Public Goods AI Market Strategy Report - Essential Oil

Answer Capsule

Public Goods holds negligible recommendation-stage visibility in the essential oil category, appearing in just 1 of 511 qualified observations in September 2026. The brand's 0.2% valid recommendation coverage places it at the bottom of the tracked competitive set, with no top-three or rank-one placements recorded. Its single mention carried positive framing, but the absence of any meaningful recommendation footprint means the brand is effectively invisible when AI systems guide essential oil purchase decisions. The clearest opportunity lies in building a foundational public evidence layer that gives AI systems a reason to retrieve, evaluate, and recommend the brand at all.

Who This Report Is For

This report is for marketing, brand, and ecommerce leaders at Public Goods evaluating whether the brand registers in AI-generated essential oil recommendations and what it would take to become a visible option in AI-led discovery.

Report Card

Executive Summary

Public Goods is functionally absent from AI-generated essential oil recommendations. The September 2026 LLM Authority Index benchmark shows the brand appearing in just 1 of 511 qualified observations, a 0.2% presence rate that places it last among the ten tracked brands. That single mention was positive in framing, but it did not convert into a valid recommendation, a top-three placement, or a rank-one position.

The brand's strongest cluster signal is essentially nonexistent. All qualified observations in the September benchmark fell into the Brand Recommendation cluster, which captures discovery and consideration prompts asking which essential oil brand to choose. Public Goods registered no meaningful activity in that cluster, meaning AI systems are not surfacing the brand when buyers ask for recommendations.

The strongest platform signal for Public Goods came from Google AI Overviews, where the brand's single mention appeared. Every other tracked platform, including ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Mode, returned zero mentions for the brand across the full observation set.

The clearest gap is structural rather than performance-based. Public Goods is not being mentioned, not being compared, and not being recommended. The brand has no recommendation footprint to correct, which points to an absence of retrievable public evidence rather than a framing problem. Until AI systems can find consistent, credible information about Public Goods as an essential oil option, the brand will remain outside the consideration set entirely.

What Public Goods Is Winning

Questions This Section Answers

• What positive signal did Public Goods register in the essential oil category?
• Why should the brand's perfect sentiment score not be read as competitive strength?

Public Goods has one narrow but genuine positive signal in the September 2026 benchmark. The brand's single mention carried positive framing, producing a net sentiment score of 1.0. No negative mentions were recorded, and the one observation that surfaced the brand described it favorably.

That is the full extent of the evidence-backed wins available. The brand recorded no valid recommendations, no top-three placements, no rank-one positions, and no top-ten placements. Its presence rate of 0.2% means Public Goods appeared in fewer than one in every two hundred qualified observations. The positive sentiment is real but statistically insignificant, and it should not be interpreted as a foundation for competitive positioning.

Where Public Goods Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Questions This Section Answers

• How does Public Goods' absence compare with the visibility of the category leaders?
• Why does the brand show no competitive displacement pattern?

Public Goods is absent from the AI recommendation conversation in essential oils, and that absence is consistent across nearly every tracked surface. The brand registered zero mentions on ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Mode. Only Google AI Overviews surfaced the brand, and it did so exactly once.

The comparison to the category leader makes the gap concrete. Plant Therapy appeared in 92.4% of qualified observations and received valid recommendations in 82.2% of them. Edens Garden, the second-place brand, held 67.5% presence and 60.5% valid recommendation coverage. Public Goods, by contrast, was present in 0.2% of observations and received valid recommendations in 0.2%, a single observation that did not carry recommendation weight.

The brand also shows no competitive displacement pattern because it is not present enough to be displaced. Brands like doTERRA and Young Living appear frequently but suffer from negative framing and weak recommendation conversion. Public Goods does not have that problem. It has the more fundamental problem of not appearing at all, which means AI systems are not retrieving the brand as a candidate option in essential oil discovery prompts.

Biggest Opportunity

Questions This Section Answers

• Why is Public Goods' problem a discovery issue rather than a recommendation issue?
• What kind of evidence layer would give AI systems a reason to surface the brand?

The single clearest opportunity for Public Goods is to establish a retrievable public evidence layer that positions the brand as a legitimate essential oil option. The benchmark data suggests the brand is not being rejected or framed negatively; it is simply not being found. AI systems need consistent, credible, and accessible sources that describe what Public Goods offers in essential oils, how its products compare to established brands, and why a buyer might consider it.

This is a discovery problem before it is a recommendation problem. Public Goods must first appear in AI answers as a mention, then as a valid recommendation, and only then as a top-three or rank-one choice. Building owned content, third-party coverage, and comparison-ready material that AI systems can retrieve would give the brand a path from total invisibility to at least being part of the consideration conversation.

Competitive Landscape

Questions This Section Answers

• Where does Public Goods rank against the tracked competitive set by top-three and rank-one placement?
• What does the brand's lack of a rank-eligible recommendation mean for its average position?

Plant Therapy holds dominant recommendation-stage strength in the essential oil category, with Edens Garden and Rocky Mountain Oils occupying the next tier. Public Goods sits at the bottom of the tracked set with negligible presence and no recommendation placements.

Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.

