When someone asks AI for the best med spa in your city, does it name you — or your competitor?

We checked what AI says about real med spas. The picture is rough.

In our benchmark of 10 established US local businesses — five of them med spas — spread across nine US metro areas, the average AI Visibility Score was 20 out of 100. Not one cleared 30. On average these businesses appeared in just 38% of AI answers about their own specialty in their own city — so most times a potential client asks AI about their market, they simply aren't in the answer. And in 6 of the 10, a single competitor was named more often than the business itself.

We re-checked the pattern in late June 2026 on two established, well-known med-spa brands — the kind with polished sites, strong review profiles, and real local recognition:

• Both scored 17/100. Each appeared in only 2 of 6 AI answers to “best med spa” buyer questions in its own city.
• In each market, a local competitor was named more often than the brand we checked — in one city a single rival was named in 4 of 6 answers while the established brand managed 2.
• Across just these two checks the engines named two-to-three dozen different competing med spas by name — specific, confident recommendations, going to someone else.

The expensive part isn't that AI returns an empty answer. It returns a confident answer — with a competitor's name in it.

Why this is a booked-appointments problem, not a vanity metric

Aesthetic treatments are high-consideration and high-margin: a single new injectable or laser client is worth hundreds to thousands of dollars in lifetime value. People increasingly vet med spas by asking an AI assistant before they ever call — and AI-referred visitors arrive pre-sold, because the assistant already told them you're the answer. The inverse is the quiet leak: if ChatGPT keeps steering “best med spa near me” to the spa down the road, you lose consults you never saw, to a competitor who never outranked you on Google.

Google rank doesn't protect you here

Several benchmark businesses rank on Google's first page for their core keyword — and still scored 13–28. AI engines don't read your rank; they synthesize answers from directories, “best med spa in {city}” listicles, review consensus across Yelp/Google/RealSelf, and editorial mentions. That's a different surface than the one your SEO or your front desk watches — and right now, for most med spas, nobody is watching it at all. If a rival keeps winning the answer, here's why AI recommends a competitor instead of you.

How the free check works

1. 1Enter your med spa's name, city, and “med spa” as the category. 60 seconds.
2. 2We ask the major AI engines the questions your clients actually ask.
3. 3You get an AI Visibility Score (0–100), your mention rate, and the competing med spas AI recommends instead of you.

The full audit ($79, one-time)

Because AI answers are nondeterministic — ask the same question twice and the shortlist reshuffles — visibility is a frequency, not something you can screenshot once and trust. The Full Audit runs 25 buyer questions × 4 engines × 3 samples = 300 answers and reports: your mention rate per engine, share-of-voice against every competing med spa the engines name, which sources the engines actually cite about med spas in your market (the directories and pages you need to be on), and a prioritized fix plan you can hand to whoever runs your marketing. $79 one-time — not a $99–500/mo enterprise dashboard. See how AskedAbout compares to the other AI visibility tools, most of which are monthly subscriptions.

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