Open Farm AI Visibility Market Strategy Report - Pet Food Delivery Services

Answer Capsule

Open Farm holds the third-largest valid recommendation coverage in the October 2026 pet food delivery benchmark at 36.50%, behind The Farmer's Dog (67.41%) and Ollie (56.42%). The brand is visible but under-recommended relative to its presence: it appears in 41.15% of qualified observations but converts only 36.50% into recommendation shortlists. Its clearest win is a strong rank-one rate of 7.45%, third in the category. Its clearest weakness is an 8.40-point decline in raw mention presence since the July 2026 baseline, the largest presence drop among tracked brands. The clearest opportunity is closing the gap between presence and recommendation credit in the brand recommendation cluster.

Who This Report Is For

This report is for Open Farm's marketing, ecommerce, and brand strategy teams, and for category analysts tracking how premium pet food brands are positioned in AI-generated recommendations.

Report Card

Executive Summary

Open Farm ranks third in the October 2026 pet food delivery benchmark with valid recommendation coverage of 36.50%, behind The Farmer's Dog at 67.41% and Ollie at 56.42%. The brand recorded a 4.50-point recovery from September 2026 but remains 9.10 points below its July 2026 baseline of 45.60%, a significant series decline.

The gap between presence and recommendation is the defining pattern. Open Farm appears in 41.15% of qualified observations but is recommended in only 36.50%, a conversion gap of 4.65 points. This means the brand is mentioned in AI responses without being included in the recommendation shortlist in a meaningful share of cases.

Open Farm's strongest signal is its rank-one rate of 7.45%, third in the category behind The Farmer's Dog (35.75%) and Chewy (12.29%). When the brand is recommended, it frequently appears as the first option. Its top-three rate of 18.99% is fourth in the category, behind The Farmer's Dog, Ollie, and JustFoodForDogs Vet Support.

The clearest weakness is the presence decline. Raw mention presence fell from 49.50% in July 2026 to 41.15% in October 2026, an 8.40-point drop. This is the largest presence decline among all tracked brands. The brand is being mentioned less often in AI responses, even as its placement quality has improved.

The strongest platform signal is Google AI Overviews, where Open Farm holds a 35.66% valid recommendation coverage rate and a 6.29% rank-one rate. The weakest platform signal is Copilot, where the brand records a 40.00% valid recommendation coverage rate but zero rank-one recommendations.

The benchmark's current prompt set covers only the brand recommendation cluster. Pricing and value prompts, and multi-brand comparison prompts, produced no qualified observations in October 2026. This means the benchmark cannot yet answer whether Open Farm is positioned as a value option or how it performs in head-to-head comparisons.

What Open Farm Is Winning

Questions This Section Answers

• Where does Open Farm rank first most often in AI recommendations?
• How strong is Open Farm's top-three placement rate compared with other pet food delivery brands?
• How positive is the framing when Open Farm appears in AI responses?

Open Farm holds the third-highest rank-one rate in the category at 7.45%. When AI systems recommend the brand, they place it first in 40 of 537 qualified observations. This is ahead of JustFoodForDogs Vet Support (6.33%), Spot & Tango (2.61%), Ollie (2.42%), and Nom Nom (0.93%).

The brand's top-three rate of 18.99% is fourth in the category and represents 102 top-three placements. This is ahead of Chewy (14.34%), Spot & Tango (13.04%), and Nom Nom (11.36%).

Open Farm recorded a 4.50-point recovery from September 2026 to October 2026, rising from 32.00% to 36.50% valid recommendation coverage. This prior-month movement was within normal variation but indicates the brand is not in continued decline.

The brand's net sentiment score of 0.9095 is the second-highest in the category, behind JustFoodForDogs Vet Support at 0.9190. This reflects consistently positive framing when the brand appears in AI responses. Open Farm recorded 201 positive mentions, 20 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions across 537 qualified observations.

On Google AI Overviews, Open Farm holds a 35.66% valid recommendation coverage rate, the third-highest platform-level result for the brand. The brand also records a 6.29% rank-one rate on that platform.

Where Open Farm Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Questions This Section Answers

• Why does Open Farm appear in AI responses without being recommended?
• How did Open Farm's raw mention presence change since the July 2026 baseline?
• Where does Open Farm lose rank-one placements across AI platforms?

The primary gap is recommendation conversion. Open Farm appears in 41.15% of qualified observations but is recommended in only 36.50%. This 4.65-point gap means the brand is mentioned without being shortlisted in a meaningful share of AI responses. By comparison, The Farmer's Dog converts 77.09% presence into 67.41% recommendation coverage, and Ollie converts 64.06% presence into 56.42% coverage.

