u/Orangelove_3098

Saw a study come out this week that scores 30 of the major DC-metro private schools (Sidwell, GDS, St. Albans, National Cathedral, Landon, Holton-Arms, and about two dozen others) specifically on AI curriculum, not just whether they mention AI in marketing materials, but actual course depth, integration across subjects, and how current the material is.

The gap was bigger than I expected. Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day School were the only two that scored above 77 out of 100. Twelve of the thirty schools scored below 60. Tuition across the group runs $22K to $62K, so it's not purely a resources thing either.

Full disclosure, I work at the PR firm that put this out (5W), so factor that in, but the methodology and full school-by-school scores are public if any of you want to check where a specific school on your shortlist landed. Curious if this is something anyone's actually asking about on tours, or if it's not really on people's radar yet compared to the usual stuff like class size or college placement.

I was curious what AI would say about Kaiser compared to other insurance options.

Some of the answer was pretty accurate, but some parts felt like it missed what makes Kaiser different (the integrated system, referrals, choosing providers, etc.).

Has anyone else tested AI for Kaiser questions? Wondering if it actually reflects people's experiences or just repeats generic insurance info.

random thought but this happened to me recently. i wanted to look into getting something done and instead of googling around or asking friends first, i just asked an ai chatbot what i should even be considering. and it had opinions. strong ones. named actual brands and treatments before i'd looked at a single review site.

feels like that's quietly become step one now, before the reviews, before asking someone who's actually gotten work done, before even finding a place near you. you ask the ai and then work backwards from whatever it told you.

makes me wonder how much of what any of us end up choosing is really "our" choice vs. just whichever brand happened to be the ai's go-to answer that day

anyone else notice this or is it just me?

saw some new research on how ai engines (chatgpt, claude, perplexity, gemini, google ai overviews) answer questions about aesthetic medicine, botox, fillers, body contouring, that world, and one finding stuck with me. a review site (realself) scored higher on ai citation share than basically every med spa chain and device brand out there. when people ask ai "is this safe," a marketplace is answering, not a doctor.

makes me wonder how much of what people read before a consult is coming from a source like that rather than anything clinical.

new research tracking ai citation share (chatgpt, claude, perplexity, gemini, google ai overviews) in u.s. aesthetic medicine found that abbvie/allergan and galderma together control 80% of citation share among drug and device brands.

the category overall is even more concentrated. 25 brands hold 95% of all citation share, while an estimated 11,500 independent med spas split whatever's left.

the researchers frame it as a three-generation shift: first won by location count, then by ad spend, now by whoever gets cited by ai. this is one of the more concentrated categories they've measured in the series so far.

disclosure, this is 5w's research, i'm on the team. dropping the link in the comments for anyone who wants the full ranking.

been seeing some research going around on how ai engines (chatgpt, claude, perplexity, gemini, google ai overviews) answer patient questions in this category, and one number stood out. top 25 brands hold 95% of all ai citation share. that leaves about 11,500 independent med spas and small chains splitting under 5% between them.

makes some sense when you think about how people research now. someone asks "is this safe" and gets pointed to realself, or asks about a treatment and gets a national chain or a drug brand name. if your practice doesn't have a wikipedia entry, structured reviews, or consistent press mentions, ai has basically nothing to cite you with, even if you're the best injector in your market.

curious if other owners here are seeing this show up in new-patient behavior yet, people showing up already having "decided" based on an ai answer before they ever found your actual practice.

disclosure, i work in pr/geo (5w) and we run this research, so take that for what it's worth. not trying to sell anything here, genuinely curious what other owners are seeing.

saw this and figured this sub would appreciate it. new research ran 60+ prompts through chatgpt, claude, perplexity, gemini and google ai overviews asking which platform to use for a store or website. shopify came out on top at 16% citation share, ahead of squarespace (12%), wix (10.5%) and wordpress (9%, despite wordpress running something like 43% of the entire web).

the theory: shopify owns one clean intent ("i want to sell online") so ai has an easy default answer to point to. platforms that try to do everything don't get that same treatment. anyone here notice AI-referral traffic picking up?

Dimensions: Frontier Lab Anchor Density, AI Research Output, AI Curriculum Depth, Founder & Capital Pipeline, Compute & Infrastructure, AI Citation Share (Modeled)

hi. I am a 22 year old female and I was diagnosed with Hashimotos Hypothyroidism when I was 8 years old (and I just got diagnosed with Vasovagal orthostatic hypotension). Since then, I have been on 50mg of Levothyroxine and that is it. I see my endo once a year and every time I go in she says my labs are fine and my thyroid feels fine other than some fullness. The endo always runs T4 FREE and TSH (BH L LMW YH) and numbers come back normal as well. but i just know myself and I know my body and there is definitely more going on. I have seen a rheumatologist that just chalked up my lab results to "yea looks conducive to an auto immune disease", I've asked numerous doctors opinions and that's always their response. Some of my symptoms that I feel like I should not have to be dealing with at my age and the healthy lifestyle I lead:

• Can't lose weight no matter how hard I try (I work out regularly, eat healthy, etc)
• Extreme fatigue (almost always tired no matter how much sleep I get)
• Brain fog
• Bloating/inflammation
• Eyelid puffiness
• Hair loss
• Muscle/joint pain

Any advice would be more than appreciated!! (Advice for: drs to see, meds/supplements to take, what could be wrong)

TL;DR:

22F with Hashimoto’s and new vasovagal orthostatic hypotension; thyroid labs are normal on 50 mcg levothyroxine, but I still have major fatigue, brain fog, weight issues, bloating, puffiness, hair loss, and joint/muscle pain. Looking for advice on what else could be going on and what doctors/tests/treatments to ask about.

