Press and Data

In one paragraph

The VIBEAU Index asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok 49 real sunscreen shopping questions, none naming a brand, three times each in fresh sessions, on 26 September 2026: 735 answers, 78 brands named. EltaMD was named in 42% of answers and named first in 20%, and every engine put it first more often than any other brand. Dermatologist and pharmacy brands took 40% of all brand mentions; independent brands took 6%. Glossier was named once. Asked the same question three times, ChatGPT named the same brand first only 41% of the time. No brand pays to be in the Index.

Quotable findings

EltaMD is named in 42% of AI sunscreen answers and named first in one out of five. All five engines put it first more often than any other brand.

Mention rate 42%, first-mention rate 20%, 735 answers

La Roche-Posay is named nearly as often as EltaMD, in 39% of answers, but named first in only 7%.

Being present in the answer is not the same as being the answer

Dermatologist and pharmacy brands take 40% of all brand mentions. Prestige 16%, mass 15%, Korean beauty 12%. Independent and direct-to-consumer brands take 6%.

Share of 78 brands' mentions, grouped

Glossier was named once in 735 answers. Ultra Violette five times, Vacation seven, Summer Fridays thirteen. Estée Lauder was not named at all.

Raw mention counts

Gemini names Beauty of Joseon in 26% of its answers; ChatGPT names Neutrogena in 30% of its answers; Grok names CeraVe in 45%. Each engine has its own shelf.

Per-engine mention rates, 147 answers per engine

Asked the same question three times, ChatGPT names the same brand first 41% of the time. Perplexity, 78%. Grok 66%, Claude 55%, Gemini 47%.

Share of prompts with the same first-named brand across all three runs

On safety questions such as "is sunscreen toxic", the engines named a brand twice in 120 answers, and cited the WHO, the American Academy of Dermatology and the FDA instead.

Myth cluster, 8 prompts

The most cited sources across the engines were NBC News, CNN, Allure, the New York Times and Amazon listings. The review site dermapproved.com was cited more often than the New York Times.

Citation counts, Gemini excluded pending source resolution

Charts

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PNG, 2000px wide. Licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit: "VIBEAU Index, September 2026".

Named vs named first, top sunscreen brands in AI answers

Named vs named firstMention rate against first-mention rate, top brands
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Who gets the shelfShare of mentions by brand group
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Five engines, five shelvesEach engine's leaning below the consensus pick
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Same question, three timesFirst-pick stability by engine
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Where the answers come fromMost cited domains
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VIBEAU Index No. 01, Sunscreen, header image

Header image2000 × 1000, for article leads
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Brands CSV ↓ Sources CSV ↓

Method

How to describe it

Prompts. 49 English shopping prompts across six clusters (texture and wear, sensitive skin, longevity, Korean and Japanese sunscreen, kids and teens, myths and safety). No prompt names a brand.
Engines. ChatGPT (gpt-5), Claude (claude-sonnet-5), Gemini (gemini-3.5-flash), Perplexity (sonar) and Grok (grok-4.7), through each provider's API with web search on where the API supports it, US locale, 26 September 2026. Three runs per prompt per engine, each in a fresh session. 735 answers.
Counting. Answers matched against 102 brands and product lines. Mention rate is the share of answers naming the brand; first-mention rate is the share naming it before any other brand. Sponsored placements excluded; none appeared.
Independence. No brand pays to be in the Index, and no VIBEAU client is moved in it.
Limits. API answers can differ from what a signed-in consumer sees in an app. Google AI Mode has no API and is not included. One category, one month; the Index is not a ranking of brand quality.

Suggested description: "the VIBEAU Index, a monthly study of which brands AI assistants recommend, by category, published by brand intelligence platform VIBEAU".

Contact

Questions, interviews, the full dataset

Vivian Qu, founder of VIBEAU, wrote the Index and can speak to the method, the findings and what they mean for beauty brands.

vivian@vibeau.ai · LinkedIn

Replies within one working day. The full response set (all 735 answers) is available to journalists and researchers on request.

Read the edition →

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How to describe it

Questions, interviews, the full dataset