Athletic Brewing has emerged as the dominant brand in AI-generated recommendations for non-alcoholic beer, capturing an estimated 14% citation share across major AI platforms, according to 5W Public Relations' Non-Alcoholic Drinks AI Visibility Index 2026. The report ranked 25 brands by estimated AI citation share across more than 60 consumer prompts tested on ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
Heineken 0.0 ranked second with an estimated 11% AI citation share, leaving Athletic Brewing with a commanding lead. The firm attributes Athletic's AI dominance in part to its estimated 52% share of the U.S. non-alcoholic craft beer segment — a market position that has effectively converted category leadership into algorithmic authority.
Why Operators Should Care
For restaurant and bar operators, AI citation share is fast becoming a dimension of menu strategy that can no longer be ignored. As more guests use AI assistants to plan dining occasions, find recommendations, or explore sober-curious options before they arrive at a venue, the brands that dominate those outputs gain a measurable edge in consumer pull. The non-alcoholic beer and spirits boom has already reshaped beverage program development across the on-premise channel, and AI-driven discovery adds another layer of pressure on procurement teams to stock the brands consumers are being pointed toward.
Searches for non-alcoholic drinks rose an estimated threefold in January 2025 compared with January 2024 — a trajectory that reflects a category in rapid acceleration. The global non-alcoholic beer market itself is estimated at roughly $24 billion in 2025, underscoring the commercial scale that operators are navigating when building out zero-proof programming.
The Fragmented Field
Beyond Athletic Brewing's outright ownership of the NA beer conversation, 5W's index found that the broader non-alcoholic drinks bar fragments sharply by sub-type. No single brand outside the NA craft beer segment commands the same kind of consolidated AI presence, suggesting that hospitality buyers curating a full zero-proof menu have more competitive options — and less brand-dominant pressure — in categories such as NA spirits, dealcoholized wine, and functional beverages.
The implications extend to how brands invest in digital and content strategy. AI systems draw on published editorial, reviews, and brand-generated content when building responses; brands that have invested heavily in earned media and SEO are now seeing those efforts compound into AI citation authority. For operators tracking restaurant beverage trends and sober-curious dining, the 5W index offers a signal about which brands are likely to generate consumer-led demand — and which may require more floor-level education to move.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
