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Leading Specialty Retail Brands in AI Search

Benchmarks, the brands AI recommends, and the sources grounding those answers across 4 AI models.

October 2026 edition

Across the six months through October 2026, Home Depot leads AI search visibility in Specialty Retail with a Goodie visibility score of 75.3, ahead of Lowe's (62.6) and Covetrus (42.6). The median score across the 20 ranked brands is 28.1, and a score above 28.7 reaches the top ten. The most-cited source grounding these answers is bing.com at 12.2% of all citations, while brand-owned pages account for just 21.8%.

35k prompts · 2.6m AI answers · 12.2m citations · Goodie AI Visibility Index

Industry Benchmarks

October 2026 · Specialty Retail
What good looks like in this category. Read a brand's own score against these before looking at who is winning.
Median visibility score
28.1
Half of the 20 ranked specialty retail brands score below this. The midpoint, not the average, so a few dominant brands do not distort it.
Score to enter the top 10
28.7
Clearing 28.7 puts a brand in the category top ten. The bar sits 0.6 points above the midpoint, so the leaderboard is closely contested.
Brands named per answer
6.7
A typical answer names seven brands, so the consideration set is wide and a mention is comparatively easy to earn.
Citation mix
  • UGC 1%
  • Editorial 1%
  • Reference 2%
  • Retail 1%
  • Other 95%
Other leads the third-party sources grounding specialty retail answers. Brand-owned citations sit in the next cell and are not counted here. “Other” covers domains we have not classified into a type yet.
Brand-owned citation share
21.8%
Owned content sits below the index-wide average here: third-party sources decide most of these answers.
Index-wide average is 26.8%
Industry sentiment
57/100
Mean tone of mentions across the ranked brands that carry a measured value. Per-brand sentiment sits on each brand profile.
Prompts sampled
35k
Real buyer phrasing, 4 models
AI answers analysed
2.6m
319k in October · ▲ 7.4% vs September
Citations parsed
12.2m
1m in October · ▲ 3.0% vs September
Brands observed
1,657
20 ranked here · 1,637 unranked

Brand Visibility Leaderboard

Brand visibility leaderboard for Specialty Retail, ranked by six-month average AI visibility score
#BrandVisibility scoreShare of voiceModelsΔ vs last monthSentimentMarketsTop cited source
01Home Depot
75.3
11.6%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 1.57113/13hiri.org
02Lowe's
62.6
9.6%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▼ 0.85513/13hiri.org
03Covetrus
42.6
6.5%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.16613/13covetrus.com
04Patterson Veterinary Supply
40.6
6.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot▲ 0.56311/13pattersonvet.com
05Adidas
35.6
5.5%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.44613/13wikipedia.org
06Best Buy
34.8
5.3%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity·7211/13bestbuy.com
07Nike
34.1
5.2%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.74912/13nike.com
08Decathlon
33.0
5.1%AI ModeChatGPTCopilot▼ 0.1579/13wikipedia.org
09MWI Animal Health
32.9
5.0%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.36113/13covetrus.com
10Under Armour
28.7
4.4%AI ModeChatGPTCopilotPerplexity▲ 0.23512/13top10.com
20 ranked · visibility is a six-month average · worldwide ranking requires presence in at least 5 of 13 marketsTop source = most frequent source in answers mentioning the brand · Δ compares Oct with Sep

Most-Cited Domains

The answer supply chain
Most-cited domains in AI answers for Specialty Retail
#DomainCitation shareΔ vs last month
01bing.com
12.2%
—
02hc-kohnan.com
7.3%
—
03rakuten.co.jp
6.2%
▼ 2.3
04electrodepot.fr
5.5%
—
05leparisien.fr
5.0%
▼ 4.9
06google.com
4.9%
▲ 9.5
07efreshli.com
4.7%
—
08next.ae
4.7%
—
09amazon.co.jp
4.5%
—
10klekktic.com
4.5%
—
Top 10 of 2k domains observedΔ compares Oct with Sep, in percentage points

