Kraus AI Visibility Market Strategy Report - Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures

Answer Capsule

Kraus holds 37.10% valid recommendation coverage in the October 2026 LLM Authority Index benchmark for Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures, placing it fourth of nine tracked brands and well behind the three-brand top tier led by Kohler at 78.03%. Kraus is visible in 41.72% of qualified observations but converts that presence into a shortlist appearance only 37.10% of the time and into a first-choice recommendation in just 3.82% of observations. The clearest win is the category's second-largest rank-one gain this month, up 1.9 points on a small base, alongside the strongest net sentiment score of any tracked brand at 0.9008. The clearest weakness is a 40.93-point coverage gap to the category leader and a rank-one rate that trails Delta Faucet by 24.84 points. The clearest opportunity sits in the plumber-recommendation and trade-trust prompts where Kraus already appears but is not yet converting presence into top-three placement.

Who This Report Is For

This report is written for Kraus marketing, brand, and channel leadership, and for category teams evaluating how kitchen and bathroom fixture brands are surfaced, shortlisted, and ranked inside AI-generated recommendations.

Report Card

Executive Summary

Kraus enters October 2026 as the strongest of the category's second tier and the clearest challenger below the top three. Its valid recommendation coverage of 37.10% sits 40.93 points behind Kohler, the category leader at 78.03%, and roughly 32 points behind Moen, the third-placed brand at 69.27%. The gap is not a presence problem. Kraus appears in 41.72% of qualified observations, which is close to its coverage rate, so the brand is being mentioned and shortlisted at similar frequencies. The problem is placement.

Kraus recorded 262 mentions across the 628 qualified observations, of which 236 were positive, 26 neutral, and zero negative. That gives Kraus a net sentiment score of 0.9008, the highest of any tracked brand in the category and above Delta Faucet at 0.8604 and Moen at 0.8682. When Kraus is described, it is described well. The framing quality is not the constraint.

The constraint is recommendation conversion at the top of the shortlist. Kraus holds a top-three rate of 13.06% and a rank-one rate of 3.82%, against 68.15% and 16.08% for Kohler and 62.58% and 28.66% for Delta Faucet. Kraus is shortlisted in roughly one in eight qualified observations and recommended first in roughly one in twenty-six. Its average recommended rank of 3.57 is the third-lowest among tracked brands, behind Delta Faucet at 1.83 and Moen at 1.93, and behind Kohler at 2.50.

The strongest cluster signal is C01, Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery, which is the only cluster with qualified observations this month. All 628 qualified observations fall into that consideration-stage cluster. The pricing and multi-brand comparison clusters carry no qualified data, so this benchmark cannot currently speak to how AI systems answer price, value, or head-to-head questions for Kraus.

The strongest platform signal is Google AI Overviews, where Kraus holds 42.17% valid recommendation coverage and 70 valid recommendations, the highest raw recommendation count of any platform for the brand. The weakest platform signal is Copilot, where Kraus holds 33.96% coverage but only 18 valid recommendations, and Gemini, where coverage is 42.31% but the qualified base is small. ChatGPT shows the widest gap between presence and placement: Kraus appears in 53.23% of ChatGPT observations but converts to a top-three placement only 8.06% of the time.

The clearest opportunity is to convert Kraus's existing presence in trade-trust and plumber-recommendation prompts into top-three placements. Kraus already appears in prompts such as "What faucets do plumbers recommend?" and "Which faucet brand do plumbers prefer?" but its rank-one rate in those contexts remains low. Closing that conversion gap is the single highest-leverage move available in the current benchmark.

What Kraus Is Winning

Questions This Section Answers

• Where does Kraus lead the Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures category on sentiment?
• Which platform gives Kraus its strongest recommendation coverage and raw recommendation count?
• How much did Kraus's rank-one rate improve in October 2026?

Kraus holds the strongest net sentiment score in the category at 0.9008, ahead of every other tracked brand including the three coverage leaders. Across 262 mentions, 236 were positive and none were negative, which indicates that AI systems describe Kraus in favorable terms when they surface it.

Kraus recorded the category's second-largest rank-one gain this month, up 1.9 points from 1.9% in September 2026 to 3.82% in October 2026. The rank-one count rose from 12 to 24 observations. This is a small base, and the percentage move should be read alongside the count, but the direction is positive while most of the category drifted down.

Kraus holds 42.17% valid recommendation coverage on Google AI Overviews, its strongest platform, with 70 valid recommendations and a 94.67% net sentiment score on that surface. That is the highest coverage Kraus achieves on any single platform and the largest raw recommendation count it holds.

