We asked 4 AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini — the questions buyers actually type, about 30 Clinics, healthcare & medical services brands, on 2026-09-12. That is 360 answers. 10 of them were named by no engine at all.
Every figure below comes from those answers, and the query to re-run them is at the bottom of this page.
Which engine actually names brands?
Not equally. Perplexity named a brand in 42.2% of its answers; Claude managed 35.6%. That is a 6.6-point gap between two engines asked identical questions on the same day, which is the whole argument for measuring more than one.
Share of answers naming a brand, by engine (Clinics, healthcare & medical services)
Perplexity ChatGPT Gemini Claude 360 answers measured 2026-09-12.
Do the engines agree on who exists?
17 of the 30 brands were named by all 4 engines, and 10 were named by none of them (Alliance Healthcare, Alto Pharmacy, Ascension, Cherokee, Dickies Medical, HCA Healthcare, Health Mart, L.A.B. (Light Activated Beauty), Landau, NurseLuxe). The rest sit in between, visible to some engines and invisible to others.
The widest split was Mayo Clinic: Perplexity named it in 100% of the answers we asked about it, ChatGPT in 33.3%. That comparison rests on the handful of questions we asked about that one brand, not on the full sample — treat it as a lead to investigate, not a law.
How many engines named each brand
4 of 4 engines 3 of 4 engines 0 of 4 engines Brands, out of 30 measured.
Brand by brand, the disagreement is easier to see than to describe. These are the 15 brands the engines split hardest on — each cell is how often that engine named that brand.
Which engine names which brand
ChatGPT Claude Gemini Perplexity Costco Pharmacy 66.7% 66.7% 33.3% 100% Grey's Anatomy by Barco 100% 33.3% 33.3% 66.7% Johns Hopkins Medicine 66.7% 0% 66.7% 66.7% Kroger Pharmacy 33.3% 66.7% 33.3% 0% Mayo Clinic 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% 100% AmerisourceBergen Corporation 66.7% 33.3% 66.7% 66.7% Cardinal Health, Inc. 66.7% 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% CVS Health 66.7% 66.7% 33.3% 33.3% Express Scripts 66.7% 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% OptumRx 66.7% 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% Rite Aid 66.7% 33.3% 33.3% 66.7% Walmart Pharmacy 33.3% 66.7% 66.7% 66.7% Amazon Pharmacy 66.7% 100% 100% 66.7% Cardinal Health 66.7% 66.7% 100% 100% Figs 66.7% 100% 100% 100% The 15 brands with the widest spread between engines, out of 30 measured.
Named is not the same as recommended
A mention is not an endorsement. Of every mention in this study, 30.5% was the engine's first recommendation, while 35.5% was the brand being offered as an alternative to something else. A brand can look visible and still only ever appear as the runner-up.
What role the brand played when an engine named it
offered as an alternative recommended first listed in a comparison mentioned in passing Share of all mentions in this study.
7 brands were named but never recommended first by any engine: AmerisourceBergen, AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Cardinal Health, Inc., Costco Pharmacy, Kroger Pharmacy, OptumRx, Rite Aid. For those, visibility work is not the problem — positioning is.
What the engines actually said
Scores are a summary. These are the sentences themselves — one from each engine, about a different brand, exactly as written on 2026-09-12.
ChatGPT, on Amazon Pharmacy: "Amazon Pharmacy offers a vast selection of prescription medications, including generics, with competitive pricing. Prime members enjoy free two-day delivery on eligible prescriptions."
Claude, on AmerisourceBergen: "AmerisourceBergen is a leader in drug distribution and also provides consulting in medical business operations and patient care."
Gemini, on Cardinal Health: "Cardinal Health specializes in the distribution of medical products and pharmaceuticals, with a global network and a significant presence in the healthcare industry, serving over 75% of U.S. hospitals."
Perplexity, on Cleveland Clinic: "Based on the sources provided, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Cedars-Sinai, Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Houston Methodist are among the most consistently top-ranked providers nationally."
The engines are not criticising you. They are omitting you.
Of the 141 mentions in this study, 105 were positive in tone and not one was negative. That is 74.5% positive. Reputation management is not the problem here: when an engine has something to say about a brand it is almost always kind, and when it has nothing to say it simply leaves the brand out. The gap to close is absence, not sentiment.
Which sources are the engines reading?
The engines cited beckershospitalreview.com more than any other source (79 citations, 2.5% of all citations in this study). But the long tail is the real story: the top 10 domains together account for only 11.3% of citations. There is no short list of sites to get listed on — the engines are reading widely.
