Open Farm AI Market Strategy Report - Pet Food Delivery Services

Answer Capsule

Open Farm holds the strongest positive framing in the pet food delivery services category, with a net sentiment score of 0.935, the highest among all measured brands. The brand earns valid recommendation credit in 37.2% of AI observations, placing it in the upper tier of challenger brands behind The Farmer's Dog and Ollie. Its clearest strength is consistent recommendation conversion: when Open Farm appears in AI responses, it is almost always advanced as a recommended choice rather than merely mentioned. The clearest weakness is rank position, with an average recommended rank of 3.37 that keeps the brand in the middle of shortlists. The clearest opportunity is closing the gap between strong trust signals and top-three placement, particularly on Google AI Overviews where the brand already achieves 53.1% recommendation coverage.

Who This Report Is For

This report is for Open Farm's marketing, growth, and brand leadership teams evaluating AI recommendation-stage visibility in the pet food delivery category.

Report Card

• Report type: AI Company Market Strategy Report
• Target company: Open Farm
• Category / market studied: Pet Food Delivery Services
• Reporting month: August 2026
• AI platforms tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity
• Public high-intent clusters: 1 (Best Pet Food Delivery Services)
• AI observations analyzed: 521
• Competitors tracked: 9

Executive Summary

Open Farm has built one of the strongest trust profiles in the pet food delivery services category, but that trust is not yet translating into top-of-shortlist placement. The brand appears in 44.3% of AI responses and earns valid recommendation credit in 37.2% of observations, meaning AI systems advance Open Farm as a recommended choice in the large majority of cases where the brand appears. This recommendation conversion rate is among the best in the category and signals a coherent, trusted source ecosystem.

The brand's net sentiment score of 0.935 is the highest in the dataset, driven by 216 positive mentions, 15 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions across 231 total mentions in 521 observations. Open Farm's positive visibility rate of 41.5% indicates that when the brand appears, it is almost always framed favorably. This pattern suggests AI systems associate Open Farm with quality, transparency, and trustworthy sourcing.

The clearest gap is rank position. Open Farm's average recommended rank of 3.37 places it in the middle of AI-generated shortlists, behind The Farmer's Dog at 1.52, JustFoodForDogs Vet Support at 2.46, and Ollie at 2.70. The brand achieves a top-three rate of 13.2% and a rank-one rate of 3.7%, indicating that AI systems recognize Open Farm's quality but do not consistently advance it to the top positions.

Platform performance varies meaningfully. Open Farm achieves its strongest recommendation coverage on Google AI Overviews at 53.1%, with a perfect net sentiment score of 1.0 across 89 positive mentions. Google AI Mode follows at 43.6% recommendation coverage. The brand's weakest platforms are Perplexity, where recommendation coverage falls to 6.5%, and ChatGPT, where it reaches 13.3%.

The strategic implication is clear: Open Farm has earned the trust signals that drive recommendation credit, but needs to convert that trust into higher rank positions. The brand is being recommended, but not first. Closing the gap between recommendation coverage and top-three placement represents the clearest path to capturing more buyer attention in AI-led discovery.

What Open Farm Is Winning

Strongest positive framing in the category. Open Farm's net sentiment score of 0.935 is the highest among all ten measured brands, exceeding The Farmer's Dog at 0.894 and Ollie at 0.900. The brand records zero negative mentions across 521 observations, and its neutral visibility rate of just 2.9% is among the lowest in the dataset. When AI systems reference Open Farm, they almost always recommend it.

High recommendation conversion from presence. Open Farm converts 44.3% raw mention presence into 37.2% valid recommendation coverage. This conversion ratio is significantly stronger than Chewy, which converts 52.8% presence into only 14.8% recommendation coverage, and Petco, which converts 40.7% presence into 8.3% coverage. The evidence suggests AI systems trust Open Farm's source ecosystem enough to advance the brand consistently, not just mention it.

Perfect framing on Google AI Overviews. Open Farm achieves a net sentiment score of 1.0 on Google AI Overviews, with 89 positive mentions and zero neutral or negative mentions. The brand also reaches 53.1% recommendation coverage on this platform, its strongest platform-level performance. This pattern indicates that Google AI Overviews consistently frames Open Farm as a recommended choice.