The presence decline is the second gap. Raw mention presence fell from 49.50% in July 2026 to 41.15% in October 2026, an 8.40-point drop. This is the largest presence decline among all tracked brands. The brand is being mentioned less often in AI responses, which limits the base from which recommendations can be earned.

The third gap is platform inconsistency. On Copilot, Open Farm records a 40.00% valid recommendation coverage rate but zero rank-one recommendations. On ChatGPT, the brand holds a 13.85% valid recommendation coverage rate and a 1.54% rank-one rate. On Google AI Mode, the brand records a 39.42% valid recommendation coverage rate and a 10.95% rank-one rate. The brand performs very differently across platforms, with no consistent recommendation position.

The fourth gap is competitive displacement. The Farmer's Dog holds a 53.45% top-three rate and a 35.75% rank-one rate, more than four times Open Farm's rank-one rate. Ollie holds a 40.97% top-three rate, more than double Open Farm's. When AI systems form a shortlist, Open Farm is frequently displaced by these two brands.

The fifth gap is the absence of pricing and comparison data. The benchmark's current prompt set produced no qualified observations in the pricing and value cluster or the multi-brand comparison cluster. This means the benchmark cannot yet show whether Open Farm is positioned as a value option or how it performs when AI systems compare brands directly.

Biggest Opportunity

Questions This Section Answers

• How much recommendation coverage could Open Farm gain by closing its presence-to-recommendation gap?
• Which prompt cluster offers the clearest path from brand mention to recommendation shortlist?
• Why doesn't Open Farm's own domain appear among the top cited sources?

The clearest opportunity is closing the recommendation conversion gap in the brand recommendation cluster. Open Farm appears in 41.15% of qualified observations but is recommended in only 36.50%. If the brand converted presence to recommendation at the same rate as Ollie, which converts 64.06% presence into 56.42% coverage, Open Farm would gain approximately 8.5 points of valid recommendation coverage.

This opportunity is specific to the brand recommendation cluster, which is the only cluster with sufficient data in the October 2026 benchmark. The prompts in this cluster ask which brand is best, which brand is recommended by vets, and which brand is best for specific breeds. Open Farm is being mentioned in responses to these prompts but is not consistently included in the recommendation shortlist.

The path from reference to recommendation runs through the owned answer layer and the citation layer. The brand's own domain does not appear in the top ten cited domains for October 2026. The top cited domains include google.com, youtube.com, forbes.com, reddit.com, chewy.com, spotandtango.com, dogfoodadvisor.com, businessinsider.com, petco.com, and petmd.com. Two tracked brands' own domains appear in the top ten: chewy.com at rank five and spotandtango.com at rank six. Open Farm's domain does not appear.

Competitive Landscape

Questions This Section Answers

• How does Open Farm compare to The Farmer's Dog and Ollie on top-three and rank-one rates?
• Why does Open Farm rank first more often than Ollie despite a much lower top-three rate?

The Farmer's Dog holds dominant recommendation power in the October 2026 pet food delivery benchmark, with Ollie as the strongest challenger. Open Farm sits third, with a rank-one rate that outperforms its overall coverage position but a top-three rate that trails the two leaders by a wide margin.

Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.

Open Farm's rank-one rate of 7.45% is the third-highest in the category, ahead of Ollie despite Ollie's much higher top-three rate. This suggests that when Open Farm enters the recommendation shortlist, it often enters at the top position. However, the brand's top-three rate of 18.99% is less than half of Ollie's 40.97% and less than a third of The Farmer's Dog's 53.45%. The brand is not appearing in enough shortlists to compete at the category leadership level.

Prompt Evidence

Questions This Section Answers

• Which prompts show Open Farm entering the recommendation shortlist at rank one?
• On which platforms is Open Farm included as an option but not positioned as the leading choice?

Google AI Overviews / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "What are the top dog foods?" Result: Open Farm appeared in the recommendation shortlist with a rank-one placement, contributing to its 6.29% rank-one rate on this platform.

ChatGPT / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "What is the #1 best dog food brand?" Result: Open Farm recorded a 1.54% rank-one rate on ChatGPT, indicating the brand is rarely positioned as the top recommendation on this platform.

Copilot / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "What dog foods have a 5 star rating?" Result: Open Farm appeared in 40.00% of Copilot recommendation shortlists but recorded zero rank-one placements, suggesting the brand is included as an option but not positioned as the leading choice.

