Supracited

Census · Published 2026-10-17 · 120 answers · Claude with web search · recorded, not live

AI named a brand in all 120 answers. A store-brand product, in one.

Six questions a shopper might type, five on pain and headache and one on seasonal allergies, each asked 20 times of Claude with web search: 120 answers. Every answer named a brand, a maker’s or a store’s. Store brands came up 39 times, almost always as a place to buy or a type of product, and as a specific product in one answer. The full list of questions is further down.

Brand names here are measurement results, not recommendations.

One real answer, annotated

One of the 120 answers in this census. Recorded 2026-10-17, not live.

Question 6 of 6 · answer 13 of 20

What is the cheapest effective headache medicine?

Claude with web search · recorded 2026-10-17 · not live

Generic ibuprofen or generic acetaminophen […] typically $4–$10 for 100 tablets at stores like Walmart, Costco, or any drugstore's store brand (e.g., Walmart's Equate or CVS Health).

They work identically to brand-name Advil/Tylenol, which cost roughly double for the same active ingredient […] so skip the brand name and buy generic.

[…] Bottom line: grab the store-brand bottle of ibuprofen or acetaminophen next to the name brand […]

  • ibuprofen, acetaminophenIngredienteach in 100 of 120 answers
    Equate, CVS HealthStore brand, named as where to buyin 11 and 15 of 120 answers
  • Advil, TylenolBrandin 88 and 98 of 120 answers
  • Store brand argued for, no store product named.Hand-coded, like all 39 store-brand mentions in the census.

Sources this answer cited

  • choice.com.auConsumer group, price comparison
  • rxsaver.comDrug price site
  • freemarkethealthcareblog.comHealth information site, no named owner

Verbatim. […] marks a cut; bold dropped; no word changed. Marked: every name the census counts. Walmart and Costco appear as places to buy; the census does not count retailers.

Named a brand

120 of 120

A maker’s or a store’s. None stopped at the ingredient.

Claude with web search · 120 answers

Named a store-brand product

1 of 120

Even when the answer argued for store brands.

Hand-coded: 39 store-brand mentions, 38 a place to buy or an example, 1 a product

Pointed to a health professional

77 of 120

A doctor, a pharmacist or another health professional.

Claude with web search · 120 answers

Leaderboard

The names AI gave most

Bar: the range we would expect if the census ran again. Tick: what we saw. Top ten, plus any tied with the tenth.

  1. Ibuprofen Ingredient In 100 of 120 · range 50 to 100%
  2. Acetaminophen Ingredient In 100 of 120 · range 50 to 100%
  3. Tylenol Brand In 98 of 120 · range 48 to 100%
  4. Advil Brand In 88 of 120 · range 43 to 94%
  5. Naproxen Ingredient In 68 of 120 · range 24 to 87%
  6. Aspirin Ingredient In 63 of 120 · range 22 to 83%
  7. Motrin Brand In 62 of 120 · range 23 to 79%
  8. Aleve Brand In 55 of 120 · range 18 to 74%
  9. Excedrin Brand In 37 of 120 · range 3 to 64%
  10. Zyrtec Brand In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  11. Cetirizine Ingredient In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  12. Allegra Brand In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  13. Fexofenadine Ingredient In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  14. Claritin Brand In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  15. Loratadine Ingredient In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%
  16. Flonase Brand In 20 of 120 · range 0 to 50%

Sources

The sites the answers were built from

The twelve domains cited most, grouped by what they are. None is a maker’s or a retailer’s own site, so that is where a fix list starts.

Clinical and government

  • fda.govcited in 13 of 120 answersUS drug regulator
  • mayoclinic.orgcited in 13 of 120 answersAcademic medical center
  • health.harvard.educited in 12 of 120 answersMedical school publisher
  • sleepandsinuscenters.comcited in 11 of 120 answersEar, nose and throat practice in Georgia
  • my.clevelandclinic.orgcited in 9 of 120 answersHospital system
  • medlineplus.govcited in 7 of 120 answersUS National Library of Medicine

Price and consumer sites

  • goodrx.comcited in 34 of 120 answersDrug price site
  • choice.com.aucited in 14 of 120 answersConsumer group, price comparison

Health information sites

  • doctronic.aicited in 35 of 120 answersAI doctor and telehealth service
  • freemarkethealthcareblog.comcited in 18 of 120 answersHealth information site, no named owner
  • goodpath.comcited in 10 of 120 answersIntegrative care program
  • talktomira.comcited in 10 of 120 answersPrimary care membership

Retailers

None among the twelve most cited. walmart.com is cited too, mostly on the cheapest-medicine question, below the twelve.

Cited in: the number of the 120 answers that linked the domain at least once. Types checked on each site’s own homepage on 2026-10-17.

