Peloton spent over $100 million on brand marketing between 2020 and 2023. It has one of the best-known brands in consumer fitness. It has a global content operation, a podcast, thousands of instructor-led classes and loyal customers who talk about it.
We asked Perplexity, "what's the best home workout equipment for someone who wants structured classes?" Peloton was not named.
We asked, "best fitness options for busy New Yorkers who want premium workout experiences?" Peloton was not named.
Across every fitness buyer question we asked, Perplexity never named Peloton.
This is not a glitch in the data. It points to a gap between brand awareness and AI recommendations, and it is the central finding of this study.
Disclosure: Envoyra sells the AI visibility scanning tool used to collect this data. We have a financial interest in findings that show the value of AI visibility measurement. The method is set out in full below. Underlying scan data is available to clients and press on request.
The study
In May 2026 we scanned New York City brands in three categories: B2B SaaS, legal services and fitness. We asked Perplexity sonar-pro the same number of buyer questions for each brand. The questions were written from each brand's details: industry, buyer, use case and location.
For each brand we counted how many of its buyer questions named it. We also noted which competitor Perplexity named most often in its place.
Who AI named
B2B SaaS. Datadog was named most often. Braze came next, followed by Pager, MongoDB and Riskified. Attentive sat in the middle. Yotpo, Movable Ink, Sprinklr and Conductor were named least.
Legal services. Every firm landed in a narrow band. Cleary Gottlieb, Sullivan & Cromwell, Davis Polk and Skadden Arps sat at the top of it. Weil Gotshal, Greenberg Traurig and Willkie Farr came next. Kramer Levin, Epstein Becker Green and Proskauer Rose sat at the bottom. The gap from top to bottom was small.
Fitness. SoulCycle was named most often, then Equinox and Rumble Boxing. Barry's sat well below them, and Shadowbox below that. Tone House, AARMY, Peloton, Fhitting Room and ClassPass were never named.
The competitors named in their place tell their own story. Amazon CloudWatch came up for Datadog. Klaviyo came up for Attentive. HubSpot came up for Yotpo, Movable Ink, Sprinklr and Conductor. Latham & Watkins and Holland & Knight came up for several law firms. Equinox came up for SoulCycle and Barry's.
Finding 1: Peloton is invisible, and that's the point
This finding is not really about Peloton. It is about what AI visibility measures, and what it doesn't.
Peloton has huge brand awareness. Ask a thousand New Yorkers to name a fitness brand and many would say Peloton. But brand awareness is prompted recall: whether people recognise a name they already know. AI recommendations are unprompted. They come up when a buyer doesn't yet know which brand to choose and asks for help.
Peloton was not named on the exact questions undecided buyers ask. Buyers who already know Peloton is right for them will find it. Buyers who don't yet know are being pointed elsewhere.
Brand awareness measures prompted recall. AI visibility measures unprompted discovery. Peloton has one and not the other. Most brands don't know which side of that line they're on.
ClassPass was never named either. ClassPass has a strong consumer brand, plenty of press and a well-known product. But it is a booking platform, not a type of fitness. When buyers asked for the "best boutique fitness classes in NYC," AI named specific studios such as SoulCycle, Equinox and Barry's. The platform that sells access to them was left out.
Finding 2: B2B SaaS splits between technical tools and marketing tools
B2B SaaS shows the clearest pattern of any category in this study.
Technical and developer tools led: Datadog, MongoDB and Riskified. Marketing and engagement platforms sat at the bottom: Movable Ink, Sprinklr and Conductor.
Company size and budget did not explain the gap. Sprinklr is a public company. Movable Ink has raised over $100 million. Both were rarely named.
What we can see is a difference in how specific the category is. Datadog is "cloud monitoring." When a buyer asks "how do I monitor my cloud infrastructure?", the question maps cleanly to that category, and Datadog was named. Sprinklr describes itself as "unified customer experience management." That label is harder to match to any one buyer question.
