Invisible Braces: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which invisible braces brand leads the October 2026 benchmark, and by how much?
• Which brands recorded the largest recommendation coverage increase and decline?

ALIGNERCO leads the Invisible Braces benchmark in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 40.9%, ahead of Invisalign (Align Technology) at 35.9%, a gap of 5.0 percentage points. The largest coverage increase came from ClearCorrect, which rose to 26.2% in October 2026 from 14.2% in July 2026. The largest coverage decline came from Smileie, which fell to 9.9% in October 2026 from 19.8% in July 2026.

The current month was mixed, with no brand movement reaching beyond normal month-to-month variation. After a volatile middle of the series, several brands moved back up from September 2026 lows while remaining well below their July 2026 starting points. ClearCorrect rose in each of the three months since July 2026, and Spark Aligners and SureSmile (Dentsply Sirona) each rose in the last two months. Smileie declined in each of the last two months.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 362 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the number of canonical AI surface families (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode) with at least one qualified observation. August 2026 recorded 314 qualified observations and September 2026 recorded 380, both at six qualified surface families.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many prompt-surface observations qualified for the public invisible braces benchmark?
• Why is the qualified benchmark smaller than the raw 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. See the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the invisible braces brands rank by valid recommendation coverage?
• Which brand is mentioned most often, and which brand is recommended most often?
• How should presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, and rank-one rate be read in these standings?

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned. Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand receives a valid recommendation. Top-three rate is the share where the brand appears among the top three recommendations. Rank-one rate is the share where the brand is the first recommendation. Net sentiment measures the balance of positive versus negative brand mentions.

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 valid recommendation coverage since the July 2026 baseline?
• Did the category leader ALIGNERCO lose ground to ClearCorrect over the series?
• How did Smileie's recommendation coverage change across the measurement period?

Largest Increase: ClearCorrect

ClearCorrect recorded the largest coverage increase in the series, with valid recommendation coverage rising from 14.2% in July 2026 to 26.2% in October 2026, beyond normal month-to-month variation, and rising in each of the three months since July 2026. The brand's presence rate rose from 34.0% in July 2026 to 50.3% in October 2026 over the same period. Its top-three rate rose from 6.0% to 24.0%, and its rank-one rate rose from 0.2% to 1.7%.

Largest Decline: Smileie

Smileie recorded the largest coverage decline in the series, with valid recommendation coverage falling from 19.8% in July 2026 to 9.9% in October 2026, beyond normal month-to-month variation, and declining in each of the last two months. The brand's presence rate fell from 31.4% in July 2026 to 26.0% in October 2026 over the same period. Its top-three rate fell from 11.8% to 8.0%.

Category Leader: ALIGNERCO

ALIGNERCO continued to lead the benchmark with valid recommendation coverage of 40.9% in October 2026, down from 46.7% in July 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation. The brand's top-three rate fell from 26.9% in July 2026 to 24.6% in October 2026, and its rank-one rate fell from 15.0% to 13.8% over the same period. ALIGNERCO's lead over ClearCorrect on valid recommendation coverage narrowed from 32.5 points in July 2026 to 14.7 points in October 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which invisible braces brands appear most often in the top three recommendations?
• Why can ClearCorrect's top-three rate nearly match ALIGNERCO while its rank-one rate stays far lower?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Placement rates reveal how often a brand appears at the top of the recommendation list.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates, as ClearCorrect now nearly matches ALIGNERCO on top-three rate while holding a rank-one rate more than ten points below it.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in the baseline and current months fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing or comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led recommendation coverage in each month of the benchmark?
• Does the four-month record show a clear trend or only month-to-month variation?

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.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses for invisible braces?
• How concentrated are citations, and which brand domains appear among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 7,167 citations were observed across 1,875 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top ten domains together account for a modest share of the 7,167 total citations across 1,875 unique domains. Four tracked brands' own domains appear in the top ten, with alignerco.com the most-cited brand domain at rank 2. The list mixes general search and video properties, community discussion sites, news and review publishers, and a number of official brand sites, with no single source type dominating.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index is a neutral, audited industry benchmark tracking how often brands appear in AI-generated answers and recommendations across six canonical AI/search surface families. Research links:

• 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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