Assisted Living Facilities: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Brookdale Senior Living led the Assisted Living Facilities benchmark in September 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 16.7%, ahead of Sunrise Senior Living at 11.5%. Life Care Services (LCS) posted the largest cumulative decline, with valid recommendation coverage falling to 0.6% in September 2026 from 6.0% in July 2026, a drop beyond normal month-to-month variation. Sunrise Senior Living also declined on the same cumulative measure, moving to 11.5% in September 2026 from 20.1% in July 2026, also beyond normal variation. On that baseline-to-current measure, no tracked brand posted a significant coverage increase. Within the single month between August 2026 and September 2026, Belmont Village posted the largest gain among tracked brands, moving to 10.3% in September 2026 from 2.6% in August 2026, a change beyond normal month-to-month variation.

Across the full series, Life Care Services (LCS) declined in each of the two months since July 2026, and Sunrise Senior Living, while up from August 2026, remains well below its July 2026 level. The benchmark began with 403 prompt-surface observations in July 2026 and 687 in September 2026, producing 149 and 156 qualified observations respectively after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth refers to the number of canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. August 2026 also held breadth at six surfaces, while observation counts dipped to 113 before recovering in September 2026.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Assisted Living Facilities

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. AI Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

This table shows the current-month benchmark view for September 2026, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned, regardless of recommendation status.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommendations.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mentions divided by total mentions, shown as a score from -1 to 1.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Belmont Village moved from 2.6% in August 2026 to 10.3% in September 2026, a rise beyond normal month-to-month variation within a single month. Atria Senior Living rose to 10.9% in September 2026 from 6.2% in August 2026, within normal variation.

Largest Decline: Life Care Services (LCS)

Life Care Services (LCS) moved from a valid recommendation coverage of 6.0% in July 2026 to 0.6% in September 2026, a drop beyond normal month-to-month variation. The brand declined in each of the two months since July 2026, reaching 1.8% in August 2026 before falling further. Top-three placement also declined, moving from 4.0% in July 2026 to 0.6% in September 2026. Presence rate moved from 20.8% to 17.3% over the same period. Net sentiment held at 0.4.

Largest Decline: Sunrise Senior Living

Sunrise Senior Living moved from a valid recommendation coverage of 20.1% in July 2026 to 11.5% in September 2026, a drop beyond normal month-to-month variation. Presence rate declined from 63.1% to 38.5% over the same period. The brand remained the benchmark leader in July 2026 and has since been overtaken. Top-three placement moved from 13.4% to 10.9%, and rank-one placement rose from 4.0% to 4.5%. Net sentiment moved from 0.6 to 0.5.

Category Leader: Brookdale Senior Living

Brookdale Senior Living led the benchmark in September 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 16.7%, essentially flat from 16.8% in July 2026, a move within normal month-to-month variation. The brand's presence rate was 64.1% in September 2026, the highest among all tracked brands, and its rank-one rate of 5.8% was also the highest in the category. Net sentiment moved from 0.6 in July 2026 to 0.8 in September 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands, placement patterns are broadly aligned with coverage rankings.

Atria Senior Living and Brookdale Senior Living had identical top-three rates of 13.4% in July 2026, but Brookdale Senior Living converted a larger share of those placements into first-position results, holding a higher rank-one rate in both months.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in both July 2026 and September 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class, which captures discovery and consideration queries.

The current public series measures Brand Recommendation discovery only and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands are recommended across major AI and search surfaces. It is a neutral industry benchmark built from the six canonical AI/search surface families.

• AI Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Authority Value

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