Kraus also holds 48.39% valid recommendation coverage on ChatGPT, with 30 valid recommendations and a 90.91% net sentiment score. ChatGPT is the platform where Kraus is most frequently mentioned relative to its overall presence, appearing in 53.23% of ChatGPT observations.

Where Kraus Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Questions This Section Answers

• Why does Kraus convert its AI mentions into top-three placements so rarely?
• Which platform shows the widest gap between Kraus's presence and its top-three placement?
• How far does Kraus trail the category leaders on coverage and rank-one rate?

Kraus is present but under-recommended at the top of the shortlist. Its raw mention presence rate of 41.72% and its valid recommendation coverage of 37.10% sit within five points of each other, which means Kraus is converting most of its mentions into shortlist appearances. The gap opens at placement. Kraus converts only 13.06% of qualified observations into a top-three position and 3.82% into a first-choice position, against 68.15% and 16.08% for Kohler and 62.58% and 28.66% for Delta Faucet.

The displacement pattern is clearest on ChatGPT. Kraus appears in 53.23% of ChatGPT observations but is placed in the top three in only 8.06% and recommended first in only 1.61%. On that surface, Kraus is mentioned roughly as often as it is on Google AI Overviews, where it holds 45.18% presence, but its top-three rate on ChatGPT is 3.39 points lower than its top-three rate on AI Overviews. The brand is being surfaced in ChatGPT answers without being elevated into the recommendation set.

Kraus also trails on average recommended rank. Its average rank of 3.57 places it behind Delta Faucet at 1.83, Moen at 1.93, DreamLine at 2.10, Kohler at 2.50, and VIGO at 2.91. Only American Standard at 4.07 and Kingston Brass at 3.76 sit lower. When Kraus is recommended, it is recommended later in the list than most of the category.

The gap to the category leader is 40.93 points on valid recommendation coverage. The gap to Delta Faucet on rank-one rate is 24.84 points. Both gaps are structural rather than marginal, and neither moved materially between September 2026 and October 2026.

Biggest Opportunity

Questions This Section Answers

• Which prompt types offer Kraus the clearest path from mention to shortlist placement?
• What evidence layer does Kraus need to strengthen to appear in plumber-recommendation answers?

The clearest path from reference to recommendation for Kraus runs through trade-trust and plumber-recommendation prompts. Kraus already appears in prompts such as "What faucets do plumbers recommend?", "Which faucets do plumbers recommend?", "What brand faucets do plumbers recommend?", and "Which faucet brand do plumbers prefer?" These are high-intent, consideration-stage questions where the buyer is asking for a professional recommendation rather than browsing a category. Kraus is present in these answers but is not consistently placed in the top three.

The opportunity is to strengthen the public evidence layer that AI systems retrieve when answering trade-trust questions. That means making plumber-endorsed, installer-focused, and professional-review content more retrievable and more clearly attributable to Kraus, so that when AI systems synthesize an answer to a plumber-recommendation prompt, Kraus appears in the shortlist rather than only in the surrounding context. The same logic applies to the shower and faucet discovery prompts where Kraus already appears, such as "What is the best brand of bathroom sinks?" and "What is the best showerhead to buy?"

Competitive Landscape

Questions This Section Answers

• How does Kraus's top-three and rank-one rate compare with Kohler, Delta Faucet, and Moen?
• Where does Kraus rank against the category on average recommended rank?

Kohler, Delta Faucet, and Moen hold recommendation-stage strength in the Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures category, with Kraus positioned as the strongest challenger below that top tier. Kraus sits fourth on valid recommendation coverage and fourth on top-three rate, but its rank-one rate places it fifth, behind DreamLine.

Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.

Kraus sits fourth on top-three rate at 13.06%, roughly five points ahead of American Standard and DreamLine and roughly six points ahead of VIGO, but more than 47 points behind Moen. Its rank-one rate of 3.82% places it fifth, ahead of DreamLine at 2.87% by a narrow margin and ahead of VIGO, American Standard, Kingston Brass, and ANZZI. Its average recommended rank of 3.57 is the third-lowest in the category, ahead of only Kingston Brass and American Standard. Its sentiment score of 0.9008 is the highest in the category.

Prompt Evidence

ChatGPT / Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery Prompt: "What faucets do plumbers recommend?" Result: Kraus appears in the answer but is not placed in the top three, consistent with its 8.06% top-three rate on ChatGPT.

Google AI Overviews / Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery Prompt: "What is the best brand of bathroom sinks?" Result: Kraus is recommended, contributing to its 42.17% valid recommendation coverage and 70 valid recommendations on AI Overviews.

