Assisted Living Facilities: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which assisted living brand leads AI recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How far apart are the leading brands, and did any brand move beyond normal variation this month?

Brookdale Senior Living leads the Assisted Living Facilities benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 19.1%, ahead of Sunrise Senior Living at 15.1%, a gap of 4.0 points. The month was quiet: no tracked brand posted a change beyond normal month-to-month variation, and no brand was classified as a significant riser or significant decliner. The largest cumulative increase belongs to Belmont Village, whose valid recommendation coverage moved from 8.1% in July 2026 to 11.9% in October 2026, a rise of 3.8 points that remains within normal variation. Sunrise Senior Living posted the largest cumulative decline, from 20.1% in July 2026 to 15.1% in October 2026, also within normal variation. Pegasus Senior Living is flagged as a watch item after three consecutive monthly gains — not yet a trend.

The benchmark began with 682 prompt-surface observations in October 2026 and produced 126 qualified observations after qualification. In the baseline month of July 2026, it began with 403 prompt-surface observations and produced 149 qualified observations.

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. Breadth held at six surfaces in every month of the series. August 2026 recorded 113 qualified observations, the lowest of the four months, before counts recovered to 156 in September 2026 and settled at 126 in October 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

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompts qualified for the public benchmark out of the total collected?
• Why is the public denominator smaller than the raw prompt collection?

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 Visibility Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which assisted living brands rank highest in AI recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do presence, recommendation coverage, and top-three placement differ across brands?

This table shows the current-month benchmark view for October 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 Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands gained or lost the most AI recommendation coverage since July 2026?
• Did any of these moves exceed normal month-to-month variation?
• Which brand is flagged as a watch item, and why?

No brand moved beyond normal month-to-month variation on the baseline-to-current measure. Within the single month between September 2026 and October 2026, Atria Senior Living rose to 14.3% from 10.9%, Sunrise Senior Living rose to 15.1% from 11.5%, and Brookdale Senior Living rose to 19.1% from 16.7%.

Largest Increase: Belmont Village

Belmont Village posted the largest cumulative coverage gain, moving from a valid recommendation coverage of 8.1% in July 2026 to 11.9% in October 2026, an increase of 3.8 points within normal month-to-month variation. The brand rose in each of the last two months, reaching 10.3% in September 2026 before 11.9% in October 2026. Top-three placement moved from 3.4% in July 2026 to 7.9% in October 2026, and rank-one placement moved from 1.3% to 4.0% over the same period. Net sentiment of 0.9 is the highest in the category.

Largest Decline: Sunrise Senior Living

Sunrise Senior Living posted the largest cumulative decline, moving from a valid recommendation coverage of 20.1% in July 2026 to 15.1% in October 2026, a drop of 5.0 points within normal month-to-month variation. The brand reached a series low of 8.0% in August 2026, then rose in each of the two months since, to 11.5% in September 2026 and 15.1% in October 2026. Presence rate fell from 63.1% to 36.5% while recommendation coverage recovered. Top-three placement moved from 13.4% to 11.1%, rank-one placement held at 4.0%, and net sentiment moved from 0.6 to 0.7.

Category Leader: Brookdale Senior Living

Brookdale Senior Living leads the benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 19.1%, up from 16.8% in July 2026, a move within normal month-to-month variation. The brand held the top coverage position in each of the three months since August 2026. Presence rate of 63.5% and rank-one rate of 9.5% are both the highest in the category. Net sentiment moved from 0.6 in July 2026 to 0.8 in October 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands convert recommendation placements into first-position results?
• Why do similar top-three rates hide different rank-one outcomes for these brands?

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 carried the same top-three rate of 12.7% in October 2026, but Brookdale converted those placements into first-position results at 9.5% rank-one against Atria's 3.2%. Similar coverage can still hide very different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent class accounts for all qualified observations in October 2026?
• Which buyer-intent classes are not yet represented in the benchmark?

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

The current public series measures Brand Recommendation discovery only. Pricing, value, and head-to-head comparison have no qualified signal in this data.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led AI recommendation coverage in each measurement period?
• What were the largest coverage movements recorded across the series?

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

A stable leader score still followed a change in category leadership.

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.
• It does not measure attributable sales or revenue.
• It does not capture every possible AI response.
• It does not measure organic-search ranking.
• It does not measure social mention volume.
• It does not cover private or sponsored channels.
• It does not establish causality from a metric movement alone.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses in this benchmark?
• How many domains do the ten most-cited sources represent, and what share of citations do they hold?
• Which assisted living brands and third-party platforms appear among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 5,001 citations were observed across 1,309 unique domains. The ten most-cited domains are listed below.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top ten domains together account for roughly a third of all citations. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top ten: ericksonseniorliving.com, sunriseseniorliving.com, and brookdale.com, alongside atriaseniorliving.com at rank ten. Directory and review platforms are also prominent, with aplaceformom.com, seniorly.com, and indeed.com all placing in the top ten, as does the general reference source en.wikipedia.org.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility 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 Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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