Sleep and Stress Supplements: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand leads the Sleep and Stress Supplements category by recommendation coverage in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands declined significantly in October 2026, and did the benchmark produce more or fewer qualified observations?

Thorne led the Sleep and Stress Supplements category in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 94.2%, ahead of Nature Made at 85.4%, a gap of 8.8 points. No brand registered a significant coverage increase in October 2026. Nordic Naturals recorded the largest coverage decline in the category, moving from 45.1% in August 2026 to 31.7% in October 2026, a change beyond normal month-to-month variation. Pure Encapsulations also declined significantly, from 81.4% in August 2026 to 72.9% in October 2026, and HUM Nutrition declined from 9.1% to 4.9% over the same period. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 408 qualified observations in August 2026 and 568 in October 2026 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. The six families are ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. September 2026 qualified observations stood at 535.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Sleep and Stress Supplements

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The following table shows how observations were filtered across research stages.

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 supplement brands have the highest valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do the leaders differ on top-three and rank-one recommendation rates?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations in which a brand is mentioned at all. Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations in which a brand receives a clear recommendation. Top-three rate is the share where a brand appears among the top three recommended options. Rank-one rate is the share where a brand is the single first recommendation. Net sentiment is the balance of positive over negative mentions. 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 between August and October 2026?
• Did any supplement brand register a significant coverage increase in October 2026?

Largest Decline: Nordic Naturals

Nordic Naturals recorded the steepest coverage decline across the series, moving from 45.1% in August 2026 to 31.7% in October 2026, a change beyond normal month-to-month variation. The decline extended to the immediate prior month, falling from 39.1% in September 2026 to 31.7% in October 2026, also beyond normal variation, and the brand declined in each of the two months since August 2026. Presence rate followed a similar pattern, from 47.5% in August 2026 to 35.2% in October 2026. Top-three rate moved in the opposite direction, rising from 6.9% in August 2026 to 11.3% in October 2026.

Largest Decline: Pure Encapsulations

Pure Encapsulations moved from 81.4% in August 2026 to 72.9% in October 2026, a decline beyond normal variation, with coverage falling in both months since baseline. Presence rate fell from 84.8% in August 2026 to 76.1% in October 2026. The brand's rank-one rate moved in the opposite direction, rising from 7.8% in August 2026 to 10.4% in October 2026.

Largest Decline: HUM Nutrition

HUM Nutrition moved from 9.1% in August 2026 to 4.9% in October 2026, a decline beyond normal variation, and declined in each of the two months since baseline. Presence rate fell from 9.3% in August 2026 to 5.3% in October 2026. Top-three rate held near 1% across the series, from 1.0% in August 2026 to 0.9% in October 2026, from a small absolute base.

Category Leader: Thorne

Thorne held the highest valid recommendation coverage in the category at 94.2% in October 2026, up from 93.4% in August 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation. The brand's top-three rate was 87.3% in October 2026, down from 88.2% in August 2026, while its rank-one rate fell from 60.8% in August 2026 to 46.7% in October 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the leading brands differ in top-three and rank-one placement rates?
• Can two brands have similar coverage but very different rank-one rates?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The following table shows placement rates for the leading brands.

Close coverage can still hide very different first-position rates. Thorne and Nature Made recorded coverage of 94.2% and 85.4% in October 2026, yet their rank-one rates stood at 46.7% and 20.8%.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified observations?
• Why do pricing, value, and multi-brand comparison classes show zero qualified observations?

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

The current public series measures only brand recommendation and cannot answer pricing or comparison questions.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Has the coverage leader changed across the August, September, and October 2026 measurements?
• Which measurement period recorded the largest coverage movement?

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

Thorne has held the coverage lead across all three measurements, while the largest single movement shifted to Nordic Naturals in October.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses in this measurement period?
• Are citations concentrated among a few sources, or broadly distributed?
• Did any tracked brand's own domain appear among the top 10 cited domains?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 7,255 citations were observed across 1,148 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated at the top: the leading domain, healthline.com, accounts for 6.4% of citations, and the top 10 domains together hold roughly 34% of the 7,255 citations observed. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10. Health and medical publishers dominate the list, with healthline.com, medicalnewstoday.com, health.usnews.com, and health.yahoo.com all present, alongside retail and reference sources such as amazon.com, google.com, and consumerlab.com, and community and video sources including reddit.com and youtube.com.

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, not 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 Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI and search surfaces discover and recommend brands within a category. It is built from prompt-level observations across six canonical AI 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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