kbeautytmi › AI citations
When people ask AI about K-beauty,
whose name comes back?
Every week we ask 4 AI engines (Perplexity · Gemini · OpenAI · Claude) the same 75 K-beauty questions — best toner for sensitive skin, best Korean sunscreen, and so on — and count which brands the answers actually cite. Citations ≠ sales. This is the discovery layer forming before anyone reaches a shelf. Measured 2026-09-07
The leaderboard
Violet bar = how often AI names the brand. The chip = how many of our 20 retail channels it actually charts on — the gap between fame and shelf is the story.
1KLAIRS
58on 2 channels
2COSRX
51on 7 channels
3Anua
34on 14 channels
4Dr.Jart+
33on 3 channels
5LANEIGE
33on 4 channels
6medicube
24on 10 channels
7Paulaschoice
24on 2 channels
8ETUDE
23on 7 channels
9AESTURA
19on 7 channels
10Avene
18not on our shelves
11Purito
18on 5 channels
12The Ordinary
18on 3 channels
13Eucerin
17on 1 channel
14ROUND LAB
14on 8 channels
15INNISFREE
13on 2 channels
16SKIN1004
13on 6 channels
17Glow Recipe
12on 1 channel
18Beauty of Joseon
11on 9 channels
19Pyunkang Yul
11on 2 channels
20Abib
10on 4 channels
21Haruharu Wonder
10on 6 channels
22ILLIYOON
10on 2 channels
23MEDIHEAL
10on 4 channels
24Torriden
10on 5 channels
25BIODANCE
9on 12 channels
26Neogen
9on 1 channel
27numbuzin
9on 7 channels
28Sulwhasoo
8on 1 channel
29Dr. Althea
7on 12 channels
30BENTON
6not on our shelves
31NATURIUM
6on 1 channel
32Petitfee
6on 1 channel
33SKINFOOD
6on 3 channels
34Dermatory
5not on our shelves
35HANYUL
5on 1 channel
36SOME BY MI
5on 5 channels
37VT Cosmetics
5on 3 channels
38Whipped
5not on our shelves
39belif
4not on our shelves
40Bioderma
4on 1 channel
41goodal
4on 4 channels
42Isntree
4on 1 channel
43JUMISO
4on 1 channel
44REJURAN
4on 3 channels
45Shiseido
4on 2 channels
46celimax
3on 8 channels
47EQQUALBERRY
3on 4 channels
48Heimish
3on 2 channels
49It's skin
3not on our shelves
50MISSHA
3on 1 channel
51Real Barrier
3not on our shelves
52Secret Key
3not on our shelves
53April Skin
2not on our shelves
54d'Alba
2on 3 channels
55FATION
2on 1 channel
56Hyggee
2on 1 channel
57I'M FROM
2on 1 channel
58IOPE
2on 1 channel
59IUNIK
2on 3 channels
60Mamonde
2not on our shelves
61MEDIPEEL
2not on our shelves
62mixsoon
2on 4 channels
63TOCOBO
2not on our shelves
64TONYMOLY
2on 1 channel
65TOSOWOONG
2not on our shelves
66ABOUT_TONE
1on 1 channel
67APLB
1on 2 channels
68Ariul
1not on our shelves
69beplain
1on 5 channels
70bewants
1not on our shelves
71BIOHEAL BOH
1on 4 channels
72Centellian24
1on 3 channels
73Demaf
1not on our shelves
74Dewytree
1not on our shelves
75Dieux
1on 2 channels
76easydew
1not on our shelves
77Farm Stay
1on 1 channel
78FRUDIA
1not on our shelves
79Himalaya
1not on our shelves
80Holika Holika
1on 2 channels
81Huxley
1on 1 channel
82KATE
1not on our shelves
83Meditherapy
1on 1 channel
84NATURE REPUBLIC
1not on our shelves
85O HUI
1not on our shelves
86ONE THING
1not on our shelves
87PEACH & LILY
1on 1 channel
88PHYSIOGEL
1on 1 channel
89S.NATURE
1on 5 channels
90Sioris
1on 1 channel
91SUNGBOON EDITOR
1not on our shelves
92THE FACE SHOP
1on 2 channels
93TIRTIR
1on 3 channels
Week over week
2026-07-06
№1 COSRX 40
2026-07-13
№1 Anua 36
2026-07-27
№1 COSRX 49
2026-08-03
№1 COSRX 56
2026-08-10
№1 COSRX 46
2026-08-17
№1 COSRX 59
2026-08-24
№1 Anua 13
2026-08-31
№1 COSRX 56
2026-09-07
№1 KLAIRS 58
The trend line is the product — the archive deepens every Monday and Thursday.
What Copilot cites on generic queries
From Bing's AI Performance data — non-brand queries only.
"glass skin skincare routine steps"
76 citations · 40.86% share
"how to achieve glass skin"
44 citations · 28.95% share
"how to have glass skin"
27 citations · 20.61% share
"glass skin skincare routine tips"
15 citations · 7.32% share
"how long to keep eye patches on"
14 citations · 40% share
"how to achieve korean glass skin"
12 citations · 17.91% share
"glass skin skincare routine"
11 citations · 17.46% share
"Korean glass skin routine steps"
11 citations · 16.18% share
"dermatologist-tested meaning shower gel"
10 citations · 25% share
"glass skin routine steps"
9 citations · 36% share
"best skincare routine for glass skin"
6 citations · 23.08% share
"popular body wash textures formats"
5 citations · 21.74% share
"dermatology tested"
5 citations · 25% share
"dermatologist tested meaning beauty tools"
5 citations · 38.46% share
"how to get Korean glass skin routine"
4 citations · 23.53% share
"hypoallergenic soap meaning"
4 citations · 25% share
"dermatologist tested vs dermatologist recommended meaning"
3 citations · 25% share
"7 skin method Korean skincare"
3 citations · 33.33% share
Why this matters
Shoppers increasingly ask AI before they search, and AI answers concentrate on a handful of names. A brand that dominates retail shelves but never gets cited is invisible in the next discovery channel — and a brand AI loves that hasn't hit mass retail is a signal buyers can act on. Cross-reading this leaderboard against our retail ladder is the whole point: in 2026-09, the top of the AI leaderboard and the top of the retail-reach ladder were the same brands — evidence the discovery layer and the shelf are moving together.
Method: identical prompts to 4 engines, brand mentions extracted from answers with
token-boundary matching against our chart-brand dictionary. Reprocessed brand-neutrally by kbeautytmi.
AI citation ≠ endorsement, quality, or sales.
What this measures, and what it does not.
These 65 questions were not written to survey K-beauty evenly. They lean hard toward sensitive
and barrier-focused skincare — 27 of the 65 ask about sensitive skin, and three name a single
ingredient. A brand that sells into that space will rank higher here than it would on a
question set built for the whole category. Read this as who AI cites for these questions,
not as who AI cites most in K-beauty overall.
The raw engine measurements are shared from an external skincare GEO engine and reprocessed here;
the brand dictionary and scoring are ours. We are building our own question basket to replace this
one — until then, treat the ranking as directional. How we measure.