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 Nike Air Max and Adidas Ultraboost. 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 | Nike Air Max | 3/6 (50%) |
| 3 | Adidas Ultraboost | 3/6 (50%) |
| 4 | Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% | 2/6 (33%) |
| 5 | Brooks Ghost | 2/6 (33%) |
| 6 | Reebok CrossFit Nano | 1/6 (17%) |
| 7 | Adidas Powerlift | 1/6 (17%) |
| 8 | Nike LeBron | 1/6 (17%) |
| 9 | Adidas Dame | 1/6 (17%) |
| 10 | Adidas Adizero Adios Pro | 1/6 (17%) |
| 11 | New Balance Fresh Foam 1080v12 | 1/6 (17%) |
| 12 | Nike LeBron 20 | 1/6 (17%) |
| 13 | Adidas Trae Young 1 | 1/6 (17%) |
| 14 | Nike Metcon 7 | 1/6 (17%) |
| 15 | Reebok Nano 9 | 1/6 (17%) |
Method: 6 representative buyer questions via a large language model, 🇺🇸 United States (English). Updated 8/21/2026. A proxy for how AI assistants describe this category.
Is your brand missing — or want to climb the AI rankings?
Check your brand's AI visibility free →