Most-cited sources across every answer
beckershospitalreview.com forbes.com health.usnews.com pedistat.com blueskyscrubs.com drugchannels.net cvs.com healthgrades.com rankings.newsweek.com reddit.com Citations counted across 360 answers. "Engines" column below shows how many of the 4 cited each source.
| Source | Citations | Engines citing it |
|---|---|---|
| beckershospitalreview.com | 79 | 4 of 4 |
| forbes.com | 53 | 4 of 4 |
| health.usnews.com | 32 | 2 of 4 |
| pedistat.com | 31 | 4 of 4 |
| blueskyscrubs.com | 30 | 3 of 4 |
| drugchannels.net | 30 | 4 of 4 |
| cvs.com | 28 | 4 of 4 |
| healthgrades.com | 27 | 3 of 4 |
| rankings.newsweek.com | 27 | 3 of 4 |
| reddit.com | 27 | 2 of 4 |
Who do the engines bring up instead?
These names were never in our sample — the engines volunteered them while answering about someone else. CVS Pharmacy came up against 7 of the 30 brands we measured. If you are in this category, these are the brands you are being compared to whether you like it or not.
Names the engines volunteered, by how many of our brands they appeared against
CVS Pharmacy GoodRx McKesson Medline CVS Kaiser Permanente Healing Hands Massachusetts General Hospital McKesson Corporation Cost Plus Drugs Not part of the sample; named by the engines on their own.
Every brand we measured
Visibility is the share of scored answers in which an engine named the brand. Figs led at 92%; NurseLuxe came last at 0%.
| Brand | Visibility | Answers naming it |
|---|---|---|
| Figs | 92% | 11 of 12 |
| Amazon Pharmacy | 83% | 10 of 12 |
| Cardinal Health | 83% | 10 of 12 |
| Walgreens | 83% | 10 of 12 |
| WonderWink | 75% | 9 of 12 |
| AmerisourceBergen | 67% | 8 of 12 |
| Cleveland Clinic | 67% | 8 of 12 |
| Costco Pharmacy | 67% | 8 of 12 |
| AmerisourceBergen Corporation | 58% | 7 of 12 |
| Grey's Anatomy by Barco | 58% | 7 of 12 |
| Walmart Pharmacy | 58% | 7 of 12 |
| CVS Health | 50% | 6 of 12 |
| Johns Hopkins Medicine | 50% | 6 of 12 |
| Mayo Clinic | 50% | 6 of 12 |
| Rite Aid | 50% | 6 of 12 |
| Cardinal Health, Inc. | 42% | 5 of 12 |
| Express Scripts | 42% | 5 of 12 |
| OptumRx | 42% | 5 of 12 |
| Kroger Pharmacy | 33% | 4 of 12 |
| UCLA Health | 25% | 3 of 12 |
| Alliance Healthcare | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Alto Pharmacy | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Ascension | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Cherokee | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Dickies Medical | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| HCA Healthcare | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Health Mart | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| L.A.B. (Light Activated Beauty) | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| Landau | 0% | 0 of 12 |
| NurseLuxe | 0% | 0 of 12 |
What to do with this
- Measure every engine, not one. The spread between the most and least generous engine in this study was 6.6 points. A check against a single engine tells you about that engine.
- Check the role, not just the mention. 35.5% of mentions here put the brand in the alternative slot. Moving from alternative to first recommendation is a positioning problem, not a visibility one.
- Follow the citations, not the keyword list. The engines quoted a wide spread of sources here; beckershospitalreview.com was the single most cited. Earning a place on the pages an engine already reads is what changes an answer.
- Zero is a starting point, not a verdict. 10 of 30 brands scored zero here. The first mention on any engine is the milestone that proves the sources are being read.
- Do not budget for reputation defence you do not need. 74.5% of mentions here were positive. Spend on being present, not on being liked.
What this does not show
- Each brand was measured on the questions our generator writes for that brand, not on one shared question set, so this is an average of per-brand measurements and not a like-for-like ranking.
- Per-brand splits between engines rest on the few questions asked about that brand, not on the full sample of 30.
- These are measurements taken on 2026-09-12. AI answers change; a score here is a reading on that date, not a permanent property of the brand.
Reproduce this
The raw answers are stored per brand, per engine, per question. The figures above come from:
select "brandName", "stratum", "visibility", "mentionCount" from "StudyResult" where "studyId" = 'cmtyyefq20002l504xf2qvf1h' order by "visibility" desc
Want the same measurement for your own brand? The free check runs this exact pipeline.