16 sampled answers, none framed Duke around data centers or interconnection. The assistants placed it in dividend, employer, lobbying and coal-retirement lists.

Volume also differs. Duke's news count is lower than that of Chevron, Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and several other oil and gas peers, but it still appeared in more answers than BP, PG&E and TotalEnergies, which have comparable or larger news counts. This is one snapshot, and it shows that press volume and answer visibility do not track each other one for one.

What to watch

A comms team can read this as a question of which contexts carry the company's name. In this snapshot, lobbying criticism and coal-retirement comparisons sit next to Duke, while value, clean-energy options and trust questions barely name it. The cited domains behind those answers, not only the company's own channels, are what to check.

Grok produced the largest share of Duke mentions, so a single assistant can shape the overall picture. Live answers vary between runs, so treat these figures as a baseline to re-measure, not a ranking.

The data-center and gas-cost storyline is heavy in the news index and light in these answers. Whether assistants pick it up is worth tracking in later benchmark runs.

The evidence

Where Duke Energy appeared, and what it was credited for.

Per-provider split

The same answers split by assistant, each with its 95% range. Where two assistants' ranges overlap, the difference between them may be noise.

  1. ChatGPT
    7%5–11%
  2. Claude
    6%4–10%
  3. Gemini
    10%7–14%
  4. Perplexity
    8%5–12%
  5. Grok
    20%15–25%

Appeared in

The 12 questions whose answers named Duke Energy most often, with each assistant that named it. 64 questions named it in all. The questions did not mention the brand.

  • I'm a retired investor looking for a financially rock-solid utility with decades of dividend payments. Which ones are considered the market leaders?ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Rank the top US power producers by carbon emissions.ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • What are the biggest electric utilities in America by generating capacity?ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Which utilities have been criticized for lobbying against rooftop solar?ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Which US utilities have done the best job cleaning up coal ash?ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Who are the biggest nuclear power plant operators in the US?ChatGPTClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Which electric utilities have been criticized the most for shutting off power to customers in extreme heat or cold?ClaudeGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • I live in a hurricane-prone part of Florida and want to know which power companies restore service fastest after storms. Who does it best?ChatGPTGeminiPerplexityGrok
  • Which power companies have paid the biggest fines for pollution violations?ChatGPTClaudePerplexityGrok
  • I'm a veteran looking for a career in energy. Which companies have the best veteran hiring programs?ClaudeGeminiGrok
  • Which utilities have been accused of hiding or downplaying their role in climate change or lobbying against clean energy?ChatGPTPerplexityGrok
  • Who are the top employers for women in the energy industry?ChatGPTClaudeGrok

Visibility by question type

The share of answers to each type of question that named Duke Energy, with its 95% range. Each type has fewer answers than the whole run, so its range is wider.

  1. Reliability and quality
    7%3–14%
  2. Trust and reputation
    4%2–11%
  3. Value and price
    1%0–6%
  4. Customer service
    5%2–12%
  5. Safety and security
    6%3–13%
  6. Innovation
    9%5–16%
  7. Leadership and scale
    19%12–28%
  8. Employer and workplace
    16%10–24%
  9. Sustainability and ethics
    17%11–26%
  10. Avoid and risk
    23%16–32%
  11. Clean energy plans and residential solar
    3%1–9%
  12. Plans, billing and switching
    5%2–12%
  13. Investment and financial performance
    14%9–23%
Measured September 29, 2026. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok. Types with no answers are left out.

What the answers credited it for

The topics the answers tied to Duke Energy when they named it, as labeled by a classifier run on this site (a Visibility Driver label, not a customer workspace's Smart Category). It describes what the answer discussed, not whether it was favorable.

  • Not Substantive6 answers
  • Labour & Workplace2 answers
  • Reliability & Operations1 answer
  • Price & Value1 answer
  • Sustainability & Ethics1 answer
  • Financial Performance1 answer

Press rank and AI rank

Where Duke Energy sits among the 15 energy & utilities brands with news data in this snapshot, on each measure. Ranks only: the two measures use different units and time windows.

Rank by AI visibility

#5 of 15

  1. 5

Share of 1,250 answers, measured September 29, 2026.

Rank by news mentions

#10 of 15

  1. 10

PeakMetrics news index, last 30 days.

Mention volume is not comparable across sectors, so both ranks are within this sector.

Recent PeakMetrics headlines

A sample of recent coverage from the PeakMetrics news index, covering the last 30 days. Links open the original article.

How this was measured

Measured September 29, 2026. 250 unbranded questions per sector, asked to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok on their product models, with web search on. Refreshed quarterly.

This is a snapshot, not a ranking or a trend: AI answers vary from run to run. It shows whether a brand appeared and which sources were cited, not how favorably it was described. The paid platform tracks favorability daily.

Full method

In an early five-question test, the same brand went from 40% to 30% to 70% visibility across three runs, which is why every figure here is dated and treated as a snapshot.

The questions cover 13 intents, such as reliability, value for money and customer service. A model drafted them, a review pass removed paraphrases and questions that point to one company, and every question was checked so that none names a measured brand. Each was asked once per assistant in run 2026Q4.

Every visibility figure comes with a 95% range (a Wilson interval). Where two brands' ranges overlap, treat them as tied. The figures use all 1,250 answers. The quotes in the story come from a stratified sample of 60 of them, spread across every assistant and intent.

Summarized on September 30, 2026from this snapshot's stored answers. Every quote is checked against the original answer.

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