Why a 44-Point Gap Divides the Whisky and Cigar Shelf on AI Visibility

What do this week's readings actually show?

This week the AI Visibility Index measured 11 brands, and the group posted an average readiness of 59 out of 100. That midpoint number tells a story on its own: the typical specialist drinks and cigar retailer is roughly halfway to being reliably found and cited by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

But averages hide the drama. The real signal this week is the spread. At the top of the Index sits The AI Visibility Index itself at 87. Among trading brands, The Whisky Shop leads at 76. At the foot of the table, Turmeaus Cigars registers 32. That is a 44-point gap between the strongest and weakest readings — a chasm wide enough to determine whether a brand appears in an AI answer at all.

Who is leading, and why does it matter?

The Whisky Shop's 76 is the standout commercial result. EGM Cigars follows at 66, comfortably clear of the 59 average. These two brands demonstrate that specialist retailers — not just tech-native firms — can build sites that AI systems read cleanly and cite confidently.

Readiness is not a popularity contest. It is a 0–100 measure of how well a site is structured to be found and quoted by AI assistants: clear product information, machine-readable structure, and content that answers the questions buyers actually ask. A brand can be a household name on the high street and still score poorly if its digital foundations are opaque to a language model. The Whisky Shop's lead suggests it has done the unglamorous work that AI systems reward.

Where does the middle of the pack sit?

Beneath the leaders, the table clusters tightly. Hard To Find Whisky scores 57, C.Gars Ltd 56, and City Cigars 50. These three sit within a whisker of the 59 average — close enough that small improvements could vault them upward, and small neglect could see them slip.

This is the most instructive band in the data. Brands at 50 to 57 are neither invisible nor secure. They are visible enough to be considered by an AI assistant, but not authoritative enough to be the default answer. In generative search, second place is often no place at all: the assistant names one or two sources, and the rest are silent. A brand sitting at 50 is competing for a slot it does not yet own.

What is dragging the bottom of the table down?

The five lowest readings this week run from Hard To Find Whisky at 57 down to Turmeaus Cigars at 32, taking in C.Gars Ltd (56), City Cigars (50) and The Drink Shop (48) along the way. The Drink Shop's 48 places it just below the halfway line; Turmeaus Cigars' 32 is the week's clear outlier.

A score of 32 is a warning, not a verdict. It means an AI assistant asked to recommend a cigar retailer will struggle to read, trust or quote that site — even if the underlying business is sound. The good news is that low readiness is almost always a fixable, technical problem rather than a reputational one. The gap between 32 and the 76 at the top is a gap of engineering and content discipline, not of merit.

What separates a 76 from a 32?

The honest answer is fundamentals. As set out in our methodology, readiness rewards sites that make their information legible to machines: structured data, clear and comprehensive product and category pages, fast and crawlable architecture, and content that directly answers buyer questions. The brands near the top have made themselves easy to cite. The brands at the bottom have, often unintentionally, made themselves hard to read.

The pattern across this week's 11 brands is consistent with the broader picture in the State of AI Visibility report: visibility is earned through preparation, not spend. No amount of advertising budget forces an AI assistant to name a brand it cannot parse.

What should brands take from this week?

Three things. First, the 59 average confirms that most specialist retailers are only partway ready — there is headroom for almost everyone. Second, the tight cluster from 48 to 57 shows how narrow the margins are: a handful of readiness points can be the difference between being cited and being skipped. Third, the 44-point spread from 32 to 76 proves the ceiling is real and reachable — one retailer in this very cohort has already reached 76.

AI assistants are becoming the front door to product discovery. The brands that treat readiness as a discipline, not an afterthought, will be the ones named when a customer asks an AI which whisky or which cigar to buy. The rest will watch a competitor be recommended in their place.

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