BrandInsightAI Insights
Health · a live data story

Pain Relief,
according to AI

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

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

The podium

Ibuprofen is the default answer.

Named in 90% of pain relief answers, typically in position 1.9. Paracetamol follows at 72%, Aspirin at 40%.

Paracetamol
72% of answers
Ibuprofen
90% of answers
Aspirin
40% 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
1Ibuprofen 90% 1.9 0%
2Paracetamol 72% 1.6 0%
3Aspirin 40% 3.0 0%
4Well 23% 2.8 0%
5Nurofen 13% 4.4 50%
6Panadol 12% 2.1 0%
7Voltaren 10% 2.3 0%
8Voltarol 10% 2.3 17% 0%
9Celebrex 3% 2.0 0%
10Ibuleve 3% 3.5 0%
11Biofreeze 3% 6.0 0%
12Aleve 2% 1.0 0%
13Anadin 2% 1.0 0%
14Imigran 2% 1.0 0%
15Arcoxia 2% 2.0 0%
What AI wants here

Ibuprofen is named most. That is not the same as being wanted.

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 pain relief, Calpol leads attraction at 120 against Almus at 75, indexed on the category at 100.

Attraction
Calpol120
Almus75
45-point spread · tracks being named 0.48
Affinity
Calpol120
Almus80
40-point spread · tracks being named 0.60
Attachment
Paracetamol121
Rowlands Pharmacy88
33-point spread · tracks being named 0.59
Calpol: Attraction 120, Affinity 120, Attachment 109
Calpol
Complete desire
Boots: Attraction 115, Affinity 117, Attachment 106
Boots
Complete desire
Ibuprofen: Attraction 114, Affinity 116, Attachment 114
Ibuprofen
Complete desire
AttractionAffinityAttachment

Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared. See the full pain relief desire edition →

Who AI trusts here

The referees of pain relief.

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

nhs.uk 67 cites
google.com 28 cites
nice.org.uk 10 cites
nih.gov 10 cites
theindependentpharmacy.co.uk 8 cites
arthritis.org 7 cites
migrainetrust.org 7 cites
arthritis-uk.org 6 cites
medicines.org.uk 6 cites
nhsinform.scot 6 cites
Read is not cited

The citation gap.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Too little read data in this category so far — the weekly runs will fill this in.

Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Ibuprofen90%1.90%
2Paracetamol72%1.60%
3Aspirin40%3.00%
4Well23%2.80%
5Nurofen13%4.450%
6Panadol12%2.10%
7Voltaren10%2.30%
8Voltarol10%2.317%0%
9Celebrex3%2.00%
10Ibuleve3%3.50%
11Biofreeze3%6.00%
12Aleve2%1.00%
13Anadin2%1.00%
14Imigran2%1.00%
15Arcoxia2%2.00%
Which AI you ask

All three models agree: Ibuprofen.

A rare consensus — every model puts Ibuprofen first, and their top-five lists overlap 57%. Winning here means winning everywhere at once.

Claude recommends
Ibuprofen
named in 90% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Ibuprofen
named in 90% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Ibuprofen
named in 90% of its answers

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

Aspirin 25pp
Nurofen 25pp
Paracetamol 20pp
Celebrex 10pp
Voltarol 10pp
Voltaren 10pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
Aspirin35%30%55%25pp
Nurofen5%30%5%25pp
Paracetamol60%75%80%20pp
Celebrex10%0%0%10pp
Voltarol10%15%5%10pp
Voltaren10%15%5%10pp
Well25%25%20%5pp
Panadol10%15%10%5pp
Biofreeze5%5%0%5pp
Arcoxia5%0%0%5pp
What AI reads here

Editorial carry pain relief.

Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Editorial supply the most citations; Comparisons convert best — 93% of the ones models opened were actually cited.

Editorial
62 cited · 10 read only
86% of reads cited
How-to guides
57 cited · 14 read only
80% of reads cited
Other
21 cited · 12 read only
64% of reads cited
Comparisons
14 cited · 1 read only
93% of reads cited
Listicles
9 cited · 2 read only
82% of reads cited
Product pages
9 cited · 1 read only
90% of reads cited
Documentation
8 cited · 6 read only
57% of reads cited
spec-sheet
8 cited · 4 read only
67% of reads cited
The data behind this chart
Page typeCitedRead but not citedConversion
Editorial621086%
How-to guides571480%
Other211264%
Comparisons14193%
Listicles9282%
Product pages9190%
Documentation8657%
spec-sheet8467%
What gets cited

Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.

Of the pain relief pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 22 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 20pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.

Structured data +22pp
Named author +7pp
Comparison table +4pp
Updated this year +4pp
Answer up front +2pp
Specifications -5pp
Hard statistics -20pp
The data behind this chart
FeaturePages withCited %Pages withoutCited %Difference
Structured data18586%8764%+22pp
Named author12083%15276%+7pp
Comparison table4783%22579%+4pp
Updated this year5782%21579%+4pp
Answer up front13481%13878%+2pp
Specifications3675%23680%-5pp
Hard statistics5864%21484%-20pp
Citation readiness

Nurofen builds pages AI can quote.

Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Set against how often those pages are actually cited.

BrandReadinessPages citedPages profiled
Nurofen 29 100% 3

Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.

What the answers answer

The questions pain relief pages have to settle.

Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.

What causes tension headaches?
What is a muscle strain?
When should you see a GP for headaches?
What are cluster headaches?
When should you call 999 or go to A&E for a headache?
How long does it take for a sprain or strain to heal?
How can I ease headaches myself?
How do NSAIDs work?
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 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:25:22 GMT.

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