BrandInsightAI Insights
Pets · a live data story

Pet Care,
according to AI

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about pet care — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Pets at Home owns the conversation.

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

The podium

Pets at Home is the default answer.

Named in 10% of pet care answers, typically in position 2.0. Purina follows at 10%, Zooplus at 10%.

Purina
10% of answers
Pets at Home
10% of answers
Zooplus
10% 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
1Pets at Home 10% 2.0 10% 100%
2Purina 10% 2.2 3% 20%
3Zooplus 10% 2.3 10% 15%
4Harringtons 10% 2.5 3% —
5Tesco 10% 2.8 10% 67%
6Butternut Box 7% 1.8 0% —
7Tails.com 7% 2.0 0% 0%
8Royal Canin 7% 2.3 7% 15%
9PetShop.co.uk 7% 3.0 7% —
10Skinner's 7% 4.3 7% 29%
11Oneisall 5% 1.3 3% 100%
12Wahl 5% 1.7 0% 0%
13VioVET 5% 3.0 10% —
14Wagg 5% 3.7 0% —
15Aldi 5% 4.3 0% —
What AI wants here

Pets at Home is the pet care brand AI wants most.

Being named is visibility. Underneath it, asked to rate each brand directly, the AI assistants judge it three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. They put 39% of the 41 brands rated above indifference. Pets at Home leads the brands the answers name, at 78% of maximum Desire. On attachment, the most divided driver, Pets at Home indexes 133 against Oneisall at 68, on a category average of 100.

Attachment
Pets at Home133
Oneisall68
65-point spread
Attraction
Royal Canin123
Oneisall76
47-point spread
Affinity
Burns Pet Nutrition121
Oneisall74
47-point spread
Pets at Home: Attraction 122, Affinity 114, Attachment 133
Pets at Home
Above indifference · Ahead on all three
Royal Canin: Attraction 123, Affinity 120, Attachment 123
Royal Canin
Above indifference · Ahead on all three
Butternut Box: Attraction 122, Affinity 116, Attachment 122
Butternut Box
Above indifference · Ahead on all three
AttractionAffinityAttachment

Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared (84 / 92 / 100 / 108 / 116). Above indifference means Desire above two-thirds of its maximum. See the full pet care desire edition →

What AI searched for first

Before it answers, it goes looking for Butternut Box.

An assistant does not answer from memory alone. It runs its own web searches first, and whoever it searches for is the shortlist it then chooses from. Across 65 searches in pet care, Butternut Box is named in 11% of the ones that name a brand at all. ChatGPT Web, Copilot do not report their searches, so these shares are measured against the ones that do.

Butternut Box 11%
Fetch 11%
Groomers 11%
Jollyes 11%
Pets at Home 11%
Purina 11%
Claude
Searches per question1
Names a brand0%
Names a year31%
Goes to a site0%
Gemini
Searches per question1.7
Names a brand3%
Names a year3%
Goes to a site0%
ChatGPT
Searches per question1.1
Names a brand16%
Names a year26%
Goes to a site16%
UK puppy sensitive stomach food veterinary advice complete puppy food sensitive digestion Royal Canin Purina Pro Plan Hill's official
ChatGPT
UK pet food subscription boxes dog cat official prices Butternut Box tails Republic of Cats KatKin 2026
ChatGPT
UK veterinary advice damaged chewed dog toys discard repair safety
ChatGPT
dog food label regulations UK ingredients analytical constituents
Gemini

These are the assistants' own searches, read from their answers — not what anyone typed into a search engine.

Who AI trusts here

The referees of pet care.

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

rspca.org.uk 12 cites
pdsa.org.uk 9 cites
smartbark.co.uk 8 cites
ukpetfood.org 6 cites
bluecross.org.uk 5 cites
gov.uk 5 cites
reddit.com 4 cites
youtube.com 4 cites
dogster.com 3 cites
furra.co.uk 3 cites
Read is not cited

Pets at Home converts reads into citations. Wahl doesn't.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Pets at Home converts 100% of reads; Wahl just 0%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.

