How AI Search Is Recommending Hair Loss Treatments: Monthly Trends

Executive Summary

Rogaine remains the category leader in October 2026, with 59.3% valid recommendation coverage against a 56.4% July 2026 baseline, a 2.9-point rise the benchmark treats as normal month-to-month variation. Its lead over second-place Nutrafol (55.1%) stands at 4.2 points. Rogaine, Nutrafol, and Hims (53.4%) are the only three brands above the 50% mark this month.

Hims posted the sharpest top-placement move of the month without changing its coverage story. Coverage moved from 52.2% in July 2026 to 47.7% in September 2026 and back to 53.4% in October 2026, a gain of 5.7 points from the immediately prior month. The top-three recommendation rate rose 17.3 points, from 34.0% at baseline to 51.3% in October 2026, a move the benchmark classifies as significant.

Propecia (Merck) is the category's clearest decliner, falling to 22.4% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 37.1% in July 2026, a 14.7-point drop the benchmark classifies as significant and the third consecutive month of decline. Raw mention presence fell from 70.4% to 45.6% across the same span. Ro is the clearest riser: it entered the tracked set in September 2026 at 15.2% and reached 18.2% in October 2026, an 18.2-point gain against its July 2026 baseline of zero, with a two-month upward streak.

The category's brand label itself changed shape across the series. The alias Ro (Roman) held 19.8% coverage in July 2026 and 17.5% in August 2026, then registered zero from September 2026 onward while the Ro label took over the tracked slot. Read as one commercial entity across the naming change, that position has been tracked in the series throughout, and the gap between the two labels widened by 38.0 points from baseline to current.

Each monthly run begins with 800 prompt-surface observations (617 unique questions in July 2026, 656 in September 2026, and 651 in October 2026) across the benchmark's defined AI/search surface universe. Of those, 800 mentioned a tracked brand or competitor in each month. July 2026 produced 746 relevant and 54 irrelevant prompts; September 2026 produced 722 relevant and 78 irrelevant; October 2026 produced 698 relevant and 102 irrelevant. The public metrics use the 571 qualified observations in July 2026 and the 528 qualified observations in October 2026 that survive both qualification stages; August 2026 contributed 565 and September 2026 contributed 551.

Key Findings

AI Response Inconsistency Alerts

Questions This Section Answers

• What pricing conflicts did AI platforms surface for Propecia (Merck)?
• Which AI surfaces disagreed about finasteride cost, and what sources were cited?

The conflict data flags three critical or high-severity factual inconsistencies in the current period, all involving a single company and spanning three AI platforms: Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews.

Propecia (Merck)

When asked "How much does finasteride cost per year?", Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews provided conflicting annual cost ranges for brand-name Propecia. Google AI Mode stated $1,200 to $1,800+ per year ($100 to $150+ per month), citing a Hims cost guide, GoodRx pricing and medication pages. Google AI Overviews stated roughly $1,900+ per year (about $160 per month), citing Cost Plus Drugs, Healthline, and a Ro page on obtaining finasteride. The two ranges do not overlap.

The same question produced a second conflict, this time between Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Gemini stated $840 to $1,080+ per year ($70 to $90+ per month), citing a MyHairline finasteride cost guide, while Google AI Overviews again stated roughly $1,900+ per year. The MyHairline source page was flagged for the claim that brand-name Propecia runs $70 to $90 per month for the identical active ingredient.

A third conflict on the same question set Gemini against Google AI Mode. Gemini's $840 to $1,080+ per year range cannot both be correct alongside Google AI Mode's $1,200 to $1,800+ per year range, and the MyHairline source was flagged again on the Gemini side.

Across all three conflicts the divergence concentrates in cost figures surfaced by Google-operated AI responses, with the flagged source appearing on one side of two of them.

Benchmark Context

Questions This Section Answers

• How does the qualified benchmark set differ from the 800 raw prompt-surface runs?
• What changed in the qualified observation counts between July 2026 and October 2026?

The report separates the raw collection universe from the qualified analysis set. Brand-level recommendation percentages are calculated within the qualified benchmark set.

All brand-level percentages below are calculated against the qualified benchmark counts of 571 (July 2026) and 528 (October 2026), not the raw 800 prompt-surface runs.