Ran a study recently testing how accurate AI models actually are when you ask them basic questions about a company, who's the CEO, what's it worth, is it doing okay. Tested Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Skims, Allbirds, and Vuori.

One in five answers were wrong.

The one that got me: AI is still telling people Allbirds is a normal, healthy, ongoing business. It's not. Allbirds sold off its operating assets in March and is in the middle of being dissolved right now. The model just... doesn't know that happened.

Other stuff it got wrong: named a Ralph Lauren CFO who left the role over a year ago, dropped one of Skims' co-founders from its own answers entirely, had Vuori's store count off by more than half.

Curious if anyone else here has caught AI being confidently wrong about a company, product, or person. What did it get wrong?

Interesting data point from a functional beverages AI visibility index: AI tools seem to surface brands by benefit first, not by raw market size. Celsius, Red Bull, Liquid Death, Olipop, and Poppi show up because they map cleanly to prompts like "clean energy" or "gut health." Curious whether anyone else is seeing benefit-led language outperform brand-led language in AI search?

noticed that whenever I ask ChatGPT or Claude "best multivitamin" or "best greens powder," it never just picks whatever's the most popular. looked into why.

found a study that tested 3,800 supplement questions across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI, Jan-April this year. few things stood out:

biggest seller ≠ most recommended. AG1 reportedly sells the most greens powder out there, but AI ranks it third behind Thorne and Seed.

podcasts matter a lot. brands with heavy presence on stuff like Huberman Lab get recommended almost 3.5x more than similar brands without it.

one-product brands win. AG1, Seed, Armra (basically one flagship product each) get recommended more consistently than brands with a huge catalog.

certifications actually count. NSF Certified for Sport / USP Verified kept coming up as a factor in whether AI even considers a brand trustworthy.

kind of makes me want to double check anything AI recommends to me going forward.

full study here: https://www.5wpr.com/ai-visibility-index/supplements-ai-visibility-index-2026/

anyone else notice AI steering you toward less mainstream brands?

been seeing a lot of "is now the time" posts on here lately so figured i'd drop some actual data i came across.

per AAFPRS's most recent survey, hair restoration treatment volume doubled from 2024 to 2025. not grew, doubled. apparently one of the biggest single year jumps they've ever tracked in any procedure category, not just hair.

a few other numbers that stood out:

67% of men deal with hair loss at some point, 85% by 50, which honestly isn't new information to anyone here, but what's shifting is when guys are doing something about it. a lot of the growth is coming from guys starting preventative treatment in their mid-to-late 20s instead of waiting until their 40s and having way less to work with.

FUE is still the dominant method, something like 58% of the market. global hair transplant market is projected to almost double again by 2031 if the growth holds.

also saw that 92% of facial plastic surgeons now say they regularly treat male patients, versus about two thirds a decade ago, so if anyone's been hesitant because it feels like a "niche" thing to bring up with a surgeon, that's apparently not really the case anymore.

not selling anything, i work in PR and my firm put this research together, just thought this sub specifically would actually care about the real numbers instead of the usual before/after marketing fluff you see everywhere else.

happy to dig up the actual source/methodology in the comments if anyone wants it

so i saw some data this week that i can't stop thinking about. hair transplants among men basically doubled in the last year. like not "grew," doubled. and apparently 92% of facial plastic surgeons say they regularly see male patients now, versus like two thirds a decade ago. male botox is up 400% since 2000.

part of me reads this as just... the natural extension of what we already talk about here. lift weights, dress better, fix your posture, why wouldn't "fix the thing on your head that's stressing you out" be on that same list. a guy quietly balding for 20 years and hating it isn't obviously more "manly" than a guy who just gets it handled and moves on.

but also. some of the reasoning behind this shift is guys staring at themselves on zoom for 8 hours a day and not liking what they see, or feeling like they need an edge to compete at work or in dating. that part feels less like self improvement and more like everyone quietly panicking at the same time and calling it a trend.

not gonna lie, i work in PR and the firm i'm at put this research together, so factor that in however you want. not trying to pitch anyone anything, genuinely just wanted to see what this sub thinks because you guys actually have opinions on this stuff that aren't just "yes get surgery" or "no never."

where's everyone landing on this

ok this has been bugging me for a while. every time i ask chatgpt or google ai something like "best retinol for beginners" it recommends The Ordinary like immediately, and i started wondering why since it's not even close to the most expensive or "prestige" option out there.

also apparently it matters if a brand is at both sephora AND ulta vs just one, brands at both show up more in AI answers. kind of wild honestly

not mad about it bc The Ordinary is genuinely good for the price but it's crazy how much power these AI models have over what gets recommended now. is anyone else asking chatgpt for beauty recs before they even google anything anymore or is it just me