Perplexity / Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery Prompt: "Which faucet brand do plumbers prefer?" Result: Kraus is mentioned in the trade-trust context but holds only 18.95% valid recommendation coverage on Perplexity, its second-weakest platform.

Gemini / Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery Prompt: "What is the best showerhead to buy?" Result: Kraus appears with a 42.31% valid recommendation coverage rate on Gemini, but the qualified base is small and the placement signal is thin.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Phase 1: AI Visibility Market Discovery Audit Map every qualified prompt where Kraus appears, is shortlisted, and is placed first, and identify the specific prompts where presence is not converting into a top-three position.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Prioritize the trade-trust and plumber-recommendation prompts where Kraus already appears but is under-placed, and define the content and evidence changes needed to move Kraus into the shortlist.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Strengthen Kraus-owned pages that answer the highest-intent discovery prompts directly, so AI systems have a clear, attributable source for Kraus's product and category positioning.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Build the third-party and trade-press evidence layer that AI systems retrieve when answering plumber-recommendation and installer-trust questions, so Kraus is cited alongside the brands it competes with.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Track Kraus's coverage, top-three rate, rank-one rate, and sentiment month over month against Kohler, Delta Faucet, and Moen, so movement can be read against a known baseline.

Why This Matters

AI presence alone is not enough. Kraus is mentioned in 41.72% of qualified observations and described positively in nearly every one of them, yet it is placed in the top three in only 13.06% of observations and recommended first in only 3.82%. A buyer asking an AI system what faucet brand plumbers recommend may see Kraus named in the answer without seeing Kraus in the recommendation set. That is the difference between being visible and being chosen.

The next move is targeted correction of the prompt, page, and citation layers that shape how AI systems answer trade-trust and discovery questions in this category. Kraus does not need to fix its reputation or its framing quality. It needs to fix the conversion path from mention to shortlist to first choice, and the benchmark shows exactly where that path is breaking.

Core Metrics

Sentiment Score

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

For Kraus in October 2026, that is (236 × 1 + 26 × 0 + 0 × -1) / 262, which equals 0.9008.

This matters because unclassified mention counts are misleading. A brand that appears in 262 answers but is described negatively in a third of them is in a different position than a brand that appears in 262 answers and is described positively in nearly all of them. Kraus is in the second position. Its framing quality is the strongest in the category.

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. Kraus's 26 neutral mentions are references, not endorsements, and its 236 positive mentions are the ones that carry recommendation weight. Counting all 262 mentions as wins would overstate Kraus's position and hide the fact that its top-three rate is 13.06%.

Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility. Kraus's sentiment score of 0.9008 tells a reader that the brand is well framed. It does not tell a reader that the brand is well placed. Those are two different questions, and the benchmark answers them separately.

Sentiment by Platform

Methodology

1. This report is a benchmark-based analysis of Kraus's AI recommendation position in the Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures category for October 2026. It is not a client implementation case study.
2. The reporting window is October 2026, with September 2026 as the only prior month in the comparable series.
3. Six AI platforms were tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. All six were represented in the qualified observation set.
4. The October 2026 run began with 800 prompt-surface observations and 596 unique questions. After relevance screening and qualification, 628 observations entered the public metrics.
5. The competitor universe contains nine tracked brands: Kohler, Delta Faucet, Moen, Kraus, American Standard, VIGO, DreamLine, Kingston Brass, and ANZZI.
6. Three public high-intent clusters were defined for the category. Only C01, Best Kitchen & Bathroom Fixtures Discovery, carried qualified observations this month. C02, Brand & Product Comparisons, and C03, Pricing & Value, carried no qualified data.
7. Stage 0 extraction produced the prompt-level observations that feed the benchmark. Each observation retains the query, the AI surface, the answer, the brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations.
8. A mention is counted when a tracked brand appears in a qualified observation, whether or not it is recommended.
9. A valid recommendation is counted when a tracked brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist within a qualified observation. Negative, neutral, cautionary, comparison-anchor, and listed-only mentions are not counted as valid recommendations.
10. Brand-level percentages use the 628 qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection of 800 prompt-surface observations.
11. Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only. Brands with no rank-eligible recommendations are shown with an em dash in the competitive landscape table.
12. The benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales or revenue, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, or private and sponsored channels. It does not establish causality from a metric movement alone. Source presence is evidence about the information environment and is not automatically proof that a source caused a recommendation.

See Where Kraus Stands in AI Recommendations

The public benchmark shows where Kraus is winning and losing in AI-generated recommendations. A company-level AI visibility audit maps the specific prompts, platforms, competitors, and evidence sources behind those numbers, so the next month of movement can be read against a known baseline rather than a category average.