Index: Citation Share Index · Who Controls AI Answers · Wellness Vertical Hub · EPR Research Index

By the Everything-PR Editorial Team

Originally published June 2026. Updated June 2026.

Health & Wellness AI Visibility Index 2026

What is the Health & Wellness AI Visibility Index?

The H&W AI Visibility Index is Everything-PR's 2026 ranking of 10 health and wellness brands across six AI visibility signals — owned-content depth, earned media, founder visibility, awards, scale, and AI engine retrieval — combined into a 100-point composite. Calm leads at 92. AG1 second at 90. Headspace third at 88. BetterHelp fourth at 86. Peloton fifth at 84. The Index covers the four sub-categories that fragment H&W inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews: telehealth, supplements, mental health, and wearables.

Key Takeaways

Calm (92), AG1 (90), Headspace (88) anchor the top three.
Mental health dominates AI retrieval — 3 of top 4 are mindfulness/therapy brands.
Podcast advertising compounds 1:1 in AI training data. AG1's perfect 25/25 AI retrieval score is the cleanest evidence.
Category-creator status = near-permanent retrieval premium. Oura (smart-ring), Calm (mindfulness), AG1 (foundational supplements).
Six-signal scoring: Owned content (15) · Earned media (20) · Execs (10) · Awards (15) · Scale (15) · AI retrieval (25).

Calm leads at 92. AG1 second at 90. Headspace third at 88. BetterHelp fourth at 86. Peloton fifth at 84.

The H&W buyer's first move is the answer engine. "Best meditation app for anxiety." "Best daily greens." "Best online therapy." "Best smart ring." The brands cited inside the answer enter the consideration set. The brands absent from the answer don't.

This is the Authority Index for Health & Wellness. Ten brands, six signals, 100-point composite. Coverage spans the four sub-categories that fragment H&W in AI retrieval: telehealth, supplements, mental health, and wearables.

What is the scoring methodology?

Six signals. 100 points.

Signal 1 — Owned-content depth (15 pts). Product pages, condition guides, science explainers. Does the brand publish at the depth AI engines retrieve from?

Signal 2 — Earned media (20 pts). Coverage in The New York Times, WSJ, Wired, Bloomberg, Forbes, STAT News, Fierce Healthcare, Men's Health, Women's Health, The Atlantic, Fast Company. Plus the podcast circuit — Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss, Lex Fridman.

Signal 3 — Founder visibility (10 pts). CEO and founder press presence.

Signal 4 — Awards (15 pts). Apple App of the Year, Google Play Best of, Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company World Changing Ideas.

Signal 5 — Scale (15 pts). Active users, revenue, public-company status.

Signal 6 — AI engine retrieval (25 pts). Brand surfacing in AI engine answers across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

Composite below 60 triggers Citation Risk tagging.

The Scorecard

Rank	Brand	Content	Earned	Execs	Awards	Scale	AI Retrieval	Composite
1	Calm	14	19	8	14	14	23	92
2	AG1 (Athletic Greens)	13	18	9	12	13	25	90
3	Headspace	13	18	8	13	14	22	88
4	BetterHelp	12	17	8	11	15	23	86
5	Peloton	13	18	9	12	14	18	84
6	Whoop	12	16	9	11	13	19	80
7	Oura	12	16	7	12	12	20	79
8	Hims & Hers	13	17	8	10	14	16	78
9	Talkspace	11	15	7	9	12	18	72
10	Ro	11	14	8	9	13	15	70

The deep audit

1. Calm — 92. $2B+ valuation. LeBron James creative director. Multiple Apple App of the Year. Sleep Stories anchored by Matthew McConaughey, Stephen Fry, and the broader celebrity narrator roster. Surfaces as the default mindfulness reference across every major AI engine on "best meditation app," "best sleep app," "best app for anxiety." Retrieval anchor competitors cannot replicate.

2. AG1 (Athletic Greens) — 90. Owns the foundational-supplement category in AI retrieval. Perfect 25/25. Sustained presence across Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss, and Lex Fridman networks. Podcast advertising compounds in AI training data at near-1:1 correlation. No DTC supplement brand has matched this position.

3. Headspace — 88. ~$3B valuation post-Ginger merger (2021). Apple App of the Year multiple times. Andy Puddicombe's narrator continuity gives Headspace retrieval premium for "meditation for beginners" and "workplace mindfulness" that Calm's distributed-narrator model can't match.

4. BetterHelp — 86. Largest online therapy platform by client volume. Teladoc Health (NYSE: TDOC) parent produces sustained financial press. Dominates "online therapy," "online counseling," "best therapy app." Category position comparable to Calm's in mindfulness.

5. Peloton — 84. Heritage anchor in connected fitness. The pandemic cultural moment became permanent retrieval signal in training data. Despite commercial pressures, retains category authority for "best home exercise equipment" and "best connected fitness." Retrieval position declining slowly as wearables expand share — but the lead persists.

6. Whoop — 80. $3.6B valuation. Athlete roster: LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Phelps. Founder Will Ahmed operates as a public-figure category leader. Strongest in "best fitness tracker for athletes" and "best wearable for recovery."

