Sports Nutrition and Protein Supplements: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which protein supplement brands led AI recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• Which brand had the largest coverage increase or decline since the August baseline?

Optimum Nutrition remained the coverage leader in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 83.0%, down from 84.8% in August 2026. Transparent Labs followed at 82.4%, up from 78.1% in August 2026, leaving a gap of just 0.6 points between the two leaders.

The largest coverage increase since baseline was Transparent Labs, rising 4.3 points in valid recommendation coverage. The largest coverage decline was MuscleTech, falling 4.1 points. No brand moved beyond normal month-to-month variation between September 2026 and October 2026.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 684 qualified observations in August 2026 and 692 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Keyword variants were rolled up into their parent surface families. Valid recommendation shortlist share reached 94.8%, up 5.3 points since baseline.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• Why do brand-level percentages use a smaller denominator than the raw collection volume?
• How many prompt-surface observations qualified for the public benchmark each month?

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 protein and supplement brands had the highest valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How did Optimum Nutrition, Transparent Labs, and Dymatize differ on top-three and rank-one rates?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is named anywhere in the AI answer.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a genuine recommendation shortlist, excluding simple mentions.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended in positions one through three.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the single first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mention tone, scaled to a 0 to 1 range. Neutral mentions do not move this score.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which protein brands gained or lost valid recommendation coverage between August and October 2026?
• What happened to Transparent Labs and MuscleTech across the three measured months?

Largest Increase: Transparent Labs

Transparent Labs rose 4.3 points in valid recommendation coverage, moving up in each of the three months measured. Top-three rate climbed 12.2 points, and rank-one rate rose to 37.0%. The movement narrowed the gap to the category leader to 0.6 points.

Largest Decline: MuscleTech

MuscleTech fell 4.1 points in valid recommendation coverage, declining in each of the three months measured. Supporting metrics moved in the same direction: presence rate fell from 15.8% in August 2026 to 10.1% in October 2026, and rank-one rate fell to 0.0%. Net sentiment held at 0.8 in both months.

Largest Decline: BSN

BSN fell 3.0 points in valid recommendation coverage, declining in both of the last two months. Presence rate dropped from 10.4% in August 2026 to 7.2% in October 2026 and top-three rate fell from 4.7% to 1.9%. Net sentiment was 0.8 in both months.

Category Leader: Optimum Nutrition

Optimum Nutrition led with 83.0% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, down from 84.8% in August 2026 and 83.3% in September 2026. Presence rate moved from 93.3% in August 2026 to 89.6% in October 2026. Top-three rate rose to 75.1%, and rank-one rate rose to 41.6%. The margin over the second brand narrowed from 6.7 points in August 2026 to 0.6 points in October 2026.

The remaining brands held within normal month-to-month variation. Dymatize moved 0.1 point across the series and GNC rose 1.2 points since August 2026. Isopure, Kaged, Legion Athletics, and Muscle Milk each moved less than 3 points across the same period. Only 10 brands are tracked, which limits what can be concluded about the wider category.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands appeared most often in the top three AI recommendations for sports nutrition products?
• How did rank-one rates differ between Optimum Nutrition, Transparent Labs, and Dymatize?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Placement rates reveal where brands sit within the recommendation list.

Close coverage can still hide very different first-position strength: Optimum Nutrition and Transparent Labs both reach 75.1% top-three rates in October 2026, while Dymatize stays just above a 5% rank-one rate despite its 60.1% top-three presence.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in October 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures only the Brand Recommendation class of discovery. Pricing and comparison questions have no public signal in this data, so the benchmark cannot yet answer how brands perform on cost or head-to-head tradeoffs.

Historical Measurement Record

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

A stable leader can still be losing ground: Optimum Nutrition held the top position in all three measurements while its coverage declined from 84.8% to 83.0%.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What information accompanies each prompt-level observation in the benchmark?
• Can a citation in an AI answer be treated as proof that the source caused the 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, sales, or attributable revenue.
• Every possible AI response across all models, versions, and personalization states.
• Organic-search ranking positions.
• Social media mention volume or off-platform conversation.
• Private, gated, or sponsored channels such as brand-owned AI assistants.
• Causality from a metric movement alone; movements are recorded as observations, not attributed outcomes.

Metric movements in this benchmark are observations, not attributable outcomes.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often in AI responses about protein supplements?
• Which supplement retailer or brand domain appeared among the top cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, 6,972 citations were observed pointing to 1,072 unique domains.

The top 10 domains together account for a modest share of all citations, with the remaining 1,062 domains carrying the large majority. One tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10: gnc.com at rank 9 with 210 citations. The mix skews toward commercial and editorial sources, with retailer and marketplace domains sitting alongside news outlets, a review site, a video platform, a health publisher, and a community forum. Google's own domain is the single most-cited source and is cited exclusively by the AI Overviews and AI Mode families.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI and search surfaces discover and recommend brands within a vertical. It is a neutral industry benchmark: every tracked brand is measured on the same prompt set, surface mix, and qualification rules, and all brands are treated on their own terms.

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

The public percentage cannot identify the prompts, competitors, or sources causing the result.

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