The table shows Public Goods with no top-three placements, no rank-one placements, and no rank-eligible recommendations to calculate an average position. Its perfect sentiment score reflects a single positive mention rather than any meaningful recommendation behavior. The brand is not competing in this category at the AI recommendation stage.

Prompt Evidence

Questions This Section Answers

• Which prompts and platforms surfaced Public Goods, and which returned nothing?
• How does the brand's absence appear in AI answers where leading competitors are regularly recommended?

Google AI Overviews / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "essential oils" Result: Public Goods received its only mention in the entire benchmark, a single positive reference that did not convert into a valid recommendation.

ChatGPT / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "essential oils for sleep" Result: Public Goods received zero mentions across all ChatGPT observations, with the brand absent from answers where competitors like Plant Therapy and Edens Garden were regularly recommended.

Perplexity / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "best essential oils" Result: Public Goods received zero mentions across all Perplexity observations, indicating the brand is not part of the retrievable source set Perplexity draws from for essential oil recommendations.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Phase 1: AI Market Discovery Audit Map exactly where Public Goods is absent across high-intent essential oil prompts and identify which competitor narratives dominate the answers buyers receive.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Define the product, quality, and brand attributes that AI systems would need to associate with Public Goods for it to become a credible recommendation candidate.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Develop owned content that answers essential oil discovery and comparison questions directly, giving AI systems a retrievable Public Goods perspective.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Build third-party citations, reviews, and comparison coverage that establish Public Goods as a legitimate option within the public evidence layer AI systems draw from.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Measure whether the brand moves from zero presence to mention status, then from mention to valid recommendation, across the tracked AI surfaces.

Why This Matters

When buyers ask AI systems which essential oil brand to choose, Public Goods is not part of the answer. The brand's 0.2% presence rate means it is effectively invisible at the moment of recommendation, while competitors like Plant Therapy and Edens Garden capture the overwhelming share of AI-driven consideration. A positive single mention does not change that dynamic.

AI presence alone is not enough, but absence is worse. Public Goods cannot be recommended if it is never mentioned, and it cannot be mentioned if AI systems have no retrievable evidence that the brand exists as an essential oil option. The next move is not to optimize recommendation placement, which requires a foundation the brand does not yet have. The next move is to build the public evidence layer that gives AI systems a reason to surface Public Goods in the first place.

Core Metrics

Questions This Section Answers

• What do the brand's mention and valid recommendation counts show about its visibility?
• Which platform registered Public Goods' only mention in the entire benchmark?

Sentiment Score

Questions This Section Answers

• Why is Public Goods' sentiment score of 1.0 commercially misleading despite being mathematically correct?
• What does the classification of the brand's single mention reveal about its actual presence?

Sentiment Score = (positive mentions × 1 + neutral mentions × 0 + negative mentions × -1) / total mentions

Public Goods recorded 1 positive mention, 0 neutral mentions, and 0 negative mentions across 511 qualified observations, producing a sentiment score of 1.0. That score is mathematically correct but commercially misleading without context. A single positive mention out of 511 observations does not indicate brand strength; it indicates that the one time AI systems surfaced Public Goods, the framing happened to be favorable.

This is why unclassified mention counts are misleading. Share of voice is a diagnostic metric, not a business KPI. A positive recommendation, a neutral reference, a cautionary mention, and a competitor-displaced mention are not equal, and counting all mentions as wins is bad measurement. Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility, and in Public Goods' case, the classification reveals a brand with positive framing but no meaningful presence to frame.

Sentiment by Platform

Methodology

1. This report is a benchmark-based analysis of Public Goods' AI recommendation visibility in the essential oil category, not a client implementation case study.
2. The reporting window is September 2026, with July 2026 and August 2026 referenced for movement context where available.
3. Six AI/search surface families were tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode.
4. The benchmark produced 511 qualified observations from 800 source prompt-surface pairs, with 479 unique questions asked.
5. Ten brands were tracked in the competitor universe: Aura Cacia, doTERRA, Edens Garden, NOW Foods, Plant Therapy, Public Goods, Revive Essential Oils, Rocky Mountain Oils, Vitruvi, and Young Living.
6. All qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation cluster, which captures discovery and consideration prompts. No qualified observations existed in Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison clusters.
7. Stage 0 extraction retained prompt-level data including query, surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and citations where exposed.
8. A mention is defined as any qualified observation where the brand appears at all, regardless of framing or recommendation status.
9. A valid recommendation is defined as a qualified observation where the brand receives an actual recommendation, distinct from a neutral reference or cautionary mention.
10. Public Goods' single mention and single valid recommendation both derive from the same observation, which carried positive framing but no rank placement.
11. The public benchmark does not measure market share, sales attribution, organic-search ranking positions, social media sentiment, or private channels.
12. Limitations: Public Goods' negligible presence means all percentage-based metrics are amplified by an extremely small count base. The directional signal of absence is reliable, but the brand's perfect sentiment score should not be interpreted as competitive strength.

See How AI Is Recommending Your Brand

The public benchmark shows where Public Goods stands in AI-generated essential oil recommendations, but it cannot explain why the brand is absent or which evidence sources would change that outcome. A company-level AI visibility audit maps the specific prompts, surfaces, competitor narratives, and citation gaps that determine whether a brand appears in AI answers at all. For a brand with near-zero presence, that diagnostic is the first step toward becoming visible.