Benchmark Summary

Abbott FreeStyle leads the Healthcare & Medical Devices category with 57.4% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026, down from 61.7% in July 2026. The gap to the next brand, Ascensia CONTOUR at 42.1% in August 2026, stands at 15.3 percentage points.

The largest coverage increase came from Prodigy Diabetes Care, which rose to 2.7% in August 2026 from 0.5% in July 2026. The largest coverage decline was Abbott FreeStyle, which fell to 57.4% in August 2026 from 61.7% in July 2026.

Prodigy Diabetes Care was the only brand whose movement exceeded normal month-to-month variation. All other tracked brands moved within normal variation this month.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 366 qualified observations in August 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

Research Scope and Qualification

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

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio’s analysis of how AI search is recommending Healthcare and Medical Devices.

Current Brand Standings

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• 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 in the top three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mention tone, scaled.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Trividia Health

Trividia Health records a 4.4% presence rate in August 2026, but valid recommendation coverage is 0.3%, with a 0.3% top-three rate, a 0.0% rank-one rate, and net sentiment of 0.1. Its valid recommendation coverage moved from 1.0% in July 2026 to 0.3% in August 2026, a change that remained within normal month-to-month variation.

Abbott FreeStyle records 57.4% valid recommendation coverage, while Trividia Health stands at 0.3%. The more important issue is that Trividia Health's 4.4% presence is converting into valid recommendation shortlist inclusion far less often than the category leader's visibility. The current benchmark does not establish why this gap exists, which makes understanding the mechanism behind the recommendation gap the clearest area requiring attention.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which qualified prompts, AI/search surfaces, and evidence sources are associated with Trividia Health being mentioned but not entering the valid recommendation shortlist, and where are stronger peers being recommended instead?

Largest Increase: Prodigy Diabetes Care

Prodigy Diabetes Care rose to 2.7% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026 from 0.5% in July 2026, a movement of 2.2 percentage points that exceeded normal month-to-month variation. The brand's top-three rate moved to 2.2% in August 2026 from 0.0% in July 2026. Its presence rate reached 3.5% in August 2026 from 1.5% in July 2026. These are small absolute counts: the brand appeared in 10 qualified recommendations in August 2026.

Category Leader: Abbott FreeStyle

Abbott FreeStyle remains the category leader at 57.4% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026, though this is down from 61.7% in July 2026. The brand's presence rate of 91.8% in August 2026 and top-three rate of 49.7% in August 2026 are both the highest in the category.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Ascensia CONTOUR and Abbott FreeStyle illustrate this distinction: Abbott FreeStyle leads on coverage, while Ascensia CONTOUR leads on first-position placement.

Nearly identical coverage rates can hide different first-position rates: Ascensia CONTOUR's rank-one rate of 29.2% in August 2026 is well above Abbott FreeStyle's 7.1% in August 2026, despite Abbott FreeStyle's higher overall coverage.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

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

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 or attributable sales
• Every possible AI response to every possible query
• Organic-search ranking performance
• Social mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index is a neutral industry benchmark tracking how often brands are recommended across six canonical AI/search surface families. The benchmark records the change. It does not, by itself, establish why the change occurred.

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

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