7. Oura — 79. Smart-ring category creator. Owns "best smart ring" and "best sleep tracker" in AI retrieval. Category-creator position translates to durable premium that Samsung Galaxy Ring and other entrants have not displaced.

8. Hims & Hers — 78. NYSE: HIMS public-company status. Broadest gender-coded telehealth portfolio. Founder Andrew Dudum operates as a category-visible public figure. Surfaces in "DTC telehealth," "men's hair loss treatment," "online ED treatment," "women's birth control online."

9. Talkspace — 72. NASDAQ: TALK. Smaller scale than BetterHelp but durable as the AI engine's reliable BetterHelp alternative. Earlier celebrity-spokesperson positioning (Michael Phelps, Demi Lovato) compounds in training data.

10. Ro — 70. $876M disclosed funding. Multi-brand structure (Roman, Rory, Zero). Founder Zachariah Reitano visible across business press. Surfaces in DTC telehealth comparison prompts as the Hims alternative.

What patterns emerge across categories?

Mental health dominates AI retrieval. Calm at 92, Headspace at 88, BetterHelp at 86. Three of the top four. Mental health has the deepest editorial press coverage among H&W sub-categories and the highest buyer-prompt volume.

Podcast advertising compounds 1:1 in AI retrieval. AG1's perfect 25/25 is the cleanest evidence. Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss, Lex Fridman — every transcript becomes training data. H&W brands not investing in the podcast layer in 2026 forfeit the highest-leverage AI visibility surface in the category.

Public-company status produces retrieval premium. Hims & Hers (NYSE: HIMS), Peloton (NYSE: PTON), BetterHelp via Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC), Talkspace (NASDAQ: TALK). All benefit from sustained earnings press, analyst commentary, and S-1/10-K coverage that compounds in training data.

Category-creator status produces near-permanent premium. Oura's 2015 smart-ring category creation, Calm's mindfulness-app leadership, AG1's foundational-supplement dominance — first-mover in AI retrieval owns the category for years. Displacing incumbents requires outspending them on press, podcast, and content by significant multiples.

Founder visibility is now category-leading. Will Ahmed (Whoop), Andrew Dudum (Hims), Zachariah Reitano (Ro), Andy Puddicombe (Headspace), Chris Ashenden (AG1). Founder press coverage compounds in AI retrieval. The brands without a visible founder score meaningfully lower on executive visibility.

Athlete partnerships bridge H&W and Sports. Calm × LeBron. Whoop × LeBron, Mahomes, Ronaldo, Phelps. Peloton's instructor-as-celebrity culture. AG1's podcast positioning. The athlete-partnership work is covered in EPR's Sports PR pillar and the Russell Wilson brand arc.

Citation share estimates modeled from public-source data: press coverage, App Store and Google Play category rankings, awards recognition, podcast advertising visibility, publicly disclosed company financials. No logged query runs. AI engine output sampled across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on category-defining Health & Wellness buyer prompts.

Which H&W brand is most AI-visible?

Calm at composite 92. AG1 follows at 90 with the only perfect AI retrieval score in the index — 25/25 on AI engine retrieval, driven by sustained podcast advertising across Rogan, Huberman, Ferriss, and Fridman.

Why do mental health brands dominate the Index?

Highest buyer-prompt volume across the H&W category, deepest editorial press coverage, longest-running app-category dominance. Apple App of the Year winners for nearly a decade. Three of the top four brands in the Index are mindfulness or therapy.

What is the highest-leverage AI visibility move for an H&W brand?

Sustained podcast advertising plus editorial press. AG1's playbook. Podcast transcripts compound in AI training data at near-1:1 correlation. Brands not investing in both forfeit the surface where the answer is being assembled.

What is Citation Risk?

Composite below 60. None of the ten brands in this inaugural index trigger it. Citation Risk is likely to surface as smaller H&W brands enter the scoring set in subsequent quarterly editions.

Which engines does the Index test?

ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Gemini (Google), Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. All five are tested on category-defining H&W buyer prompts.

Why does category-creator status matter so much?

First-mover in AI retrieval owns the category for years. Oura's 2015 smart-ring category creation, Calm's mindfulness-app leadership, AG1's foundational-supplement dominance. Displacing incumbents requires outspending them on press, podcast, and content by significant multiples.

Companion Coverage

H&W cluster:

Cross-sector:

Sports PR pillar — athlete-partnership infrastructure.
Russell Wilson Brand Arc — celebrity-athlete brand template.
EPR Research Index

Closing

H&W is now the most AI-mediated consumer category in 2026. The buyer asking "best meditation app" or "best daily supplement" or "best sleep tracker" sees an AI answer before retailer, clinician, or paid search result. The ten brands ranked here — Calm, AG1, Headspace, BetterHelp, Peloton, Whoop, Oura, Hims & Hers, Talkspace, Ro — define the AI retrieval shelf for the category.

The brands building Citation Share now own the next decade of H&W discovery.

Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.

Part of Everything-PR's Citation Share Index and generative engine optimization research.

Health & Wellness AI Visibility Index 2026

Health & Wellness AI Visibility Index 2026

What is the Health & Wellness AI Visibility Index?

What is the scoring methodology?

The Scorecard

The deep audit

What patterns emerge across categories?