Retail: Specialty Apparel & Accessories: Analyzing Brand Heat through AI Search

Research evidence excerpt

Retail: Specialty Apparel & Accessories: Analyzing Brand Heat through AI Search

Equity Research

7 July 2026 | 5:00AM EDT

Retail: Specialty Apparel & Accessories: Analyzing Brand Heat through

AI Search

Jon Keypour

+1(212)934-0334 |

jon.keypour@gs.com

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Brooke Roach, CFA

+1(212)357-2421 |

brooke.roach@gs.com

We believe AI’s ability to aggregate sentiment and the volume of discourse across

Kareem Elbadrawimultiple signals makes it a good reflection of brand heat and product discovery +1(212)902-7320 |

opportunity when prompted for apparel recommendations. We believe product kareem.elbadrawi@gs.comGoldman Sachs & Co. LLC

visibility via these platforms is worth watching as consumers increase their adoption Dan Duggan, Ph.D.

of LLMs to find products and engage with the apparel category. +1(212)902-4726dan.duggan@gs.com|

Introducing our AI brand heat/product visibility tracker: In partnership with GS

Data Works, we created an AI brand heat/product visibility tracker to analyze how

3rd party LLM AI chats recommend apparel brands based on use case, price range,

and age of consumer. In this note, we apply the methodology for jeans and work

clothes for women aged 25 and 35 across three per-item price ranges. Over time,

repetition of this exercise will help us understand how brands and products appear

to consumers via changes in brand heat or search optimization.

ANF, ATZ, and LEVI fare well: Our analysis suggests Abercrombie & Fitch brand

(ANF) fares extremely well across age ranges for both jeans and work attire at price

points of <$150/item. ATZ shows strong results for work attire across age ranges,

particularly at the mid-range price point. LEVI’s is particularly strong in jeans for

both age ranges up to $150/item and is top ranked and very visible.