Vision Insurance: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Who leads the vision insurance category in AI recommendation coverage for October 2026?
• Which brand recorded the largest coverage gain since the August 2026 baseline?

VSP Vision Care remained the coverage leader in October 2026, with valid recommendation coverage of 44.2%, ahead of EyeMed at 41.8%. The gap between the two leaders stands at 2.4 percentage points in October 2026. The largest coverage increase since baseline came from EyeMed, which rose to 41.8% in October 2026 from 34.5% in August 2026, a gain of 7.3 points. The largest coverage decline since baseline was Aetna Vision Preferred, which fell to 7.3% in October 2026 from 8.2% in August 2026. No brand registered a significant movement in the month of October 2026 itself; the three significant risers recorded in the series (Davis Vision, EyeMed, and MetLife Vision) crossed their significance thresholds cumulatively since the August 2026 baseline.

The benchmark produced 409 qualified observations in October 2026, down from 440 in August 2026.

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. All six families were represented in both August and October 2026; September 2026 also carried all six.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many qualified observations does the benchmark include, and how did that count change from August to October 2026?
• What is removed from the raw prompt collection before a vision insurance observation is counted as qualified?

The public benchmark reports on qualified observations after removing irrelevant or off-topic responses from the raw prompt collection. The qualified benchmark observation count was 440 in August 2026 and 409 in October 2026. Brand-level percentages throughout this report use the qualified observation count as the public denominator.

AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which vision insurance brands have the highest presence rate and valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• Why do brands with similar coverage rates still differ so much on top-three and rank-one placement?

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 receives a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommendations.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mentions divided by total mentions.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which vision insurance brands produced significant coverage movement across the three-month series?
• How did EyeMed's coverage and placement metrics change between August and October 2026?
• What happened to Aetna Vision Preferred's recommendation coverage over the same period?

Month over month, EyeMed moved up 3.9 points from September 2026, Davis Vision moved up 3.8 points, and VSP Vision Care moved up 3.5 points, but none of those single-month moves was large enough to register as a significant month-over-month shift. Across the three-month series, three brands crossed their cumulative significance thresholds: EyeMed, Davis Vision, and MetLife Vision.

Largest Increase: EyeMed

EyeMed recorded the largest cumulative gain in valid recommendation coverage, rising to 41.8% in October 2026 from 34.5% in August 2026, an increase of 7.3 points. The brand's raw mention presence rate also rose, reaching 97.8% in October 2026 from 92.5% in August 2026, and its top-three rate climbed to 39.4% in October 2026 from 30.7% in August 2026, a rise of 8.7 points. Its rank-one rate remained low, at 0.7% in October 2026 versus 1.4% in August 2026.

Largest Decline: Aetna Vision Preferred

Aetna Vision Preferred recorded the largest cumulative decline among tracked brands, falling to 7.3% in October 2026 from 8.2% in August 2026, a decrease of 0.9 points. This move is within normal month-to-month variation and the brand is classified as stable. Its placement metrics also sit low: a top-three rate of 3.2% and a rank-one rate of 0.2% in October 2026.

Category Leader: VSP Vision Care

VSP Vision Care held the top position in valid recommendation coverage for October 2026 at 44.2%, up from 40.0% in August 2026. The brand also led on top-three rate at 41.8% in October 2026 and rank-one rate at 38.6% in October 2026, the latter a rise of 7.2 points from 31.4% in August 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do VSP Vision Care and EyeMed differ on top-three and rank-one rates despite similar coverage?
• Which brands hold the strongest first-position recommendation rates in October 2026?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. VSP Vision Care and EyeMed both hold high valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, but their rank-one rates diverge sharply.

Close coverage rates can still hide very different first-position rates, as the comparison between VSP Vision Care at 38.6% rank-one in October 2026 and EyeMed at 0.7% demonstrates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes create vision insurance brand recommendation observations in the October 2026 series?
• Which buyer-intent classes are still absent from the qualified benchmark?

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

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 have the coverage leader and qualified observation count changed across the August, September, and October 2026 measurements?
• Does the three-month record show meaningful movement or only directional change?

New measurements are added to the same report.

VSP Vision Care has held the coverage lead across all three measurements.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence is retained for each vision insurance benchmark observation?
• What should readers and brands avoid inferring from source presence alone?

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.
• It does not measure attributable sales.
• It does not capture every possible AI response.
• It does not measure organic-search ranking.
• It does not measure social mention volume.
• It does not cover private or sponsored channels.
• It does not establish causality from a metric movement alone.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• What does the citation mix suggest about commercial and community sources in vision insurance AI answers?
• Were any tracked insurance brand domains among the top cited domains?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, 5,534 citations were observed across 894 unique domains.

Citations were moderately concentrated, with the top 10 domains accounting for roughly 28% of all citations across 894 unique domains. Retail and optical-provider domains (americasbest.com, targetoptical.com, lenscrafters.com, costco.com) featured prominently, cited across nearly all platform families. No tracked insurance brand's own domain appeared in the top 10. General search, forums, and social platforms (google.com, reddit.com, youtube.com, facebook.com) also shaped the citation environment, indicating a mix of commercial and community sources.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI surfaces present brands and organizations across defined industry verticals. The benchmark measures presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment as distinct signals of AI brand visibility.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Index
• 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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