Use AI visibility rankings as a prompt, not a scoreboard.

MM+M, July 6, 2026 | 5W AI Visibility Index, May 2026

A new 5W analysis, covered by MM+M, ranked Lilly and Novo Nordisk as the most cited pharma companies across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. The headline is GLP-1s, but the bigger point is that AI visibility reflects more than company size, drug revenue, DTC spend, or traditional search rank.

Lilly and Novo are showing up because people are asking about the categories they dominate, especially weight loss, diabetes, and GLP-1 treatment questions. The public conversation around Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound has created a dense information environment across clinical sources, consumer health coverage, news, social conversation, and brand-owned content. AI systems are picking up on that environment and turning it into answer visibility.

That matters because the companies AI names most are not always the companies with the biggest revenue or media spend. The 5W analysis puts Lilly and Novo ahead of companies like Merck, Pfizer, J&J, AbbVie, and AstraZeneca, even though those companies have enormous commercial footprints. In AI search, the question is not only “how big is the brand?” It is “how much clear, trusted, connected information exists around the questions people are actually asking?”

For pharma teams, visibility rankings should be treated as a diagnostic signal, not a scoreboard. The results may also be skewed by the prompts 5W chose to track, so the takeaway is less about who “won” AI visibility and more about what the rankings reveal about the information environment around high-interest categories. If a brand is absent from AI answers, the next question is not simply how to “get cited.” It is whether the brand, product, disease state, and supporting evidence are clearly connected across the sources AI systems trust. The opportunity is to understand which questions are driving discovery, which sources are shaping the answers, and where better content, coverage, or source alignment could help the brand show up more accurately.

Social and video are becoming measurable search surfaces.

Google Search Central, July 2026

Google is adding a new Search Console property type that lets brands and creators see how Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube content performs in Google Search and Discover. That may sound like a reporting update, but it points to a bigger shift: social and video content are becoming measurable parts of search.

For years, social content was often treated as separate from search. A brand might measure site traffic in Search Console, social engagement in platform analytics, and video performance somewhere else entirely. Google’s new platform properties start to blur those lines by showing which search queries lead people to social posts, videos, and platform profiles. In other words, content that does not live on a brand website can still shape search visibility.

That has real implications for healthcare and pharma. Patients and caregivers often learn through short-form video, creator explainers, community discussions, advocacy content, and social posts before they ever reach a brand-owned page. HCPs may see conference clips, expert commentary, or medical education content outside a traditional site experience. If those assets appear in Google Search or Discover, they are part of the brand’s discoverability footprint.

The practical shift is that social and video should be planned with search in mind. That does not mean turning every post into an SEO asset. It means being more intentional about titles, captions, descriptions, terminology, accessibility, and the questions the content is designed to answer. If Google is measuring and surfacing these assets in search, pharma teams should treat them as part of the broader information environment that influences both traditional search and AI-mediated discovery.

What We’re Hearing

A recent AMEC webinar, attended by Real Chemistry Senior Manager, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Search Strategy, Vincent Mattei, “The Principles Are Live. What Do You Do Next?”, focused on how communications teams can apply the new GEO principles in practice. The most useful reminder was that GEO measurement cannot stop at simple visibility. Teams need to understand what sources shaped the answer, how the brand or topic was framed, whether the information was accurate, and whether the output reflected trusted evidence.

That connects closely to what we are seeing in client conversations. A visibility score can be helpful, but it does not explain whether the answer is good. A brand can be present and still be misrepresented, under-contextualized, cited from weak sources, or disconnected from what patients, caregivers, HCPs, or journalists need to understand.

Another recent webinar, “A practical guide to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in Pharma,” featuring Mansee Jajoo, Director, Channel Enablement Expert at Astellas; our own Meredith Owen, Practice Leader, Integrated Intelligence; and Kate Eversole, Director, PharmaBrands, focused on how AI is changing the way health information is discovered, interpreted, and shared. The discussion reinforced that GEO is not simply SEO with a new name. For pharma teams, the work starts with understanding where AI visibility is weak or inaccurate, identifying content and source gaps, and building ways of working across search, communications, medical, regulatory, and analytics teams.

For healthcare brands, the strongest GEO programs will combine measurement with editorial judgment. Visibility matters, but the real work is understanding why the answer looks the way it does and what can be improved across owned content, earned coverage, advocacy, medical sources, social and video, and technical search foundations.

Your Questions, Answered

We want The HealthGEO Pulse to be a two-way conversation. Send us your GEO questions and we will tackle the best ones each month.

Q: Should we measure GEO by visibility scores alone?

Visibility scores are useful, but they are only one signal.

A brand can appear in an AI answer and still be framed poorly, cited from weak sources, missing safety context, or disconnected from what patients, caregivers, or HCPs actually need to understand.

The better approach is to look at presence, framing, intent, source quality, answer accuracy, referral behavior, and whether content gaps are being closed over time.

The strongest brands will build a clearer, more credible information environment around the questions that matter.

The HealthGEO Pulse is published monthly for pharmaceutical and healthcare professionals navigating the AI search landscape. Questions, feedback or topics you want covered? Reply directly to this email.

 

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