Oracite Research · 2026

We audited 6 Silicon Valley med spas. Most are invisible in AI search.

We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Mode the questions patients actually ask — across 216 real buying-intent searches. The typical clinic was named in only about a third of answers, and one with 587 reviews showed up just 14% of the time.

Original data from Oracite audits of 6 Silicon Valley aesthetic clinics · June 2026

What we found

Patients increasingly pick a provider by asking an AI assistant — "best Botox near me," "is laser worth it," "safest place for fillers." So we asked those exact questions, on every major engine, for six Silicon Valley clinics, and recorded who got named and cited. Across 216 question-and-answer pairs, a clinic was mentioned only about 32% of the time. The rest of the time, AI recommended someone else.

And the gap was stark. One clinic that had quietly done the right things showed up almost everywhere — while a clinic with 587 reviews was named in only 14% of answers. Reputation and ad spend didn't decide it. Doing the things AI rewards did.

Google's AI is where it's decided

Google AI Mode now has over a billion monthly users and shows an AI answer on the majority of "how much / is it worth it" local searches. It's the biggest surface — and even there, the clinics we tested were named less than half the time, while it routinely listed a dozen competitors per question.

Who AI recommends instead

Across the audits, a handful of names kept winning the answers:

Recommended by AI	Times named
SkinSpirit	63
Los Gatos Dermatology	37
Sani Aesthetics	34
Clarity Medical Spa	25
True You Medical Aesthetic	21

The lesson isn't "get more reviews." It's that AI builds its answer from sources it trusts — and most clinics have given it nothing of theirs to trust.

How we measured it

For each clinic we ran a fixed set of buying-intent questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Mode, captured every answer verbatim, and recorded whether the clinic was named and cited. Every run is logged and fingerprinted with a SHA-256 receipt, so the findings are reproducible and tamper-evident. This is a small, transparent sample — 6 Silicon Valley aesthetic clinics, 216 question-answer pairs, from our own audits — not a claim about the whole industry. We're publishing it because the pattern is consistent and rarely measured.

Questions

How visible are aesthetic clinics in AI search?

In our audit of 6 Silicon Valley clinics across 216 buying-intent questions, the typical clinic was named in only about a third of answers (~32%). One clinic with 587 reviews appeared in just 14%.

Why isn't my med spa showing up in ChatGPT or Google AI?

AI engines build answers from sources they trust — review platforms, directories, structured data, consistent entity info. Reviews and ad budget alone don't get you named.

Can this be fixed?

Yes. The clinic that scored well wasn't bigger — it had done the things AI rewards. That's exactly what Oracite does: audit where you stand, earn the citations, and prove the lift each month.