Guide · Measurement
AI visibility: how to measure it
AI visibility is how often, how prominently and how favorably AI engines mention your brand when people ask the questions you want to win. You measure it by asking a fixed set of prompts on each engine, repeatedly, and counting how often you are named, where, in what tone, and which sites are cited.
Updated · By the Cited team
Start with the prompts
Every AI visibility number comes from the answers to a set of prompts, so the prompts decide what the number means. Choose questions your buyers actually ask, such as “best accounting software for freelancers” or “boxing gym near Bedford Ave”, not your brand name. Group them by product, market and buying stage, so each group tells you something you can act on.
- Category prompts: “best X for Y”. Where buyers build a shortlist.
- Comparison prompts: “X vs Y”, “alternatives to X”. Where buyers decide.
- Problem prompts: “how do I fix Z”. Where buyers first meet a solution.
- Local prompts: “X near me”, asked from the place your customers are.
Ask each prompt on each engine, more than once
AI answers vary. The same prompt can name different brands on two runs a minute apart, and each engine reads different sources. So one screenshot proves nothing. Ask every prompt on every engine your buyers use, on a regular schedule, and read the trend across many answers. Ask from the country and city your customers are in, because answers change by location.
The numbers that matter
These are the numbers Cited reports for every prompt, engine and competitor.
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Visibility | How often AI answers mention your brand when people ask the questions you care about. |
| #1 rate | How often your brand is the first one an AI answer recommends. |
| Avg position | Where your brand usually appears in an answer’s list of brands. Lower is better. |
| Share of voice | Your share of AI mentions against the competitors you track. |
| Sentiment | How favorably AI answers describe your brand, on a scale from 0 to 100. |
| Cited | How often AI answers quote and link your own website. |
| Citation rate | How often AI answers quote a given page or website as a source. |
Mentions are not citations
Two different things can happen in an AI answer. The answer can mention your brand by name, and it can cite your website by linking to it. A brand can be mentioned without being cited, when the engine learned about it from a review site, and cited without being mentioned, when your page is a source for a general fact. Track both: mentions show whether you are recommended, citations show whether your own content is doing the work.
Look at the sources too. For each prompt, list the domains and pages the answers cite. If a “best of” list is cited again and again and doesn’t mention you, that list is worth more than another blog post on your own site.
Benchmark against competitors
A visibility of 30% means little on its own. Measured against the three competitors buyers compare you with, it tells you whether you lead or trail. Share of voice does this directly: it shows how much of the conversation you hold against the competitors you track. Position adds the order: being named first matters more than being named fourth.
Prove what your work changed
- Split your prompts into target prompts, which get new content and sources, and control prompts, which don’t.
- Record a baseline for both groups before the work ships.
- Ship the work for the target prompts only.
- Compare the change. If visibility rises on the targets and not on the controls, the work caused it, not a change in the engine or the market.
Give it time. Engines that search the web can read new pages within weeks, but answers usually take 60 to 90 days to shift in a way repeated runs can show.
Tools for measuring AI visibility
You can check a few prompts by hand, but repeated runs across engines and locations need software. AI visibility tools ask your prompts on a schedule and report these numbers. Cited includes its platform with the done-for-you service: our strategists read the numbers, write the content and report every week on what moved. Read how to improve the numbers in our AI SEO and GEO guide.
Questions
What is a good AI visibility score?
It depends on the prompts and the competition. A score is only meaningful against your competitors on the same prompts, so compare share of voice and position with the brands buyers weigh you against, and watch the trend over time.
How often should I measure AI visibility?
Often enough to see a trend through the noise. Answers vary between runs, so ask each prompt repeatedly and compare periods of weeks, not single days. Weekly reporting on daily or regular runs works well.
What is the difference between a mention and a citation?
A mention is when an AI answer names your brand. A citation is when the answer links to a page of your website. You can have either without the other, so track both.
Can Google Search Console measure AI visibility?
Not fully. It includes traffic from Google’s AI features in your search data, but it doesn’t show whether answers name you, and it says nothing about ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. You need to ask the prompts on each engine.