Prompts, Topics & Movers

What's driving this month's answers

Sampled prompts

Prompts sampled for Specialty Retail, with distinct brands named and sources cited
#PromptBrandsSources
01Electronics retailers with strong after sales support90196
02Furniture retailers balancing quality and price66183
03Sporting goods retailers selling authentic brands113174
04Best veterinary medical supply retailers106146
05Which home improvement stores contractors prefer?44127
5 of 35k sampledDistinct brands named & sources cited

Biggest movers

Oct vs Sep
Rising
▲ 3.5
▲ 1.5
Castleryscore 22.6
▲ 0.8
Falling
Home Depotscore 75.3
▼ 1.5
Ace Hardwarescore 24.8
▼ 1.3
Lowe'sscore 62.6
▼ 0.8
19 ranked brands scored in both Sep and OctIndustry avg ±0.7/mo

Global Search Demand

Where this industry's questions originate
5,855,845 searches sampled
Tracked markets for Specialty Retail, by sampled search volume
#CountrySearch volume
01United States4.1M
02United Kingdom380K
03Canada287K
04Australia239K
05France219K
06Japan213K
07Germany200K
08Egypt92K
09Italy78K
10Saudi Arabia32K
11United Arab Emirates19K
12Singapore10K
12 tracked markets

How the Models Differ

Same industry, 4 verdicts
AI Mode
0 of 0 brands visible
01 Home Depot78.1
02 Covetrus77.1
03 MWI Animal Health75.5
04 Best Buy75.4
05 Patterson Veterinary Supply75.0
ChatGPT
0 of 0 brands visible
01 MWI Animal Health73.2
02 DICK'S Sporting Goods73.1
03 Home Depot73.0
04 Under Armour72.8
05 Patterson Veterinary Supply71.6
Copilot
0 of 0 brands visible
01 Jumbo Electronics77.5
02 Under Armour76.1
03 Home Depot76.0
04 Asics75.9
05 Nike73.5
Perplexity
0 of 0 brands visible
01 Under Armour80.5
02 Nike79.5
03 Home Depot79.3
04 Best Buy78.7
05 Adidas78.4
This edition

What Changed This Month

Home Depot leads Specialty Retail this edition with a visibility score of 75.3, ahead of Lowe's at 62.6.

bing.com is the most-cited source grounding specialty retail answers, at roughly 12.2% of citations. Brand-owned pages account for 21.8% — the rest of the answer supply chain runs through third-party sources.

The median visibility score across ranked specialty retail brands is 28.1, and a score above 28.7 reaches the industry top ten.

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Where Does Your Brand Stand in AI Search?

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What you get
  • Visibility score
  • Industry rank
  • Brands ahead of you
  • Model and source gaps
Our Methodology

Our Approach to Gathering AI Visibility Data

We process millions of real prompts across AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity, then track which brands, products, and domains show up in the answers. That's the raw data behind every score in the Index.

Real Intent Capture

This data results from processing millions of real user prompts. We use advanced semantic and agentic processing to categorize them and define intent, filtering out noise to focus on high-value queries.

Global Model Interrogation

We run these prompts across the tracked models and across every market we cover, so each market is scored on its own answers rather than on a global average applied everywhere.

Attribution Mapping

We analyze the generated answers to capture the "Kingmaker" domains: the specific sources models cite most often in the answers that name a brand, so you can see which sources the models lean on where you appear and where you do not.

Three-dimensional logo of Goodie, an end-to-end AI search visibility platform.
FAQ · Specialty Retail

Questions?
We Have
the Answers.

Home Depot currently leads AI search visibility in specialty retail with a Goodie visibility score of 75.3, measured across the tracked AI models.

bing.com is the most-cited source in specialty retail AI answers, grounding roughly 12.2% of citations in this industry.

The median score among ranked specialty retail brands is 28.1. A score above 28.7 places a brand in the industry top ten.

Each edition samples the same tracked prompt set across the models Goodie follows, then ranks brands by how often they are named in those answers.

Monthly. Each edition re-samples the tracked prompt set so month-over-month figures are directly comparable.