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Headphones & Earbuds

Cycle 2026-08-01run #81

The Headphones & Earbuds AI-visibility leaderboard ranks 14 brands by how often Perplexity, ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic) and Gemini (Google) mention and recommend them across a fixed panel of realistic buyer questions, re-measured every monthly cycle. Sony (audio) currently leads with a global visibility score of 39.5.

Shopping, not analyzing? Read the buyer's guide: The best headphones & earbuds, according to AI →

Movers

No statistically significant movement since the last run — all 14 tracked brands are stable within their confidence intervals. Muted hollow arrows in the standings below show drift that stayed within statistical noise.

Standings

#BrandGlobal scorePer model
1Sony (audio)39.5 ±2.6▽ −0.3
perplexity34
openai40
anthropic36
google42
2△1Apple (AirPods)33.7 ±2.6△ +0.7
perplexity30
openai32
anthropic31
google42
3▽1Anker Soundcore32.8 ±2.7▽ −1.3
perplexity32
openai31
anthropic33
google40
4Jabra29.8 ±2.5▽ −0.7
perplexity25
openai31
anthropic25
google28
5Bose28.3 ±2.4▽ −1.2
perplexity26
openai27
anthropic28
google35
6△1Beats24.1 ±2.4▽ −1.0
perplexity23
openai24
anthropic23
google27
7▽1Sennheiser23.6 ±2.4▽ −1.6
perplexity19
openai24
anthropic22
google24
8Samsung (Galaxy Buds)19.1 ±2.1▽ −0.8
perplexity18
openai19
anthropic19
google19
9△1Beyerdynamic18.7 ±2.9△ +0.3
perplexity23
openai18
anthropic14
google20
10▽1Nothing (Ear)18.0 ±4.0▽ −1.1
perplexity20
openai18
anthropic18
google17
11JBL17.0 ±2.0△ +0.3
perplexity21
openai16
anthropic24
google19
12△1Shure13.9 ±2.0▽ −0.5
perplexity12
openai14
anthropic13
google13
13▽1Audio-Technica13.9 ±2.3▽ −0.6
perplexity13
openai14
anthropic12
google15
14Skullcandy13.5 ±1.6△ +0.1
perplexity15
openai14
anthropic13
google12

What the AIs cite

The domains search-backed assistants relied on when answering this industry's questions (2026-08-01). Getting featured on these is the most direct lever on AI visibility.

DomainAnswers citing it
youtube.com295
reddit.com294
rtings.com228
soundguys.com147
cnet.com117
facebook.com101
nytimes.com89
whathifi.com80
amazon.com79
bestbuy.com76

Head-to-head: Sony (audio) vs Apple (AirPods) · Sony (audio) vs Anker Soundcore · Apple (AirPods) vs Anker Soundcore

Global score = market-share-weighted blend of per-model visibility scores (0–100). Methodology

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