No negative or cautionary framing across any platform. Across all six platforms and all 521 observations, Open Farm records zero negative mentions. This absence of cautionary framing is a meaningful trust signal, particularly in a category where pet owners are making decisions about their animals' health and nutrition.

Where Open Farm Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Mid-shortlist rank position. Open Farm's average recommended rank of 3.37 places it in the middle of AI-generated shortlists. The Farmer's Dog leads at 1.52, followed by JustFoodForDogs Vet Support at 2.46 and Ollie at 2.70. Open Farm is being recommended, but it is not being placed at the top. This rank gap means the brand captures less buyer attention than its trust profile would suggest it should.

Top-three and rank-one underperformance. Open Farm achieves a top-three rate of 13.2% and a rank-one rate of 3.7%. By comparison, The Farmer's Dog reaches 47.2% top-three and 35.5% rank-one, while Ollie achieves 29.8% top-three. The brand's strong recommendation coverage is not converting into the highest-value positions, suggesting that AI systems see Open Farm as a credible option but not the default first answer.

Weak platform presence on Perplexity and ChatGPT. Open Farm's recommendation coverage on Perplexity is just 6.5%, and on ChatGPT it reaches 13.3%. These platforms represent meaningful gaps, particularly ChatGPT, where the brand appears in only 23.3% of responses. The Farmer's Dog achieves 60.0% recommendation coverage on ChatGPT, and Ollie reaches 45.0%. Open Farm's source footprint appears thinner on these platforms, limiting its ability to capture recommendation credit where buyers are actively comparing options.

Competitor displacement at the top of shortlists. The Farmer's Dog dominates the first position across platforms, with a 35.5% rank-one rate overall and 58.5% on Copilot. Ollie captures the second position consistently, with a 29.8% top-three rate. Open Farm is frequently present in shortlists but displaced by these two competitors at the positions that carry the most buyer attention.

Biggest Opportunity

The clearest opportunity for Open Farm is converting its category-leading trust signals into top-three placement on Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. The brand already achieves 53.1% recommendation coverage on Google AI Overviews with a perfect sentiment score, and 43.6% on Google AI Mode. These platforms represent Open Farm's strongest existing recommendation architecture and the most direct path to improving rank position. Strengthening the source evidence that supports first and second position placement on these two platforms would allow Open Farm to capture disproportionate buyer attention at the category's highest-intent buying moments, where shortlist position determines whose products end up in the cart.

Prompt Evidence

Google AI Overviews / Best Pet Food Delivery Services Prompt: "What is the best place to get pet supplies?" Result: Open Farm appears with positive framing and earns recommendation credit, contributing to its 53.1% recommendation coverage and perfect 1.0 sentiment score on this platform.

Google AI Mode / Best Pet Food Delivery Services Prompt: "Which pet company is the best?" Result: Open Farm is mentioned and recommended but typically placed in the middle of the shortlist rather than at the top, reflecting its 3.37 average recommended rank.

Gemini / Best Pet Food Delivery Services Prompt: "What dog food is good for hyperlipidemia?" Result: Open Farm appears with positive framing and earns recommendation credit, contributing to its 34.4% recommendation coverage and 0.953 sentiment score on Gemini.

ChatGPT / Best Pet Food Delivery Services Prompt: "What is the healthiest dog food for a dog?" Result: Open Farm appears in a minority of responses and earns limited recommendation credit, reflecting its 13.3% recommendation coverage and the brand's weakest platform-level conversion.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Phase 1: AI Market Discovery Audit Map Open Farm's full recommendation footprint across all six platforms, identifying which prompts the brand wins, loses, or is displaced from, with particular focus on the ChatGPT and Perplexity gaps where recommendation coverage is currently lowest.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Prioritize the source-layer improvements needed to move Open Farm from mid-shortlist to top-three placement, focusing on the evidence patterns that drive first and second position recommendations in the category.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Strengthen Open Farm's owned content so AI systems retrieve consistent, specific, and positively framed claims that support higher rank placement, particularly around sourcing transparency and ingredient quality.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Expand Open Farm's presence in comparison articles, review platforms, and editorial content that AI systems trust, with emphasis on ChatGPT and Perplexity where the brand's current source footprint appears thinnest.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Monitor Open Farm's recommendation coverage, rank position, and sentiment across platforms monthly, measuring progress against The Farmer's Dog and Ollie as the primary competitive benchmarks.

