491 of 720 Indian brands
are never named by AI.

Brands checked

720

14 categories, India

Never named once

491

68% of all brands

Questions asked

210

15 buyer questions per category

Headline findings

• • Interior designers are the most invisible category: 44 of 50 brands never named. Hair care is the most contested: 18 of 50.
• • Large advertisers at zero in 15 questions: upGrad (online MBA), Star Health (health insurance), Samsung and LG (air purifiers), Sunsilk and Dabur Vatika (hair care), Ogilvy India (agencies).
• • The top 3 brands in each category take most answers: Zoho CRM 15/15, Asics 13/15, Media.Monks 12/15, Vida 10/15, Minimalist 10/15.
• • What the AI cites: YouTube (64 citations in the first 120 answers), Reddit (28), then category portals such as Paisabazaar, Nykaa and NoBroker. Brand websites rarely.
• • Buy-intent questions ("which should I buy", "best under ₹500") name 3 to 5 brands; how-to questions name none.

Methodology

14 categories where Indian brands spend on marketing. 50 to 60 well-known brands per category. 15 unbranded buyer questions per category, written the way a buyer types them ("best sunscreen for oily skin in India", "which home loan should I take"). Each question asked once to Google Gemini with search grounding in the first week of September 2026. A brand counts as named when it appears in the answer text; citations are the sources the engine attached to the answer. One engine and one run, so a zero means "rarely", not "never"; paid monitoring checks every question on Gemini daily and on ChatGPT weekly.

Quote: "The AI trusts a YouTube review of your product more than your own product page. Two thirds of Indian brands are not in the shortlist when a buyer asks." — Naveen Khattak, founder, AnswerVue

Contact: naveen@getvetrelay.com · We run any category you name within 24 hours.