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Health · a live data story

Opticians & Eyecare,
according to AI

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about opticians & eyecare — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Specsavers owns the conversation.

0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated

The podium

Specsavers is the default answer.

Named in 33% of opticians & eyecare answers, typically in position 1.8. Boots Opticians follows at 27%, Tesco Opticians at 20%.

Boots Opticians
27% of answers
Specsavers
33% of answers
Tesco Opticians
20% of answers
The full board

Every brand AI names, ranked.

Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.

#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Specsavers 33% 1.8 38% 26%
2Boots Opticians 27% 2.8 9% 12%
3Tesco Opticians 20% 3.3 0%
4Vision Express 20% 3.3 7% 18%
5GlassesDirect 8% 2.8 9% 60%
6Asda Opticians 8% 3.8 4% 33%
7SelectSpecs 7% 2.8 3% 100%
8Direct Sight 5% 3.0 4% 75%
9Specscart 5% 3.0 7% 100%
10Ace & Tate 3% 1.0 1%
11Glasses2You 3% 4.5 3% 100%
12Next Day Spex 2% 2.0 1% 100%
13Firmoo 2% 3.0 1%
14Low Cost Glasses Online 2% 3.0 0%
15Optical King 2% 5.0 1% 100%
What AI wants here

Opticians & Eyecare is decided on affinity.

Being named is visibility. Underneath it, every answer describes a brand in three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. In opticians & eyecare, David Clulow leads affinity at 122 against Mister Spex at 79, indexed on the category at 100.

Affinity
David Clulow122
Mister Spex79
43-point spread · tracks being named 0.37
Attraction
Optical Express124
Mister Spex85
39-point spread · tracks being named 0.08
Attachment
Specsavers117
Mister Spex78
39-point spread · tracks being named 0.69
Specsavers: Attraction 110, Affinity 112, Attachment 117
Specsavers
Complete desire
Boots Opticians: Attraction 107, Affinity 115, Attachment 111
Boots Opticians
Complete desire
David Clulow: Attraction 115, Affinity 122, Attachment 98
David Clulow
Quietly trusted
AttractionAffinityAttachment

Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared. See the full opticians & eyecare desire edition →

Who AI trusts here

The referees of opticians & eyecare.

The independent sources AI models cite when answering opticians & eyecare questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.

nhs.uk 22 cites
glassescompared.co.uk 6 cites
reddit.com 6 cites
optometrists.org 5 cites
hse.gov.uk 4 cites
youtube.com 4 cites
eyetestcost.com 3 cites
eyetest.co.uk 3 cites
aoa.org 2 cites
college-optometrists.org 2 cites
Read is not cited

Direct Sight converts reads into citations. Boots Opticians doesn't.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Direct Sight converts 75% of reads; Boots Opticians just 12%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.

Direct Sight · read 4×75%
GlassesDirect · read 5×60%
Asda Opticians · read 3×33%
Specsavers · read 46×26%
Vision Express · read 11×18%
Boots Opticians · read 26×12%
Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Specsavers33%1.838%26%
2Boots Opticians27%2.89%12%
3Tesco Opticians20%3.30%
4Vision Express20%3.37%18%
5GlassesDirect8%2.89%60%
6Asda Opticians8%3.84%33%
7SelectSpecs7%2.83%100%
8Direct Sight5%3.04%75%
9Specscart5%3.07%100%
10Ace & Tate3%1.01%
11Glasses2You3%4.53%100%
12Next Day Spex2%2.01%100%
13Firmoo2%3.01%
14Low Cost Glasses Online2%3.00%
15Optical King2%5.01%100%
Which AI you ask

The models do not agree on who leads.

Ask about opticians & eyecare and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Specsavers, Gemini → Boots Opticians, ChatGPT → Specsavers. Their top-five lists share just 67% of names.

Claude recommends
Specsavers
named in 20% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Boots Opticians
named in 40% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Specsavers
named in 40% of its answers

Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.

Boots Opticians 25pp
Specsavers 20pp
GlassesDirect 15pp
Vision Express 10pp
Tesco Opticians 10pp
Direct Sight 10pp
Specscart 10pp
Ace & Tate 10pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
Boots Opticians15%40%25%25pp
Specsavers20%40%40%20pp
GlassesDirect0%15%10%15pp
Vision Express15%25%20%10pp
Tesco Opticians15%25%20%10pp
Direct Sight10%0%5%10pp
Specscart5%10%0%10pp
Ace & Tate0%10%0%10pp
Asda Opticians10%10%5%5pp
Next Day Spex5%0%0%5pp
Keep exploring

Nineteen more categories.

Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:48:07 GMT.

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