Seasonal weekly benchmark — May 30
Sunscreen
May 30Rank Trend
How top brands moved week over week. Rank 1 is the top position.
For an active outdoor family buyer, AI consolidates around La Roche-Posay (face/premium), Blue Lizard (mineral-sport), EltaMD (Claude's derm pick). And Neutrogena (active spray and budget), with the two-product face-plus-body wardrobe as the cross-model consensus. A brand outside that core surfaces only by owning a specific slot (Supergoop premium-lifestyle, Banana Boat budget-family, SolRX extreme-water-resistance). Mineral and reef-safe positioning is the entry ticket for the family angle.
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.
Dropped this week
Opportunity for Brands
- Australian/SPF-50+ mineral brands beyond Blue Lizard and Thinksport (Ultra Violette, We Are Feel Good Inc, Naked Sundays) are absent despite category momentum.
- Reef-safe positioning brands (Stream2Sea, Raw Elements, All Good) do not surface.
- Tinted SPF beyond Supergoop and CeraVe (ILIA, Saie, Tower 28) is missing.
- Sport-specific brands beyond EltaMD UV Sport and SolRX are thin.
- Spray sunscreens remain underrepresented despite reapplication being the single most-cited problem across every model.
- The Gemini P3 generation failure is itself a finding: free-tier model reliability degrades the recommendation surface.
- The same pattern seen with Perplexity paywall truncation in adjacent runs.
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 | Blue Lizard | Supergoop | Banana Boat |
| claude | EltaMD | Banana Boat | Neutrogena |
| gemini | Supergoop | Neutrogena | La Roche-Posay |
| perplexity | La Roche-Posay | Trader Joes | Summer Fridays |
What This Means
- The four models split their aggregate #1 four ways with zero overlap: ChatGPT #1 Blue Lizard, Claude #1 EltaMD.
- Gemini #1 Supergoop, Perplexity #1 La Roche-Posay - the most divergent top-pick spread of any category this cycle.
- ChatGPT leads hardest into Blue Lizard and mineral-sport framing, surfacing the broadest drugstore set (Coppertone, Eucerin, Sun Bum) and pricing every SKU.
- Claude is the only model to top-pick EltaMD, leaning dermatologist-authority plus the spray-for-reapplication angle (Neutrogena Sport).
- Gemini top-picks Supergoop and uniquely surfaces K-beauty and dupe culture (Biore, Trader Joes, elf, Innisfree) - note Gemini's #1 is computed from P1 And P2 only, because its P3 comparison prompt failed to generate on the free tier.
- Perplexity top-picks La Roche-Posay and is the most clinical and product-specific, uniquely surfacing Summer Fridays.
- Murad, SolRX (8-hour water resistance), Hawaiian Tropic, and the under-$20 facial set (CeraVe, Cetaphil, Differin).
- Neutrogena is the overall mention leader (8) without being any model's #1 - the classic high-volume, never-top-picked profile.
Why These Brands Win
- The brands AI favors share broad-spectrum SPF 50, 80-minute water resistance, no-eye-sting active formulation, mineral (zinc oxide) or hybrid filtration for the sensitive/family angle.
- And a named hero SKU (Blue Lizard Sport Mineral, EltaMD UV Sport, La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk).
- Every model frames reapplication as more important than SPF number and recommends a sport/water-resistant body product plus a lightweight facial SPF.
- Mineral-and-reef-safe positioning is the recurring trust signal for the family-with-kids buyer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What sunscreen does AI recommend most?▾
Which sunscreen brand ranks #1 across all AI models?▾
Why does ChatGPT recommend different sunscreen than Claude?▾
What sunscreen 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.
Seasonal categories are benchmarked weekly during active periods. 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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