Speedo vs Arena: The AI Visibility Showdown

Swimwear is a category where AI recommendations carry real weight. Competitive swimmers, coaches, and serious recreational athletes increasingly ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for gear recommendations before making purchasing decisions. We tracked Speedo's AI visibility across 377 clean-session queries spanning 12 prompt categories on ChatGPT, Gemini 2.5 Flash, and Perplexity Sonar. Here is what the data shows and what it means for the Speedo versus Arena rivalry in the AI era.

Methodology

All queries were run through LLM Monitor using isolated browser sessions with no prior conversation history. We tracked mention rate, position within responses, sentiment score, and competitor co-mentions for each prompt and platform combination. The 12 prompts covered direct brand queries, competitive comparisons, product-specific questions (goggles, caps, suits), and category-level discovery queries. Every prompt was run between 9 and 15 times per platform to account for AI non-determinism.

Overall Visibility: Speedo Dominates Performance and Tech Queries

Speedo and Arena are the two brands that consistently anchor AI answers in the competitive swimwear category. According to Mordor Intelligence's swimwear market report, the broader swimwear category is worth USD 28.29 billion in 2025 and projected to reach USD 38.49 billion by 2031, with Speedo's parent Pentland Group and Arena SpA both named among the five largest players globally — which lines up with how AI models frame the rivalry.

Across all 377 scans, Speedo's overall AI mention rates were:

• ChatGPT: 84.2% (80 mentions out of 95 scans)
• Gemini 2.5 Flash: 88.7% (134 out of 151 scans)
• Perplexity Sonar: 71.8% (94 out of 131 scans)

The strongest categories were most consistent on ChatGPT and Gemini. On queries about high-performance swimwear technology, competitive swim caps, and swimming goggles, both platforms returned near-100% mention rates. Perplexity was more variable even on technical queries, dropping to 67% on the comfortable goggles query compared to 100% on ChatGPT and Gemini for the same prompt. On the direct brand authority query "Which brand do you consider the leader in competitive swimwear?" Speedo scored 100% on ChatGPT, 100% on Gemini, and 91.7% on Perplexity.

These numbers reflect a strong and well-established AI presence in the performance and technical swimwear space. When the query is competitive or category-leading, the AI models are aligned: Speedo belongs in the answer.

Where the Gaps Are: Perplexity and Brand Recall Queries

The data also reveals a clear vulnerability. On two important query types, Speedo's visibility drops to zero on Perplexity.

"Best swimwear brands for men?" Perplexity returned 0% mention rate for Speedo across all 12 runs. These are not errors. The responses are detailed and valid, returning brands like Fair Harbor, Wellen, Mack Weldon, Vuori, and Rhone. ChatGPT scored 77.8% and Gemini 64.3% on the same prompt.

"When you think about swimwear brands, which brands come to mind first?" Again, Perplexity returned 0%. Responses consistently surfaced Aerie, Boden, J.Crew, and Becca instead. ChatGPT scored 44.4% and Gemini 85.7%. This is a top-of-funnel brand recall query and Speedo is invisible on the platform that most heavily weights current citations and editorial coverage.

"What swim gear should I buy as a beginner swimmer?" scored below 70% across all platforms, suggesting that while Speedo dominates expert and competitive audiences, its AI presence in the beginner discovery segment is weaker.

Arena: The Closest Competitor by a Significant Distance

Arena appears as a co-mentioned competitor in 72.1% of all Speedo brand mentions, by far the highest co-mention rate of any competitor in the dataset. TYR follows at a considerable distance, typically appearing alongside Arena rather than independently.

This is a useful benchmark. When AI models think of Speedo, they think of Arena. The two brands are consistently framed as the competitive duel in performance swimwear, which means Arena is the only brand with a realistic path to displacing Speedo in AI recommendations for this category.

The Direct Comparison: "Arena or Speedo to Compete"

One of the most revealing prompts in our dataset was the direct head-to-head query: "arena or speedo to compete." We ran this 35 times across the three platforms. Since there are only two brands in the query, what matters is not whether both appear but which one the AI positions as the primary recommendation.

ChatGPT (9 runs): Both brands appear in every response. ChatGPT consistently frames the query as a balanced comparison but describes Speedo with stronger authority language, phrases like "the gold standard in competitive swimwear", while Arena is positioned as the alternative for swimmers who prefer a slimmer fit. Speedo carries the higher sentiment score on this platform, with an average of 8.4 versus Arena's 6.2.

Gemini 2.5 Flash (14 runs): Gemini follows a similar pattern, with both brands appearing in every response and Speedo described as the lead recommendation. Gemini shows the highest sentiment scores for this prompt across the entire dataset. Speedo averages 12.14, the highest single-prompt figure we recorded.

Perplexity Sonar (12 runs): This is where the comparison becomes genuinely competitive. Speedo takes the primary position in 5 of 12 runs (42%). In the remaining 7 runs (58%), Arena leads, with Perplexity citing Arena's compression technology and suit fit as reasons to prefer it for elite competition. Perplexity is the only platform where Arena wins the primary recommendation with any consistency.

The platform split matters. On ChatGPT and Gemini, Speedo is the default recommendation when the two brands are directly compared. On Perplexity, which weights current editorial coverage and product reviews more heavily, Arena has a meaningful edge in positioning itself as the choice for serious competitors.

Platform-by-Platform Summary

ChatGPT gives Speedo strong performance across most categories, with consistent Rank 1 placement on competitive and technical queries. The brand recall queries (44.4% on "when you think of swimwear brands") suggest room to strengthen Speedo's general lifestyle narrative on this platform.

Gemini 2.5 Flash is Speedo's best-performing platform overall, both in mention rate and sentiment. The average sentiment score on goggles queries reached 8.79. Gemini's treatment of Speedo as the default authority in competitive swimwear is the most consistent of the three platforms.

Perplexity Sonar is the clear weak point. While Speedo performs well on technical and competitive queries, the 0% visibility on brand recall and men's swimwear represents a content and citation gap. Perplexity weighs current editorial coverage heavily, which suggests Speedo would benefit from more recent press and third-party coverage in these specific categories.

What This Data Tells Us About the AI Visibility Gap

The picture that emerges is a brand with dominant AI presence in its core competitive positioning and a specific vulnerability in broader discovery queries, particularly on Perplexity and particularly for non-expert audience segments.

For any swimwear brand tracking this space, the strategic implication is clear: technical authority and performance positioning are well-covered. The opportunity lies in broadening AI visibility into lifestyle, men's swimwear, and beginner categories, and in building the citation infrastructure on Perplexity that would make that visibility stick.

Arena has not closed the gap in the direct comparison on ChatGPT and Gemini. But in brand recall queries and head-to-head comparisons on Perplexity, the race is more open than the performance numbers suggest.

The broader context matters too. AI-driven discovery is now mainstream: a Pew Research Center study found that 26% of U.S. Google users ended their browsing session entirely after seeing an AI summary, which means the "who shows up first" question inside an AI answer now shapes more purchasing decisions than the ranking on a results page.