The 44-Point Gap: What Whisky and Cigar Brands Reveal About AI Visibility

What do this week's readings actually show?

This week the AI Visibility Index measured 11 brands across whisky and cigar retail, returning an average readiness score of 59 out of 100. That midpoint number hides the real story: the distance between the best and worst performers.

At the top, the Index itself scored 87. Among the retail brands, The Whisky Shop led with 76, followed by EGM Cigars at 66. At the other end, Turmeaus Cigars registered just 32 — a 44-point gap from the top retail performer. That spread is the headline. When AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity assemble an answer, they do not reward the average; they reward the brands built to be read, understood and cited.

Why does a 44-point gap matter?

Readiness is a 0–100 measure of how well a brand's site is structured to be found and cited by AI assistants. It is not a popularity contest or a measure of sales — it is a measure of legibility to machines. A brand scoring 76 is not necessarily bigger than one scoring 32; it is more visible to the systems that increasingly mediate what buyers see.

That distinction matters because AI answers are winner-takes-most. When a shopper asks an assistant to recommend a bottle or a box of cigars, the model surfaces a short list. Brands that fall below the line of legibility do not appear as lower-ranked options — they simply do not appear. A score of 32 is not "half as visible" as a 66; in an AI-generated answer, it can mean invisible.

Where do the whisky and cigar brands stand?

The cluster tells a clear story. The Whisky Shop (76) and EGM Cigars (66) sit comfortably above the average. In the middle band, Hard To Find Whisky (57) and C.Gars Ltd (56) are close to the mean, with City Cigars (50) and The Drink Shop (48) just below it. Turmeaus Cigars (32) trails the field.

What is striking is that these are direct competitors in the same categories. C.Gars Ltd (56), City Cigars (50) and Turmeaus Cigars (32) are all specialist cigar retailers, yet they span a 24-point range. That is not a market-wide problem — it is a build problem. When rivals selling similar products score so differently, the variable is not the category; it is how each site presents itself to AI systems. The infrastructure of visibility, not the inventory, is what separates them.

What separates a 76 from a 32?

The gap between the leaders and the laggards is rarely about content volume. It is about structure: clear product data, machine-readable descriptions, consistent naming, authoritative signals and pages an assistant can parse without ambiguity. A brand can have a beautiful, high-converting website for human visitors and still score poorly for AI, because the two audiences read in different ways.

The Whisky Shop's 76 suggests a site that answers questions cleanly — the kind of source an assistant can quote with confidence. Turmeaus Cigars at 32 suggests the opposite: a site where the relevant facts exist but are hard for a machine to extract and attribute. The remedy is not more marketing; it is better plumbing. Our methodology sets out exactly which signals the Index measures and why.

Is 59 a good average?

An average of 59 across 11 brands means the typical site is roughly three-fifths of the way to being reliably citable. That is a passing grade, not a strong one. It implies most brands in this cohort are visible some of the time, for some queries — but not dependably, and not for the high-value questions where recommendations are made.

The brands sitting between 48 and 57 — The Drink Shop, City Cigars, Hard To Find Whisky and C.Gars Ltd — are in the most precarious position. They are close enough to the average to feel secure, but a single competitor improving its structure could push them below the citation threshold overnight. Middle-of-the-pack readiness is not a safe harbour; it is a warning.

What should brands take from this week?

Three things. First, AI visibility is measurable, and the numbers vary far more than most brands assume. Second, category is not destiny — competitors in the same market can differ by 40 points or more, which means the gap is closeable. Third, the average is not the target; the leaders set the citation line, and everyone below it competes for scraps.

The brands that treat readiness as an engineering discipline — rather than a marketing afterthought — will be the ones assistants name when buyers ask. For the wider picture across categories, see the State of AI Visibility report.

Want to know where your brand sits on the 0–100 scale? Run a scan.