Latent Space measured what seven frontier models actually recommend across 161 categories, and each one shills its own ecosystem

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The Frontier AEO Tracker ran 6 prompt variations across 7 models (Claude Opus and Fable, GPT Sol and Astra, Grok, Muse, SWE-1.7) over 161 product categories, from coding agents to databases to angel investors, with every prompt-answer pair left publicly inspectable. Models heavily favour their own ecosystem, 28 of the 161 categories return a unanimous first choice across all models, and source-consumption differs sharply: Astra medians 5 sources per query, Sol 9, Opus 11, Fable 15. Astra is also markedly harder to move, changing its answer far less when the question is lightly paraphrased, and the team found markdown content negotiation and formatting measurably affect which sources get cited.