Why This Matters

Open Farm has solved the hardest problem in AI-led discovery: earning trust. The brand's 0.935 net sentiment score and 37.2% valid recommendation coverage demonstrate that AI systems consistently advance Open Farm as a recommended choice. But in a category where buyers receive shortlists of three to five brands, mid-shortlist placement is not enough. The brands capturing buyer attention are those placed first and second, and those positions are currently held by The Farmer's Dog and Ollie across most platforms.

The next move for Open Farm is not more visibility. It is targeted correction of the prompt, page, and citation layers that determine rank position. The brand's strong trust signals provide the foundation; the opportunity is converting those signals into top-three placement where buyer decisions are actually made.

Core Metrics

• Mentions: 231
• Valid recommendations: 194
• Top 3 recommendation count: 69
• Rank #1 recommendation count: 19
• Average recommended rank: 3.37
• Positive mentions: 216
• Neutral mentions: 15
• Negative mentions: 0
• Raw mention presence rate: 44.3%
• Valid recommendation coverage: 37.2%
• Top 3 recommendation rate: 13.2%
• Rank #1 recommendation rate: 3.7%
• Strongest cluster by recommendation behavior: Best Pet Food Delivery Services
• Strongest platform by recommendation behavior: Google AI Overviews

Sentiment Score

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

For Open Farm: (216 x 1 + 15 x 0 + 0 x -1) / 231 = 0.935

This score matters because unclassified mention counts are misleading. Share of voice is a diagnostic metric, not a business KPI. A positive recommendation, neutral reference, cautionary mention, and competitor-displaced mention are not equal values. Counting all mentions as wins is bad measurement. Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility, because it reveals whether a brand is being advanced as a recommendation or merely referenced as context.

Sentiment by Platform

Methodology

1. Report orientation: This is a benchmark-based AI Company Market Strategy Report analyzing Open Farm's recommendation-stage visibility in the pet food delivery services category. It is not a client implementation case study and does not reflect CiteWorks Studio campaign activity.
2. Reporting window: Data was extracted August 1, 2026, for the August 2026 reporting month.
3. Platforms tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity.
4. Observation count: 521 relevant observations were analyzed for company metrics, drawn from 800 total prompts and 637 unique questions.
5. Competitor universe: Chewy, JustFoodForDogs Vet Support, Nom Nom, Ollie, Open Farm, Petco, PetFlow, Spot and Tango, Sundays for Dogs, and The Farmer's Dog. This universe may not include all brands active in the category.
6. Public clusters used: The public dataset includes one high-intent cluster: Best Pet Food Delivery Services (consideration stage). The full LLM Authority Index report includes additional comparison and pricing clusters not reflected in this public version.
7. Stage 0 role: Raw AI observations were extracted and classified before aggregation. This stage determines whether a company is mentioned, recommended, or displaced in each AI response, and is the foundation for all recommendation-level metrics.
8. Definition of a mention: A mention means the company appeared in an AI-generated response, regardless of whether it was recommended, described neutrally, or referenced in passing.
9. Definition of a valid recommendation: A valid recommendation is a positive, shortlist-quality recommendation or ranked recommendation that earns recommendation credit. Visibility is not the same as recommendation credit, and this distinction controls all coverage and rank metrics in this report.
10. Ranking interpretation: Valid recommendation coverage measures how often a brand is actually recommended. Top-three rate measures how often a brand appears in the top three positions. Rank-one rate measures how often a brand appears first. Average recommended rank reflects the brand's typical position when it receives valid rank credit.
11. Data note: The Google AI Mode readout has been updated from "Present as context, not recommendation" to reflect the platform's 43.6% recommendation coverage and 0.887 sentiment score. The original label understated the platform's positive framing for Open Farm.
12. Limitations: This is a point-in-time benchmark. AI outputs can change based on model updates, source changes, and platform modifications. Monetary metrics from the source data are omitted from this public version. This report is not a full audit and does not represent a complete census of all AI-generated responses in the category.

See How AI Is Recommending Your Brand

CiteWorks Studio maps where your brand appears in AI recommendations, where competitors are being recommended instead, which prompts carry the most commercial risk, and which sources are shaping the answers buyers receive. An AI Visibility Audit, AI Market Discovery Profile, or Citation Architecture Review will show you exactly where Open Farm stands at the recommendation stage and what needs to change to move up the shortlist.