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AnswerLift  /  Data study

65% of med spas don’t show up when AI is asked for the best in their city

We asked an AI answer engine the single question a new patient asks first — “best med spa in {their city}” — for 75 real med spas across 75 metros. 49 of them were never named.

What we found

We took 75 med spas we’d already identified across 75 U.S. metros and asked Perplexity the highest-intent question a prospective patient asks: “best med spa in {city}”, using each spa’s own city. We recorded whether the engine named the business.

49 of 75 (65%) were not named at all — invisible to AI for the exact search that sends the most ready-to-book patients. Each of those is a high-intent customer the AI handed to a competitor instead.

Med spas checked75
Metros75
Not named by AI49 (65%)
Question asked“best med spa in (their city)”
EnginePerplexity
Checked2026-06-24

How we did it (so you can repeat it)

No survey, no estimate. We ran the same automated AI Visibility Check we offer for free, once per business, against a real sample spread across metros so the number isn’t a quirk of one city. The method is the whole point — anyone can re-run “best med spa in [city]” and see who gets named.

This audit reflects what public AI answer engines returned for these buyer questions on the date shown. AI answers are non-deterministic and change over time; this is a point-in-time visibility snapshot, not a guarantee of ranking. We checked one engine for the category question on the date shown; results shift over time, so this is a point-in-time snapshot, not a fixed ranking. We publish the method and the date precisely so it can be checked.

Why this happens

It’s rarely about quality. AI names the businesses it has the clearest, most consistent, most-talked-about information on. A great med spa with thin reviews, inconsistent listings, or no mentions in the local “best of” lists simply isn’t in the data the model trusts — so it plays safe and names someone else. Here’s the full mechanic.

Want to know which side of this number your business is on?

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