Benchmark-Level Metrics

Recommendation-shaped answers accounted for 291 of 571 qualified observations in July 2026 (51.0%) and 305 of 528 in October 2026 (57.8%), a gain of 6.8 points across the baseline-to-current span. The valid recommendation shortlist share rose 12.2 points, from 54.8% to 67.0%, over the same span.

AI Recommendation Trend

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands led valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, and how far apart were they?
• Which brands posted the largest moves, and did they offset each other in the mid-tier?

Leadership held in Rogaine while the tier beneath it reorganized: a naming shift moved one commercial position between tracked labels, and the mid-tier compressed.

Valid Recommendation Coverage by Brand

The category-level pattern came from the combination of several smaller movements rather than one brand breaking away: Rogaine, Nutrafol, Hims, and Happy Head all stayed inside normal month-to-month variation on the coverage metric, while the two significant series movements, Ro's rise and Propecia (Merck)'s fall, offset in the mid-tier.

What Changed This Month

Questions This Section Answers

• Where did Rogaine's October 2026 strength show up beyond coverage?
• How did Propecia (Merck)'s three-month decline unfold across coverage, presence, and placement?
• Why is the Ro label's rise not directly comparable to the prior Ro (Roman) entry?

Rogaine: Leadership Held, Top Placement Extended

Rogaine's valid recommendation coverage moved from 56.4% in July 2026 to 53.4% in August 2026, 58.3% in September 2026, and 59.3% in October 2026. That is 313 valid recommendations from 528 qualified observations this month, and the benchmark treats the baseline-to-current change as within normal variation.

Top placement is where the brand pulled further ahead. Top-three rate rose 19.9 points, from 31.2% in July 2026 to 51.1% in October 2026, a gain the benchmark classifies as significant, and rank-one rate climbed from 23.3% to 41.1% over the same span, also significant. The rank-one count reached 217 this month.

Raw mention presence held near the top of the category at 85.2%, down 3.6 points from 88.8% in July 2026 but not a significant move. The brand was already the most visible in the category; October 2026 shows that visibility converting into top-of-answer placement more often than at baseline.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which prompt types and surface families concentrated the rank-one placements, and which competitors were displaced from those positions?

Hims: Top-Three Conversion Pulled Away From Coverage

Hims moved from 52.2% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 47.7% in September 2026, then to 53.4% in October 2026. Against the baseline that is a 1.2-point gain, but the prior-to-current move was 5.7 points upward, the largest single-month change for the brand in the series.

The sharper signal sits in placement. Top-three rate rose 17.3 points, from 34.0% in July 2026 to 51.3% in October 2026, a gain the benchmark classifies as significant, while rank-one rate moved from 19.3% to 20.6%, a change the benchmark does not classify as significant on its own. The top-three count reached 271 this month.

Raw mention presence was essentially flat at 71.8% against 73.9% at baseline. Presence held steady while top-three conversion improved, which is a different pattern from a brand simply appearing more often.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which prompts drove the top-three gain, and did they concentrate in a specific AI surface family?

Propecia (Merck): Three-Month Significant Decline

Propecia (Merck) fell from 37.1% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 28.3% in August 2026, 24.7% in September 2026, and 22.4% in October 2026. That is a 14.7-point baseline-to-current drop the benchmark classifies as significant, with a three-month downward streak. The absolute count fell from 212 to 118 valid recommendations.

The decline is broad rather than isolated to one measure. Raw mention presence fell 24.8 points, from 70.4% to 45.6%, a significant move. Top-three rate fell 2.0 points from 19.6% to 17.6%, and rank-one rate fell 0.4 points from 7.4% to 7.0%, neither significant on its own. The prior-to-current move was 2.3 points down.

The brand is appearing in meaningfully fewer answers, and the answers it does appear in are not recommending it more often to compensate.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which competitor is absorbing the lost recommendations, and did the driver differ between the early and late months of the decline?

Ro and Ro (Roman): A Tracked Position Under a New Label

Ro registered 15.2% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026 and 18.2% in October 2026, a two-month upward streak and an 18.2-point gain against its July 2026 baseline of zero, which the benchmark classifies as significant. That is 96 valid recommendations this month, up from 84 in September 2026.