HubSpot was the competitor named most often for Yotpo, Movable Ink, Sprinklr and Conductor: four NYC companies in four different corners of marketing software. HubSpot does not out-compete each of these tools in its own niche. What we can observe is that HubSpot has years of content answering the questions buyers ask before they know which tool they need.
Finding 3: Legal is a category waiting for a first mover
Every law firm in this study landed in the same narrow band. It was the tightest spread of any category we have studied.
Skadden Arps and Cleary Gottlieb are among the most prestigious firms in the world. AI named them about as often as Davis Polk and Sullivan & Cromwell. Kramer Levin, Proskauer Rose and Epstein Becker Green sat at the bottom. They are major practices with decades of cases and press.
No firm has broken out.
Latham & Watkins, headquartered in Los Angeles, was the competitor named most often for several NYC-based firms. Being in your clients' city did not seem to matter to AI. Having content that answers their questions may.
The field is wide open. Today, no NYC firm stands out. A firm that publishes practice-area pages answering the questions buyers ask before they hire a lawyer, beyond lists of credentials, would have something its peers lack. Weekly measurement would show whether it changes how often AI names the firm.
How NYC compares with DC
We ran a similar study of DC-area brands in April 2026. Comparing the two cities, the overall picture is the same.
In NYC, B2B SaaS came out ahead of legal services and fitness. The split between technical tools and marketing platforms explains much of that. Legal services, NYC fitness and the DC brands looked broadly alike.
The finding that held in every category: a few brands were named often (SoulCycle, Datadog, Braze, and Zevia in DC), and many were barely named, if at all, for buyers who are still deciding. The leaders are not always bigger or better funded. What they share is content that answers the questions buyers ask before they choose a brand.
What the most-named brands have in common
Across both cities and every category, the pattern held.
Brands that were named have content that answers questions about the category, before the purchase. Datadog doesn't only describe Datadog. It answers "how do I monitor cloud infrastructure?" SoulCycle doesn't only describe SoulCycle. It appears in the content that answers "what are the best fitness classes in New York?"
Brands that were not named mostly have content that describes themselves to people who already know them. That is brand marketing. It is not the same as being recommended by AI.
Three things worth looking at, based on this data:
1. Map the buyer questions before you create content. The questions that matter are not "what is [your brand]?" They are the questions buyers ask when they are choosing within a category and have no brand in mind. A scan shows which ones name you and which don't. The gaps are your content brief.
2. Look beyond your own site. Latham & Watkins was named across NYC legal questions without being based in the city. HubSpot was named in marketing software categories it doesn't specifically own. Both are widely covered in publications, directories and review sites. Your own website is only one of the sources AI draws on. The publications that cover your category are others.
3. Specific beats volume. The law firms in this study publish more than almost any other kind of business: press releases, case news, attorney bios, practice descriptions, client alerts. Very little of it answers the question a buyer asks before hiring. One page that answers "what kind of law firm do I need for a cross-border merger?" speaks to that buyer more directly than a hundred attorney bios.
Method
Scan date: May 2026. Brands: NYC-area brands in B2B SaaS, legal services and fitness. AI assistant: Perplexity sonar-pro (searches the live web and always cites sources). Buyer questions: the same number per brand, written by Claude from each brand's details, including industry, buyer, location (New York City) and use case. Measure: the number of buyer questions where Perplexity named the brand.
A single Perplexity scan is an early read, not a final answer. For brands named only occasionally, treat one scan as a floor; scanning again gives slightly different results. Track for four weeks or more before drawing strategic conclusions.
Earlier study: DC-Area Brand AI Visibility Benchmark, April 2026: DC-area consumer and B2B brands, four AI assistants.
See where your brand stands
Most brands in this study were measuring their AI visibility for the first time. The findings are not unique to New York or to these companies. The same pattern of a few named brands and many unnamed ones showed up in DC too.
The research shows which buyer questions name a brand, which don't and which competitors are named instead.