Essential Oil: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which essential oil brand led the October 2026 benchmark, and how large was its lead?
• Which brands posted the largest recommendation coverage declines this month?
• Did any brand record a meaningful coverage increase in October 2026?

Plant Therapy led the Essential Oil benchmark in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 81.5%, down from 82.2% in September 2026 and up from a July 2026 baseline of 76.9%. The gap to the next brand, Edens Garden at 57.4%, stood at 24.1 percentage points.

October 2026 was a month of movement. doTERRA posted the largest coverage decline, falling 15.0 percentage points from July 2026 to October 2026. Young Living recorded the second-largest decline, falling 7.9 percentage points from July 2026 to October 2026. Revive Essential Oils also declined beyond normal variation, falling from 9.7% in July 2026 to 5.0% in October 2026. No brand recorded a coverage increase beyond normal month-to-month variation in October 2026, though Aura Cacia edged up from 30.3% in September 2026 to 34.4% in October 2026 and Vitruvi rose from 5.5% to 7.5% over the same period.

Across the full baseline-to-current series, NOW Foods rose in each of the three months since July 2026, from 33.4% to 35.6%, a cumulative move still within normal variation. Vitruvi rose in each of the two months since August 2026. doTERRA and Revive Essential Oils each declined in all three months since July 2026, and the gap between doTERRA and Plant Therapy widened in every month of the series.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 485 qualified observations in July 2026 and 477 in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the number of canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six families were represented in both July 2026 and October 2026.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Essential Oil

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 Visibility Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which essential oil brands rank highest by valid recommendation coverage?
• Where does the top-three rate diverge from overall recommendation coverage?
• Which brands show weak net sentiment despite being mentioned often?

The table below shows the current-month benchmark view for October 2026, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand receives a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommendations.
• Rank-one rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment measures the balance of positive versus negative mentions, scaled 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 lost the most recommendation coverage since the July 2026 baseline?
• Which brands gained coverage between September and October 2026?
• Did doTERRA and Young Living decline consistently across the measurement series?

Between September 2026 and October 2026, Aura Cacia rose 4.1 percentage points (from 30.3% to 34.4%), Vitruvi rose 2.0 percentage points (from 5.5% to 7.5%), and NOW Foods rose 1.2 percentage points (from 34.4% to 35.6%). doTERRA fell 8.0 percentage points and Young Living fell 7.0 percentage points over the same period.

Largest Increase: Aura Cacia

Aura Cacia recorded the largest coverage increase from September 2026 to October 2026, rising 4.1 percentage points from 30.3% to 34.4%. This move was within normal month-to-month variation. The brand's top-three rate rose from 5.0% in July 2026 to 12.4% in October 2026, a rise of 7.4 percentage points beyond normal variation, at 59 top-three placements in October 2026 versus 24 in July 2026. Rank-one rate edged up from 0.2% to 0.8% over the same period.

Largest Decline: doTERRA

doTERRA's valid recommendation coverage fell from 30.7% in July 2026 to 15.7% in October 2026, a decline of 15.0 percentage points beyond normal month-to-month variation. The brand declined in each of the three months since July 2026. Presence rate fell from 67.8% to 49.7% over the full series, and top-three rate fell from 12.8% to 8.4%, both beyond normal variation. Net sentiment fell from 0.4 in July 2026 to 0.2 in October 2026, with 39 negative mentions in October 2026.

Largest Decline: Young Living

Young Living's valid recommendation coverage fell from 16.7% in July 2026 to 8.8% in October 2026, a decline of 7.9 percentage points beyond normal month-to-month variation. Presence rate fell from 51.3% to 43.0% over the series. Net sentiment fell from 0.2 in July 2026 to 0.0 in October 2026.

Largest Decline: Revive Essential Oils

Revive Essential Oils' valid recommendation coverage fell from 9.7% in July 2026 to 5.0% in October 2026, a decline of 4.7 percentage points beyond normal month-to-month variation, with declines in each of the three months since July 2026. Net sentiment fell from 1.0 in July 2026 to 0.6 in October 2026.

Category Leader: Plant Therapy

Plant Therapy remained the category leader with valid recommendation coverage of 81.5% in October 2026, up from 76.9% in July 2026 but down slightly from 82.2% in September 2026. The gap between Plant Therapy and doTERRA widened from 46.2 percentage points in July 2026 to 65.8 percentage points in October 2026, widening in every month of the series. The gap between Plant Therapy and Edens Garden, the second-place brand, stood at 24.1 percentage points in October 2026.

In stable movement, Edens Garden declined from 62.9% in July 2026 to 57.4% in October 2026, a move within normal variation. Rocky Mountain Oils rose from 46.0% to 47.6% across the same period, NOW Foods rose from 33.4% to 35.6% in a three-month streak of increases, and Vitruvi rose from 5.3% in August 2026 to 7.5% in October 2026 in a two-month streak. Public Goods remained at or near zero coverage.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do top-three and rank-one placement rates differ among the leading brands?
• Can a brand have strong coverage but rarely be recommended first?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The table below compares top-three and rank-one placement rates for the leading brands.

Similar coverage can still hide very different first-position rates: Plant Therapy and Edens Garden were separated by 24.1 points in coverage but by 63.3 points in rank-one rate in October 2026.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• What buyer-intent class do qualified observations currently fall into?
• Which intent categories are not yet measured in the public benchmark?

In October 2026, all qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation class, covering discovery and consideration of essential oil brands.

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

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• How has the recommendation coverage leader changed across the July to October 2026 measurements?
• Which months produced the largest coverage movements in the series?

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

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence is retained in each prompt-level observation?
• Does source presence prove that a citation caused a brand recommendation?

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 or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response across all surfaces and models
• Organic-search ranking positions
• Social media mention volume or sentiment
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from metric movement alone

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains received the most AI citations in October 2026?
• How concentrated were citations among the top 10 domains?
• Which essential oil brand domains appeared among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,661 citations drawn from 1,625 unique domains.

Citations were distributed across a wide field of sources: the top 10 domains accounted for roughly 28% of the total, leaving the remaining citations spread across more than 1,600 other domains. Five tracked brands' own domains appeared in the top 10, including planttherapy.com at rank 4, edensgarden.com at rank 5, rockymountainoils.com at rank 7, youngliving.com at rank 8, and doterra.com at rank 10. General reference and retail platforms dominated the highest ranks, occupying four of the top 10 positions.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands are present and recommended across six major AI/search surface families, using a consistent qualification methodology applied to prompt-level observations each month.

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

Get a Company-Level Authority Index

The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper.

Get my free AI Company Index