Healthcare & Pharma in the Age of AI Search: Trust, Decay, and Misinformation Risk
When patients ask ChatGPT “Which vaccine is safest?” or Gemini “What’s the best pain relief medicine?”, they don’t see ten options. They get one or two names.
The AIVO 100™ — Healthcare & Pharma ranking shows which brands dominate these answers — and where decay, misinformation, and geographic gaps expose systemic risk.
Key Findings from the Healthcare & Pharma Top 10
- Pfizer (PSOS 87) — Still the most recalled vaccine brand, but 12% of recall contains outdated or misleading vaccine data, the highest misinformation rate in the sector.
- Tylenol (85) — Top consumer health brand with 92% positive sentiment, significantly higher than Advil (85%).
- Johnson & Johnson (84) — Broadest persistence across pharma and consumer health; <8% decay in 90 days. However, litigation narratives continue to surface in ~9% of recall.
- Moderna (83) — Pandemic-driven surge is fading fast, with -22% recall in 60 days as queries shift away from COVID.
- AstraZeneca (82) — Strong in European prompts, but recall falls 25% outside its home markets.
- GSK (81) — Anchored in respiratory and vaccine prompts, steady but narrowly framed.
- Bayer (80) — Consumer health staple, strong in OTC recall, but sentiment splits between legacy pharma and Monsanto baggage.
- Novartis (79) — High visibility in oncology-related prompts, but limited mainstream awareness.
- Advil (78) — Strong competitor to Tylenol but weaker sentiment (85% vs Tylenol’s 92%) and -18% recall in 60 days.
- Roche (77) — Anchored in diagnostics and specialty care; lower consumer-level visibility.
Analysis
- Trust sustains recall — but is fragile. Pfizer and J&J dominate breadth, but misinformation and legacy controversies surface persistently, eroding trust signals.
- Consumer brands outperform pharma giants. Tylenol and Advil appear more often in everyday queries than Novartis or Roche — showing how OTC visibility shapes patient perception.
- Pandemic narratives are fading. Moderna’s rapid decay shows how fast AI visibility collapses once cultural salience declines.
- Geography matters. AstraZeneca illustrates regional asymmetry: a leader in Europe, but quickly displaced elsewhere.
- Reputation is algorithmic. Negative associations (J&J lawsuits, Bayer/Monsanto) are baked into AI recall, reinforcing reputational risk at scale.
Governance Implications
For healthcare and pharma boards, AI visibility is inseparable from trust and market access:
- Accuracy monitoring must be embedded in pharmacovigilance — misinformation risk (Pfizer 12%, AstraZeneca 8%) now directly affects patient adherence and regulator confidence.
- Decay audits should be quarterly; consumer brands are losing up to 20% of recall in 60 days.
- Sentiment benchmarking is a leading indicator of brand equity erosion (Tylenol 92% vs Advil 85%).
- Regional resilience should be tracked; AstraZeneca’s asymmetry shows how global portfolios fracture in AI search.
In AI search, invisibility or misinformation equals lost patients and lost revenue. Boards must govern visibility with the same rigor as safety and compliance.
👉 Explore the full AIVO 100™ — Healthcare & Pharma Top 10 here: AIVOStandard.org
📩 Want to see how your healthcare or pharma brand surfaces inside AI assistants — and how to protect and grow that visibility? Contact us to request an AIVO audit.
References
Sheals, P. (2025). AIVO Methodology v3.0. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17077554
Sheals, P. (2025). PSOS™ Methodology v1.0. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17081529
AIVO 100™ Global Index of Brand Visibility Across AI Assistants, 2025.