Ro (Roman) held 19.8% in July 2026 and 17.5% in August 2026, then zero from September 2026 onward. The bench marks these as separate entries across the series. The gap between the two labels widened by 38.0 points from baseline to current, and it has widened every month of the series.

For context, Ro's raw mention presence this month is 23.9%, with a top-three rate of 13.5% and a rank-one rate of 1.1%. Read as one commercial entity across the naming change, this position has been tracked across the whole series, but direct label-to-label comparison is not reliable while the series sits under one name.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Is the Ro label a full replacement for the prior alias in the prompt universe, or does the same commercial entity now surface under different query formulations?

Bosley and HairClub: Flat-to-Floor Positions

Bosley held 2.6% valid recommendation coverage in both July 2026 and October 2026, with 14 valid recommendations, a presence rate of 8.9% against 11.4% at baseline, and a top-three rate of 1.7%. The benchmark classifies the position as stable. With only 14 valid recommendations, a single recommendation shifts the rate by a visible amount.

HairClub moved from 0.7% coverage in July 2026 to 0.2% in October 2026 with 1 valid recommendation, down from 4 at baseline, a change the benchmark does not treat as significant. The prior-to-current move was 0.2 points upward. The brand still appears in 27 answers, 5.1% of qualified observations, but almost none of those appearances convert into a recommendation.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which prompts still mention these brands without recommending them, and what are the alternative recommendations in those answers?

Buyer-Intent Interpretation

Questions This Section Answers

• What types of buyer questions made up the qualified observations, and what did they measure?
• Why couldn't the benchmark answer pricing or head-to-head comparison questions?

All 528 qualified observations in October 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class, which captures discovery and consideration intent. That was also true in July 2026, August 2026, and September 2026, with all qualified observations landing in that same class across the series.

No qualified observation landed in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes in any month. The public benchmark therefore measures which brands AI systems recommend when shoppers ask for the best option in the category. It cannot yet answer commercial questions about price positioning, value for money, or head-to-head brand superiority, because those prompt types did not surface in qualified observations. The pricing conflicts reported above sit outside the qualified recommendation set and are not part of these coverage percentages.

Brand Opportunity Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands carry the most at stake in October 2026, and what diagnostic does each one need?
• What distinguishes brands with flat or near-zero coverage from the category leaders?

The benchmark identifies where attention is warranted; a company-level analysis is needed to explain why.

Evidence Behind the Benchmark

The aggregate metrics are built from prompt-level observations capturing the query, surface, recommendation outcome, rank, sentiment, and citations where exposed. Company-level analysis can go deeper into prompt, competitor, surface, and evidence patterns. Source presence is not automatically treated as proof of causation.

About This Benchmark

This report is part of the LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery research program.

• AI Visibility Industry Market Methodology
• AI Visibility Industry Market Metrics
• AI Visibility Industry Market Standards

Report-Specific Interpretation Notes

• Small observation counts apply at the lower end of the category. HairClub holds 1 valid recommendation and Bosley holds 14, so a single recommendation shifts their percentages by a visible amount and their movements should be read as directional rather than settled.
• The Ro and Ro (Roman) entries are tracked as separate labels across the series. The Ro label carries the position from September 2026 onward while the prior alias shows zero, which is best read as one commercial entity under a changed name.
• All percentages use the qualified benchmark set of 571 observations in July 2026 and 528 in October 2026, not the 800 raw prompt-surface runs.
• Month-over-month movement identifies changes worth investigating. It does not by itself establish what caused those changes. A brand gaining or losing recommendation credit is a benchmark movement, not a result attributable to any single factor.

Next Step

The Public Benchmark Shows Where a Brand Is Winning or Losing. A Company-Level Audit Shows Why.

Beneath the aggregate percentage sits a set of sharper questions: which high-intent prompts a brand wins, which competitor takes the recommendation when it loses, what attributes AI systems associate with each option, and which external sources shape those answers. The public benchmark shows the scoreboard; it does not reveal the plays that produced it.

A company-specific AI visibility audit maps those prompt, surface, competitor, ranking, sentiment, and evidence-source patterns into a prioritized visibility strategy. Where the benchmark identifies a position, the audit explains the mechanics behind it.

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