Evergreen monthly benchmark — May 28
Skincare
May 28Rank Trend
How top brands moved week over week. Rank 1 is the top position.
For a late-20s skincare buyer, AI routes to La Roche-Posay and CeraVe as the twin pillars - tied at 12 mentions And splitting the #1 slot two-to-two (La Roche-Posay for ChatGPT and Gemini, CeraVe for Claude and Perplexity) - with EltaMD for sunscreen and SkinCeuticals as the splurge. There is no single category winner this run. Below the top two, a brand is effectively invisible unless it owns a narrow slot (sunscreen, budget actives, K-beauty) in a specific model.
Top Brands by AI Mention Frequency
Mention frequency counts how many times a brand appeared across all AI responses. This differs from top-pick rank, which reflects each model’s #1 choice.
Opportunity for Brands
- Skincare is the most fragmented and contestable category tracked - the long tail of single-model brands is larger than any other category.
- Meaning many real brands surface in exactly one engine.
- K-beauty is almost entirely Gemini-only (Beauty of Joseon), and indie/DTC actives brands (Maelove, Timeless, Naturium.
- Dieux, The Inkey List, TruSkin) cluster in one or two models with no cross-model consensus.
- absent given retail presence: Cetaphil, Olay (only one mention), Garnier, Pond's, Drunk Elephant, Glossier, Kiehl's, Tatcha, and most prestige-department-store brands.
- No prestige or masstige brand cracks the dermatologist-recommended core, which is entirely drugstore and medical-grade.
Cross-Agent Comparison
How 4 AI models rank the same category. Hover a brand to trace it across models.
4 agents · top 3 each
| Agent | #1 | #2 | #3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| chatgpt | La Roche-Posay | CeraVe | EltaMD |
| claude | CeraVe | La Roche-Posay | TruSkin |
| gemini | La Roche-Posay | CeraVe | Youth To The People |
| perplexity | CeraVe | La Roche-Posay | Vanicream |
What This Means
- All four models anchor on La Roche-Posay and CeraVe but split on which leads.
- ChatGPT (commerce-formatted, price-tagged SKU lists) and Gemini (expansive, trend-aware) both put La Roche-Posay #1.
- Claude (product-led, routine-building around CeraVe and Differin, uniquely surfacing Olay and ~$6 The Ordinary retinol) And Perplexity (authority-citation-driven, widest legacy set including Aveeno, Eucerin, Bioderma) both put CeraVe #1.
- Gemini uniquely surfaces K-beauty (Beauty of Joseon) and indie brands (Maelove, Naturium, Dieux.
- Youth To The People, The Inkey List); Perplexity surfaces the broadest dermatologist-authority set.
- The two brands are separated by razor-thin aggregate margins - they tie on total mentions and trade the #1 slot two-for-two.
Why These Brands Win
- The brands AI favors share dermatologist-developed positioning, ceramide or barrier-repair formulation, fragrance-free gentle profiles, and wide US drugstore availability.
- Every model converges on the same routine architecture - gentle cleanser, vitamin C (AM), retinol/retinoid (PM).
- And SPF as the single most-emphasized anti-aging step - and recommends introducing one active at a time.
- CeraVe owns affordable barrier basics, La Roche-Posay the sensitive-skin clinical-but-accessible slot, EltaMD the acne-safe sunscreen slot, SkinCeuticals the splurge antioxidant slot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What skincare does AI recommend most?▾
Which skincare brand ranks #1 across all AI models?▾
Why does ChatGPT recommend different skincare than Claude?▾
What skincare 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
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Conducted personally by Robert Hu.
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