Google AI Mode / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "What is the best dog food for goldendoodles?" Result: Open Farm recorded a 10.95% rank-one rate on Google AI Mode, its strongest rank-one performance across platforms.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Phase 1: AI Visibility Market Discovery Audit Map Open Farm's prompt-level visibility across all six tracked platforms, identifying which specific prompts produce mentions without recommendations and which competitors capture the recommendation when Open Farm is displaced.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Prioritize the prompts and platforms where Open Farm has the highest presence-to-recommendation gap, focusing on the brand recommendation cluster where the benchmark shows the clearest conversion opportunity.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Develop owned content that directly addresses the high-intent prompts in the brand recommendation cluster, ensuring Open Farm's positioning, ingredient sourcing, and brand attributes are clearly stated in formats AI systems can retrieve and synthesize.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Build the public evidence layer that AI systems cite when forming pet food recommendations, targeting the source types that appear in the top cited domains for this category.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Track Open Farm's recommendation coverage, rank-one rate, and presence-to-recommendation conversion month over month, with platform-level breakdowns to identify where gains are concentrated.

Why This Matters

AI presence alone is not enough. Open Farm appears in 41.15% of qualified observations but is recommended in only 36.50%. The brand is being mentioned in AI responses without being included in the recommendation shortlist. This is the difference between being visible and being chosen.

The next move is targeted correction of the prompt, page, and citation layers. The benchmark shows where Open Farm is losing recommendation credit. A company-level audit shows which prompts, competitors, and sources are driving those outcomes. The path from reference to recommendation runs through the owned answer layer and the citation layer, not through broader presence alone.

Core Metrics

Sentiment Score

Questions This Section Answers

• What does Open Farm's sentiment score say about how the brand is framed when mentioned?
• Why is classified sentiment more useful than raw mention counts for AI visibility?

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

Open Farm's sentiment score is 0.9095. This is calculated from 201 positive mentions, 20 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions across 221 total mentions.

This matters because unclassified mention counts are misleading. A brand with 221 mentions could appear strong on a raw visibility metric, but the composition of those mentions determines whether the brand is being recommended, referenced neutrally, or framed cautiously. Open Farm's mentions are overwhelmingly positive, which indicates the brand is being framed favorably when it appears.

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. Counting all mentions as wins is bad measurement. Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility.

Open Farm's high sentiment score indicates that when the brand appears, it is framed positively. The gap is not in framing quality but in recommendation frequency. The brand is well-regarded when mentioned but is not mentioned often enough or recommended consistently enough to compete at the category leadership level.

Sentiment by Platform

Questions This Section Answers

• On which AI platforms does Open Farm have the strongest positive sentiment?
• Which platforms show Open Farm as present but not recommendation-led?

Methodology

1. This report is a benchmark-based analysis of Open Farm's AI visibility and recommendation performance in the pet food delivery services category for October 2026. It is not a client result and does not imply that CiteWorks Studio caused any benchmark outcome.
2. The reporting window is October 2026. The benchmark compares October 2026 results to the July 2026 baseline and to intermediate measurements in August 2026 and September 2026.
3. Six AI platforms were tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. All six platforms produced at least one qualified observation in October 2026.
4. The October 2026 benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations. After deduplication, 603 unique questions were identified. Of the 800 prompts, 748 were judged relevant to the vertical and 52 were judged irrelevant. The public metrics use 537 qualified observations as the denominator.
5. Ten brands were tracked: Chewy, JustFoodForDogs Vet Support, Nom Nom, Ollie, Open Farm, Petco, PetFlow, Spot & Tango, Sundays for Dogs, and The Farmer's Dog.
6. Three buyer-intent clusters were defined: Brand Recommendation, Pricing & Value, and Multi-Brand Comparison. Only the Brand Recommendation cluster produced qualified observations in October 2026. The Pricing & Value and Multi-Brand Comparison clusters produced zero qualified observations.
7. Stage 0 extraction retains the query, AI platform, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment and is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.
8. A mention is defined as any appearance of the brand in an AI response, regardless of recommendation status. A valid recommendation is defined as an appearance in a recommendation shortlist where the brand is explicitly recommended or included as a suggested option.
9. Ranking interpretation: top-three rate measures the share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommended options. Rank-one rate measures the share where the brand is the first recommendation. Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.
10. Limitations: The benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, or private or sponsored channels. A metric movement alone does not establish causality. The public benchmark cannot identify the specific prompts, competitors, or sources causing the result.
11. Small-count caution: PetFlow and Sundays for Dogs have thin bases for interpretation. Open Farm's 196 valid recommendations provide a sufficient base for analysis.
12. Data note: The benchmark's current prompt set did not produce qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison clusters. Conclusions about price positioning, value perception, or head-to-head comparison outcomes cannot be drawn from this data.

See How AI Is Recommending Your Brand

The public benchmark shows where Open Farm stands in AI-generated recommendations. A company-level AI visibility audit maps the specific prompts, competitors, and sources shaping those outcomes, and identifies the highest-priority opportunities to close the recommendation gap.