AI visibility: what it is and how to measure it

Assistants answer the question before anyone reaches a list of blue links. AI visibility is the share of those answers where your brand shows up — and unlike a feeling, it can be measured.

What AI visibility actually measures

Visibility here is not a rank. A model either names you in its answer or it does not, so the unit of measurement is the answer itself: how often you appear across a fixed set of prompts, on each platform, over time. Fix the prompt set first — a number that moves because the questions changed tells you nothing.

The three numbers that matter

Mentions count the answers that name your brand. Share of voice compares that count against your competitors on the same prompts. Citations track which of your URLs a model links when it answers. Mentions tell you that you exist, share of voice tells you where you stand, citations tell you which pages did the work.

How to build a baseline in a week

Pick 20 to 40 prompts a buyer would really type, add three or four competitors, and run the set daily for a week across every platform you care about. A single run is noise. A week is a baseline you can measure change against.

What moves the number

Three things, roughly in this order: pages a model can quote without rewriting them, mentions on the sources it already trusts, and a technical setup that lets AI crawlers read you at all. Publishing more of the same content rarely moves it.