Upper bounds for GCD sums of the form ${\sum }_{k,\ell =1}^N\frac{{\left(\gcd (n_k,n_{\ell })\right)}^{2\alpha }}{{\left(n_k{n}_{\ell }\right)}^{\alpha }}$ are established, where ${\left(n_k\right)}_{1\le k\le N}$ is any sequence of distinct positive integers and $0<\alpha \le 1$; the estimate for $\alpha =1/2$ solves in particular a problem of Dyer and Harman from 1986, and the estimates are optimal except possibly for $\alpha =1/2$. The method of proof is based on identifying the sum as a certain Poisson integral on a polydisc; as a byproduct, estimates for the largest eigenvalues of the associated GCD matrices are also found. The bounds for such GCD sums are used to establish...