AI assistants most often recommend New Balance Fresh Foam for athletic shoes in 🇺🇸 United States (English), naming it in 83% of the buyer questions we tested, followed by Adidas Ultraboost and Nike Air Max. We asked an AI model the questions buyers ask about athletic shoes and tallied which brands it named most — "share of voice" in AI answers, who AI recommends when no human is watching.
| # | Brand | AI share of voice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Balance Fresh Foam | 5/6 (83%) |
| 2 | Adidas Ultraboost | 4/6 (67%) |
| 3 | Nike Air Max | 3/6 (50%) |
| 4 | Nike Air Zoom Pegasus | 2/6 (33%) |
| 5 | Brooks Ghost | 2/6 (33%) |
| 6 | Nike LeBron | 2/6 (33%) |
| 7 | Jordan Why Not | 1/6 (17%) |
| 8 | Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% | 1/6 (17%) |
| 9 | Adidas Adizero Adios Pro | 1/6 (17%) |
| 10 | New Balance Fresh Foam 1080v12 | 1/6 (17%) |
| 11 | Adidas Dame | 1/6 (17%) |
| 12 | Nike Metcon | 1/6 (17%) |
| 13 | Reebok Nano | 1/6 (17%) |
| 14 | Nike Air Force | 1/6 (17%) |
| 15 | Converse Chuck Taylor | 1/6 (17%) |
Method: 6 representative buyer questions via a large language model, 🇺🇸 United States (English). Updated 7/28/2026. A proxy for how AI assistants describe this category.
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