- Visibility30
- Citations5
- Sentiment69
- Site quality80
- AI readiness36
AI assistants name Ulta Beauty in 31.7% of answers, which is more frequent than the typical company in the retail sector. Its overall score is 41 out of 100, ranking 291st of 2,047 companies. The company’s website passes 4 out of 14 technical checks for readiness for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the retail market: none named Ulta Beauty. AI assistants named it in 19 of 60 answers (31.7%). The typical retail company is named in 6.7% of answers. By how often it is named, Ulta Beauty ranks 78 of 640 in its sector.
Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.
This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named
Five parts, each scored out of 100.
How often AI assistants name the company
How often AI uses the company's own website as a source
How positively AI describes the company
How well built the website's own pages are
How easily AI tools can read and use the website
Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.
640 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“What are the best places to buy a wide variety of beauty and skincare products in the US?”
I can provide you with information about the best places to buy beauty and skincare products in the US based on general knowledge:
Major Retailers:
1. Sephora - A specialty beauty retailer with an extensive selection of makeup, skincare, fragrance, and haircare brands. Available both in-store and online.
2. Ulta Beauty - Offers a wide range of beauty brands, prestige cosmetics, drugstore brands, and professional haircare products. Has physical stores and online shopping.
3. Sephora Inside JCPenney - Partner locations offering Sephora products within department stores.
4. …
The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.
How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals
Answers naming it, out of answers received
What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Level 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.
- Content Signals
Not by itself. Ulta Beauty publishes none of the purchase protocols we look for. An agent would have to click through the checkout like a person.
- UCPNot present
- ACPNot present
- AP2Not present
- x402Not present
- MPPNot present
Show every check, for your technical teamHide the checks
- study: 92.0%robots.txtPassed
A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.
- study: 86.8%SitemapPassed
An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersNot met
Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.
- study: 5.5%DNS for AI DiscoveryPassed
SVCB or HTTPS records under _agents that advertise agent endpoints.
- study: 1.9%Markdown negotiationNot met
Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.
- study: 25.1%llms.txtNot met
Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.
- study: 93.4%AI bot rulesPassed
Explicit robots.txt rules for AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsNot met
Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.
- study: 0.2%Web Bot AuthNot present
Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.
- study: 0.3%API CatalogNot met
List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.
- study: 11.8%OAuth discoveryNot met
Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.
- study: 10.3%OAuth Protected ResourceNot met
Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
- study: 0.0%auth.mdNot met
Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.
- study: 0.2%MCP Server CardNot met
Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.
- study: 0.1%A2A Agent CardNot met
Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.
- study: 0.2%Agent SkillsNot met
Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.
- study: 33.7%WebMCPCould not check
Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.
- study: 0.1%ARD manifestNot met
Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.
Score 34 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · www.ulta.com · 2,047 companies scanned
4 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.
These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.
Show the 14 checksHide them
- Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- PassedXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- PassedToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
- PassedExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
- Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
- Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
- Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
- Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
- Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
This website sets rules for 11 AI crawlers by name. All others follow its general rules.
- GPTBot*partly
- ClaudeBot*partly
- Anthropic-AIallowed
- Google-Extended*partly
- Applebot-Extendedallowed
- Meta-ExternalAgent*partly
- FacebookBotallowed
- Bytespider*partly
- CCBot*partly
- Diffbotallowed
- Omgilibotallowed
- OAI-SearchBot*partly
- Claude-SearchBot*partly
- PerplexityBot*partly
- Applebotallowed
- Amazonbotallowed
- YouBotallowed
- ChatGPT-User*partly
- Claude-User*partly
- Perplexity-Userallowed
- DuckAssistBotallowed
- MistralAI-Userallowed
Read from the website’s own rules file (robots.txt). An asterisk marks a crawler the file names. The rest follow its general rules. “Partly” means only some pages are blocked.
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as S&P 500. Number 41 on the NRF Top 100 Retailers 2026 list, ranked by US retail sales.
- Online beauty retailers vs. physical stores: which is better for fragrance shopping?
- Are there good options other than national beauty chains for finding exclusive fragrance launches?
- What are the best alternatives to shopping at large beauty retailers for hard-to-find hair care brands?
- What are the best places to buy a wide variety of beauty and skincare products in the US?
- Is purchasing premium hair care products from specialty retailers worth the price?
- Does shopping at multi-brand beauty stores offer better value than buying directly from product lines?
- Why might my reward points from a beauty loyalty program not be applying correctly at checkout?
- How do department store beauty counters compare to dedicated beauty retailers for skincare selection?
- Which retailers offer free birthday gifts when shopping for beauty or fragrance?
- Are beauty mega-retailers generally more affordable than small boutique stores in the US?
- What should I do if my online skincare order arrives damaged or missing items?
- Where can I find top-rated fragrance gift sets in-store and online?
- Where can I buy niche makeup brands online if they're not available at major retailers?
- Where can I find same-day pickup for trending makeup releases in the US?
- What are the typical price ranges for high-end vs. drugstore skincare at large beauty retailers?
Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.
A badge of this result that you can show on your own website. Copy the code below.
<a href="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/ulta.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/ulta.com.svg" alt="Overall score 41 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>