AI visibility, measured by category
Who does AI recommend when a shopper asks? We ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok the same real questions, several times, and report what they answer.
Editions
Index No. 02
United States · October 2026
Ask AI for a shampoo and no two engines agree.
Olaplex is named in 30% of answers but first in only 8%, and the five engines split three ways on their first pick. Salon brands take 46% of all mentions. Independent brands take 21%, up from 6% in sunscreen, led by Ouai and Briogeo. L'Oréal Paris is the only mass brand in the top ten, and the only brand the engines learn from its own website.
Index No. 01
United States · September 2026
The consensus AI sunscreen is a brand most shoppers have never seen advertised.
EltaMD is named in 42% of answers and named first in one out of five, on every engine. Dermatologist and pharmacy brands take 40% of all mentions. Independent brands take 6%. Legacy prestige houses are close to absent: Estée Lauder was not named once in 735 answers.
Index No. 03
Next category in November
How the Index works
01
Each edition uses about fifty prompts written the way shoppers actually ask: by concern, by skin type, by price, by myth. No prompt names a brand, so nothing in the question favors an answer.
02
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, each asked every prompt three times in a fresh session. Running once reports noise. Running three times shows what is stable.
03
Every answer is matched against a brand list of over a hundred names and product lines. We report mention rates, first mentions, and the sites the engines cited. The method is published with every edition.
Monthly
One email when a new category is published. Nothing else.