Pets at Home · read 3×100%
Tesco · read 3×67%
Skinner's · read 7×29%
Purina · read 5×20%
Royal Canin · read 13×15%
Zooplus · read 20×15%
Wahl · read 3×0%
Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Pets at Home10%2.010%100%
2Purina10%2.23%20%
3Zooplus10%2.310%15%
4Harringtons10%2.53%—
5Tesco10%2.810%67%
6Butternut Box7%1.80%—
7Tails.com7%2.00%0%
8Royal Canin7%2.37%15%
9PetShop.co.uk7%3.07%—
10Skinner's7%4.37%29%
11Oneisall5%1.33%100%
12Wahl5%1.70%0%
13VioVET5%3.010%—
14Wagg5%3.70%—
15Aldi5%4.30%—
Which AI you ask

Three models. Three different answers.

Ask about pet care and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Tesco, Gemini → Pets at Home, ChatGPT → Zooplus. Their top-five lists share just 11% of names.

Claude recommends
Tesco
named in 10% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Pets at Home
named in 15% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Zooplus
named in 15% of its answers

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

VioVET 15pp
Zooplus 10pp
Pets at Home 10pp
Purina 10pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
VioVET0%15%0%15pp
Zooplus5%10%15%10pp
Pets at Home5%15%10%10pp
Purina5%15%10%10pp
Butcher's5%0%0%5pp
Butternut Box5%10%5%5pp
Groomers5%5%0%5pp
Pure Pet Food5%5%0%5pp
PetShop.co.uk5%10%5%5pp
YuMOVE5%5%0%5pp
What AI reads here

Editorial carry pet care.

Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Editorial supply the most citations; How-to guides convert best — 89% of the ones models opened were actually cited.

Editorial
50 cited · 10 read only
83% of reads cited
How-to guides
47 cited · 6 read only
89% of reads cited
category-page
29 cited · 5 read only
85% of reads cited
Product pages
26 cited · 9 read only
74% of reads cited
Comparisons
21 cited · 3 read only
88% of reads cited
Other
17 cited · 6 read only
74% of reads cited
Listicles
9 cited · 2 read only
82% of reads cited
Community threads
7 cited · 1 read only
88% of reads cited
The data behind this chart
Page typeCitedRead but not citedConversion
Editorial501083%
How-to guides47689%
category-page29585%
Product pages26974%
Comparisons21388%
Other17674%
Listicles9282%
Community threads7188%
What gets cited

Named author is what separates cited from ignored.

Of the pet care pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Named author is worth -0 percentage points; comparison table pages fare 27pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.

Named author -0pp
Structured data -8pp
Answer up front -13pp
Specifications -14pp
Updated this year -15pp
Hard statistics -16pp
Comparison table -27pp
The data behind this chart
FeaturePages withCited %Pages withoutCited %Difference
Named author12481%15981%-0pp
Structured data19478%8987%-8pp
Answer up front11273%17186%-13pp
Specifications3969%24483%-14pp
Updated this year8571%19885%-15pp
Hard statistics8569%19886%-16pp
Comparison table7862%20588%-27pp
Citation readiness

Burns Pet Nutrition 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. Burns Pet Nutrition is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.

BrandReadinessPages citedPages profiled
Burns Pet Nutrition 46 7% 14
Purina 39 2% 109
Tails.com 38 67% 3
James Wellbeloved 33 20% 5
VioVET 31 10% 10
Hyperdrug 31 25% 4
Harringtons 28 25% 4
Wahl 25 0% 3
Butternut Box 24 9% 11
Animed Direct 23 17% 6

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 pet care 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.

Can you use human toothpaste on dogs?
How much does Harringtons Complete Dry Dog Food cost?
How do I measure my dog for a crate?
When should I start brushing my dog's teeth?
Is expensive dog food better for your dog than cheap dog food?
What is the difference between core and non-core vaccines?
Is expensive dog food better?
What diseases do puppy vaccinations protect against?
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 Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:13:41 GMT.

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