Dashboard 6 — AI Referral Traffic & Citation Visibility

Practo total AI visits

71,745

3.5x Apollo — aggregator leads AI citation too

Max AI growth

+6,536%

Fastest growing hospital AI presence in dataset

Category first AI citation

May 2024

Entire AI citation landscape built in under 2 years

Lybrate decline

-74%

Only brand to lose AI citation share — Aug 2024 spike inflates early baseline

AI citation advantage is compounding early.

AI referral traffic in Indian healthcare barely existed in April 2024. By April 2026, Practo receives over 71,000 AI-referred visits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. Apollo, Max, and Manipal are growing rapidly — each now averaging roughly 1,000–1,700 AI citations per month. The brands that structure their content for AI extraction today are building a citation advantage that will compound as AI platforms become the default starting point for healthcare research.

Panel 1

24-month AI citation trend

Monthly AI citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. This view highlights the category’s near-zero starting point, Practo’s pre-winter peak, the Lybrate anomaly, and the late Gemini-led acceleration for Max and Manipal.

Practo

Apollo

Max

Manipal

Fortis

Lybrate

Source: Semrush AI Search module, India database, April 2024–April 2026. Combines ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini citation data. Directional estimates for competitive benchmarking.

Panel 2

AI referral visits by platform

April 2026 snapshot across all 11 brands. The stacked bars reveal platform-mix anomalies immediately: Lybrate’s Gemini-heavy profile, Medibuddy’s Perplexity dominance, and the unusually large Gemini contribution for Max and Manipal.

ChatGPT

Perplexity

Gemini

Claude

Copilot + other

X-axis: AI referral visits (snapshot, April 2026). Bars sorted by total AI visits descending.

Panel 3

Growth summary table

Early average = Apr–Sep 2024. Recent average = Oct 2025–Mar 2026. This condenses who is accelerating fastest, who is accumulating steadily, who entered late, and who appears to be declining.

Brand	Early avg	Recent avg	Growth	Status badge
Max	26/mo	1,736/mo	+6,536%	Growing fast
Manipal	50/mo	1,129/mo	+2,135%	Growing fast
Apollo	70/mo	1,383/mo	+1,861%	Growing fast
Medibuddy	35/mo	403/mo	+1,041%	Steady growth
Fortis	80/mo	757/mo	+841%	Steady growth
Practo	780/mo	4,611/mo	+491%	Steady growth
Narayana	88/mo	319/mo	+262%	Steady growth
Aster DM	0/mo	116/mo	New entrant	New entrant
KIMS	0/mo	188/mo	New entrant	New entrant
Medanta	0/mo	686/mo	New entrant	New entrant
Lybrate	3,684/mo	962/mo	-74%	Declining

Lybrate's early average is inflated by an August 2024 anomaly spike (21,171). Adjusted baseline of roughly 500–1,000/mo suggests actual growth, not decline.