Sports Nutrition

72 percent of the top ten turned over in seven weeks. That is the number to sit with. Sports Nutrition tracks 589 brands and six buyer intents, and out of that field the top ten rebuilt itself almost whole. Swolverine climbed from 92 to 25. Legion went from 69 to 12. BSN, sitting at 2, fell to 17. The category did not drift. It moved.

Four times the number one spot changed hands. Kaged arrived at number 6 on June 8 and stayed in the fight for the top through the whole window. Incumbents held 100 percent of the top ten in the first week. By the last week they held half. The other half went to brands that did not exist in the rankings seven weeks before.

We take one category apart in depth as our history deepens. This season, Sports Nutrition earned the slot — picked on a weighted read of rank movement, AI disagreement and reviewer coverage.

Who climbed, who slipped, who arrived.

Swolverine, Legion, and Ascent climbed hard — 67, 57, and 47 spots. BSN slipped from number 2 to 17, Legion Athletics dropped 9, Evlution Nutrition dropped 8 despite a 4.7-star crowd average. Kaged, Nutricost, and Ritual all arrived on June 8, and Kaged walked straight into the number 6 slot.

The leaderboard churned.

The panel could not settle on a leader. Transparent Labs, Optimum Nutrition, Naked Nutrition, and Kaged all took turns at number 1, four changes in seven weeks. That is not noise. That is four separate moments where the models looked at the same shelf and picked a different winner.

Same question, different answers.

Ask the panel to name the best vegan protein powder and you get five different answers. ChatGPT picked Vega Protein + Greens. AI Mode picked Organic Plant-Based Protein Isolate. Claude picked Ka'Chava Meal Blend v5. Perplexity picked Epic Protein, Original Unflavored 2nd Gen. Gemini picked Gold Standard Plant Protein Ultra Blend. Five assistants, five picks, no overlap at all.

The crowd saw it first.

MuscleTech holds 4.7 stars across 22,000 reviews and the models rank it 5. Evlution Nutrition holds the same 4.7 stars, only 5,800 reviews, and the models rank it way down at 25 — even as its raw position in the rankings fell 8 spots this window. Redcon1 sits at 4.7 stars over 27,000 reviews, and the panel puts it at 18. The crowd keeps handing out top marks. The panel keeps looking past them.

Where the machines and the room part ways.

The panel rates Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein at number 2 while humans stay cooler on it. Serious Mass lands at number 10 in the AI ranks and draws the same cold shoulder from buyers. On the other side, Naked Creatine sits at 14 in the AI ranks while humans run warmer, and True-Mass 1200 gets the same treatment at 13. Both camps agree on the ends of the spectrum — Naked Mass at number 1, Gold Standard 100% Whey at number 7, no argument there.

Where the cameras pointed.

Creator attention concentrated hard. Of 38 tracked reviews in the category, Orgain and Transparent Labs split the recent coverage evenly, 50 percent each. Everyone else is fighting for what is left.

The fights that defined the window.

What actually moved underneath the leader.

The top ten used to belong to names that had been there for years. Now it is split down the middle — 50 percent incumbent, 50 percent fresh upstart, a 50-point swing in the space of seven weeks. Transparent Labs and Optimum Nutrition still sit at the top of the argument, but the ground under them shifted from solid to contested.

Four changes at number 1, 72 percent turnover in the top ten, and 368 new brands in the tracking window — this is not a category settling into a new order, it is one still picking a fight. Kaged's arrival at number 6 and its stint atop the rank race says newcomers can win the argument fast. The incumbents that survive the next seven weeks will be the ones that stop losing ground to brands that did not exist on this list two months ago.