Evergreen monthly benchmark — Sep 14
Running Shoes
Sep 14Mention Frequency Trend
Brands ordered by mention count in each run. Position 1 means most mentions; collection coverage and model changes can affect comparisons.
Seven of the ten brands were named by all three engines and not one of them leads everywhere. ASICS takes four of the nine first place slots and Saucony two, with Brooks, HOKA and Nike one each. Nike alone is ranked as high as first and as low as seventh inside the same nine cells. This category agrees almost completely on who belongs and barely at all on the order.
Top Brands by AI Mention Frequency
Mention frequency counts how many times a brand appeared across all AI responses. Numbered comparison slots use mention order, not endorsement or product quality. Unranked mentions still count toward frequency.
Opportunity for Brands
- Only three of the ten brands fall outside the set every engine names.
- On is named twice and ranked eighth on both occasions.
- PUMA appears once and only under the budget prompt, and Altra once in a width recommendation.
- Reach is not the gap in this category, because seven brands already have complete coverage.
- The gap is order, and no brand in the set has secured it.
Cross-Agent Comparison
Earliest recorded brand mentions across prompts for 3 models. Unranked mentions are excluded; these positions are not endorsements.
3 agents · up to 3 brands each
New Balance leads in total mentions (8) but doesn’t appear below. Mention frequency and mention order measure different things.
| Agent | #1 | #2 | #3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| chatgpt | ASICS | Saucony | Brooks |
| claude | HOKA | ASICS | Nike |
| perplexity | Brooks | Saucony | ASICS |
New Balance·8 mentions, outside top 3 for all models | |||
What This Means
- ASICS is the only brand to reach all three engine top threes and it holds a different position in each.
- ChatGPT ranks it first, Claude second behind HOKA, and Perplexity third.
- Perplexity ranges widest with ten distinct brands and Claude narrowest with seven.
- Claude is the only engine to lead with HOKA on a prompt that sets no price.
- Perplexity alone reaches for PUMA and Altra, both outside the seven brands every engine shares.
Why These Brands Win
- Every engine said fit matters more than the brand and told the reader to try shoes on before buying.
- All three steered toward a neutral daily trainer and away from racing shoes at this mileage.
- Two engines quote replacement at roughly three hundred to five hundred miles per pair.
- No engine recommended a stability shoe without a prior diagnosis or a clinician saying so.
- Two engines named a specialty running store as the right place to be fitted.
Frequently Asked Questions
What running shoes does AI recommend most?▾
Which running shoes brand ranks #1 across all AI models?▾
Why does ChatGPT recommend different running shoes than Claude?▾
What running shoes brands are invisible to AI?▾
How we measure this
Each benchmark runs the same standardized prompts across multiple leading AI systems, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. We use consistent, category-specific questions designed to surface genuine product recommendations — not sponsored results.
Responses are parsed to extract brand mentions, rank position, and frequency. We then analyze cross-model agreement, identify which brands consistently appear in top positions, and flag where AI outputs diverge from marketplace trends.
Evergreen categories are benchmarked monthly. Results reflect organic AI behavior at the time of testing. Read the full methodology
How this report was produced
- Evaluation period
- Sep 14
- Cadence
- Monthly
- Prompts evaluated
- 3
- Review status
- No human review recorded
- Models included
- ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity
Full details of how prompts are run, parsed, normalized, and scored are in the methodology, and the platform page explains how the system is built and operated.
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