Beauty Brands Are Getting Lost in AI Answers, Visibility Study Finds

The finding comes from Front Row, which studied how brands surface in generative AI results using Visium, its proprietary AI visibility platform. The review covered 50 brands and close to 2,000 prompts that produced 26,900 AI answers across several consumer categories. Seven brands and roughly 370 prompts were beauty-specific.

Researchers concentrated on non-branded queries to mimic the way shoppers research products before they have a particular label in mind. Prompts were built from a mix of keyword and search data, the questions brands field from customers, and the agency's knowledge of individual product categories.

Beauty prompts leaned toward concerns and comparisons — among them "What is the best body wash for dry skin?" and "What makeup is safe to wear if I have eczema?" — as well as side-by-side questions such as "What's the difference between shower gel and body wash?" and "What is the difference between blue and purple shampoo for toning?"

Ricky Weiss, senior director of SEO and GEO at Front Row, said the brands that over-index in AI answers tend to own a specific problem and maintain a page that addresses it clearly. For smaller players, he pointed to the specific problems they solve best as the place where the opportunity sits.

The agency's advice is for brands to identify the questions customers are actually asking, then state plainly what their products solve, who they are for and how they are used.