Where there is a chain, the AI knows it: IVI shows up in 9 answers out of 10

On 30 September 2026 Mador asked ChatGPT and Perplexity which fertility clinic to choose, which one to trust, where to go. In Rome, Madrid and Valencia, IVI was in 9 answers out of 10. The questions were different and there were two assistants, but the name was almost always the same.

IVI is a chain with clinics in many cities, and in this measurement it had a branch in six of the nine cities. All six were named at least once.

Chain branches

Among the fertility and hair transplant clinics measured, some are branches of chains: brands with a clinic in at least two of the cities measured. There are 31 such branches, and only 6 were never named. Fewer than one in five.

In hair transplants the same happens with Istituto Helvetico Sanders: measured in four cities, named in all four.

Independent clinics

The other clinics, the ones with a single location, did differently. Of the independents, 41 out of 110 were never named in any answer. More than one in three.

This is not a trade where the AI knows nobody, as happens with beauty salons. It is a trade where the AI knows a few names well, and repeats them.

A brand alone is not enough

Even IVI does not show up the same way everywhere: in Milan it appears in 3 answers out of 9, and in that city the name the AI repeats is a different one. And among the chains measured there is one, with two branches, that never showed up in either.

So having more branches is not enough. The measurement does not say why one name shows up and another does not: it says that among fertility clinics, in each of the nine cities, there is one that shows up in more than two answers out of three.

What cannot be said

These are 5 questions per city, two assistants and a single day. Other assistants may give other numbers. Mador decided which brands count as a chain by looking at the list: a clinic in at least two of the cities measured. Mador also built the lists, with only clinics that have a website of their own, and chains are few compared with independents: 31 against 110.

On 30 September 2026, in these nine cities, the AI kept repeating the names it already knew, and a clinic with a single location started further back.