Full table

Every name, every number

Pain relief and headache, 120 answers · engine: Claude with web search

120 answers across 6 questions at 20 repeats each, collected 2026-10-17. Engine: Claude with web search, through an internal research route (the Claude Code CLI, Sonnet); production audits use the Messages API.

Each row leads with a cluster-bootstrap range, which allows for the same question being asked again; the narrower Wilson range beside it assumes every answer is an independent draw. The method page explains why the bootstrap leads.

Narrow screen: scroll the table sideways for more columns.

n=120 answers · 6 questions, 20 repeats each · collected 2026-10-17 · engine: Claude with web search
Name Kind Share of answers (bar: bootstrap range, tick: observed) Wilson range (assumes independent answers) Average position when named (1 = first) In the first three names
IbuprofenIngredient

50 to 100% · 100 of 120

76 to 89%1.6696 of 120 (80%)
AcetaminophenIngredient

50 to 100% · 100 of 120

76 to 89%3.0859 of 120 (49%)
TylenolBrand

48 to 100% · 98 of 120

74 to 88%4.7126 of 120 (22%)
AdvilBrand

43 to 94% · 88 of 120

65 to 80%3.5243 of 120 (36%)
NaproxenIngredient

24 to 87% · 68 of 120

48 to 65%4.0928 of 120 (23%)
AspirinIngredient

22 to 83% · 63 of 120

44 to 61%5.974 of 120 (3%)
MotrinBrand

23 to 79% · 62 of 120

43 to 60%4.4226 of 120 (22%)
AleveBrand

18 to 74% · 55 of 120

37 to 55%5.537 of 120 (6%)
ExcedrinBrand

3 to 64% · 37 of 120

23 to 40%7.510 of 120 (0%)
ZyrtecBrand

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%2.3018 of 120 (15%)
CetirizineIngredient

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%2.4013 of 120 (11%)
AllegraBrand

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%2.9511 of 120 (9%)
FexofenadineIngredient

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%3.0514 of 120 (12%)
ClaritinBrand

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%5.251 of 120 (1%)
LoratadineIngredient

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%5.352 of 120 (2%)
FlonaseBrand

0 to 50% · 20 of 120

11 to 24%7.400 of 120 (0%)
NasacortBrand

0 to 42% · 16 of 120

8 to 21%8.690 of 120 (0%)
CVS HealthStore brand

0 to 30% · 15 of 120

8 to 20%5.274 of 120 (3%)
FluticasoneIngredient

0 to 37% · 14 of 120

7 to 19%7.500 of 120 (0%)
EquateStore brand

0 to 26% · 11 of 120

5 to 16%4.186 of 120 (5%)
WalgreensStore brand

0 to 18% · 9 of 120

4 to 14%7.001 of 120 (1%)
BayerBrand

0 to 13% · 6 of 120

2 to 11%7.500 of 120 (0%)
BenadrylBrand

0 to 14% · 5 of 120

2 to 9%8.601 of 120 (1%)
DiphenhydramineIngredient

0 to 10% · 4 of 120

1 to 8%10.500 of 120 (0%)
Kirkland SignatureStore brand

0% · 0 of 120

0 to 3%Not named0 of 120 (0%)
up & upStore brand

0% · 0 of 120

0 to 3%Not named0 of 120 (0%)
GoodSenseStore brand

0% · 0 of 120

0 to 3%Not named0 of 120 (0%)

Store brands, hand-coded one mention at a time: CVS Health 15 of 15 mentions a qualifier; Equate 14 of 15 mentions a qualifier and 1 a product; Walgreens 9 of 9 mentions a qualifier. The census counts Kirkland Signature by its full name only; “Kirkland” on its own appears in several answers, each time as one example in a list of store brands, never as a product.

In every health category

We measure and source. We do not write, edit or suggest any statement about what a product does; that stays as your label states it.

Brand names in our censuses are measurement results, not recommendations.

Method

The questions asked

  1. What should I take for a headache?
  2. What is the best over-the-counter medicine for a tension headache?
  3. Best over-the-counter pain reliever for back pain?
  4. Are generic painkillers as good as brand names? Which should I buy?
  5. What allergy medicine should I buy for seasonal allergies?
  6. What is the cheapest effective headache medicine?

How each question is run, counted and checked: the method page.

Log

Corrections

  • 2026-10-17: one tracked store label was removed from the full table for presentation; it was named in 0 of 120 answers, so no count or finding on this page changes.
  • 2026-10-17: moved from /census-otc to this address; the old address redirects here. No count changed.
  • 2026-10-17: first publication.

The census

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Where the method started: six questions, two engines, every count and source. Keychron named in 14 of 18 answers on Claude and 14 of 18 on Gemini.

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