The Kantar BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands are now worth a combined $13.1 trillion, up 22% year on year, as AI driven experiences transform how people discover, choose and remain loyal to brands.
The acceleration of AI has pushed the entry threshold for the Global Top 100 to its highest level ever, intensifying competition among brands at the top. Yet Kantar BrandZ analysis reinforces a consistent truth: in markets defined by speed and fragmentation, the brands that win are those that remain Meaningfully Different at every touchpoint.
Highlights from the ranking, which is based on the opinions of 4.6 million respondents about 22,392 brands across 545 categories, include:
- Google is crowned as the world’s most valuable brand for the first time since 2018, rising 57% to $1.5tn, powered by the integration of Gemini across its ecosystem, agentic features in Search and continued investment in data centres
- In a historic first, three brands have simultaneously broken the trillion-dollar threshold: Google ($1.5tn), Microsoft (No.3: $1.1tn) and Amazon (No.4: $1.0tn)
- AI-native brands are breaking through faster than ever, with Claude debuting in the Global Top 100 at No.27 with a brand value of $96.6bn, while ChatGPT records the highest year-on-year increase in the ranking, up 285%
- Chinese brands continue to build global influence, with strong growth from Agricultural Bank of China (+54%), Alibaba (+51%), ICBC (+49%), Xiaomi (+48%), Tencent (+45%) and Ping An (+41%)
- Europe’s cohort grows more steadily, with the average European brand up 14%; SAP (+6%), Siemens (+68%) and Booking.com (+33%) show that European tech-led brands can outperform on momentum even in tougher market conditions.