UK shoppers mostly get US brands, unless they mention price
Generic 'best X' questions are answered from US roundups, so US brands lead even for a UK audience. UK names like Bulk, Myprotein, Applied Nutrition and NutriSport appear almost only in budget and head-to-head questions, which are answered from UK sites. A UK challenger has to win the US-style roundups as well as the UK value sites.
Top cited sources are fortune.com (8 citations, 6 answers), garagegymreviews.com (5 answers), barbend.com and forbes.com (3 answers each). UK-specific sites (wheywise.co.uk, proteindeals.co.uk, mrsuppy.com, origym.co.uk, suppreview.co.uk, insightsupps.com) appear only alongside UK brands in the budget and Myprotein vs Bulk answers. Wheywise.co.uk alone has 11 citations across 2 answers.
Fortune's roundups are the single biggest source of picks
Across its main site, its deals pages and its sub-domain, Fortune supplies more citations than any other publisher. The brands in those lists, such as Transparent Labs, Orgain, Ritual, Legion and Swolverine, follow it into the answers.
fortune.com 8 citations in 6 answers, dc.fortune.com 3 in 2, shop.fortune.com 2 in 2: 13 citations in total. Orgain, the most-named brand (5 answers), sits in these Fortune-cited answers despite never ranking first.
ChatGPT and Claude disagree on the top pick in 5 of 12 questions
The two assistants split on the top pick for Myprotein vs Bulk, cheap protein, collagen, protein bars and protein for women. Claude leans towards performance brands that appear on lab-testing and athletic review sites. Being strong in one assistant does not mean you are visible in the other.
Split first picks: Myprotein vs Bulk (ChatGPT Myprotein, Claude Bulk), cheap protein (Applied Nutrition vs NutriSport), collagen (Vital Proteins vs Thorne), bars (Kirkland Signature vs Barebells), women's protein (Promix vs Transparent Labs). Transparent Labs (3), Swolverine (2) and Legion (2) appear only in Claude answers.
Health-symptom questions return almost no brands
For tiredness and bloating, the assistants lean on the NHS, the US National Institutes of Health and gastroenterology journals, and mostly decline to name products. This is open ground for a brand with credible clinical or dietitian backing.
'Low energy and tiredness': no brand named by either assistant. 'Bloating and gut health': ChatGPT named none, Claude named only Align. ods.od.nih.gov has 6 citations across 3 answers; nhs.uk, gi.org, nccih.nih.gov and a Gastroenterology journal are also cited.
'Alternatives to' questions favour challengers, and brand blogs get cited
Asking for cheaper options to AG1 or Huel brings up smaller brands, and a challenger's own comparison page was used as a source. Notably, no Reddit, forum or YouTube source was cited in any answer, so editorial lists and comparison pages are doing the work.
'Cheaper alternatives to AG1' named 8 brands, including Live it Up, Primal Greens and Beam. letsliveitup.com ('6 Best AG1 Alternatives') was cited in 2 answers, and ringly.io, nutrola.app and topnutritioncoaching.com were each cited in 2 or 3. There were 0 forum or video sources among 40 domains.