Ask a buyer how they found their last supplier and the answer is changing. Increasingly, the first shortlist does not come from a page of links. It comes from a single AI answer that names a few brands, cites a few sources, and recommends one of them. Tracking AI visibility means knowing, week after week, whether your brand is in that answer, how it is described, and who is winning the space around you. The mistake most teams make is treating this as a one off check. They ask an engine about their brand once, screenshot a flattering answer, and move on. AI answers drift as coverage changes, competitors publish, and engines update. Tracking only works as a routine, built on the prompts buyers actually ask and the metrics that describe a position.
Start with the prompts buyers actually ask
A tracking program is only as good as its prompt list. Start with the questions a buyer asks before choosing in your category, not the keywords your team already ranks for. Include direct questions, such as what is the best option for a stated need, and comparison questions, such as how one brand differs from another. Include the adjacent questions too, because buyers rarely start with a brand name. They ask about the problem, the category, and the outcome they want. Then run that same prompt set across the major engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek. Engines do not share one answer. One may cite your site while another leans on a review roundup or recommends a competitor. Recording the prompt, the engine, the date, and the answer each time is what turns casual checking into evidence.
The four metrics that belong in every baseline
Four measures, tracked together, give a brand its AI baseline. Brand Mention Rate asks how often your brand appears at all when buyers ask category questions. Citation Frequency asks how often engines point to your pages as a source, which is a stricter test than a mention, because a citation means your evidence was trusted enough to quote. Share of Voice asks what portion of the answer space you own compared with your competitors across the same prompts. Sentiment asks how the answer frames you, positive, neutral, or negative, and whether that tone is moving. Each metric corrects the others. A high mention rate with low citation frequency means engines talk about you but quote someone else. A strong share of voice with souring sentiment means you are visible for the wrong reasons. The baseline matters most as a comparison: your numbers against your three closest competitors, on the same prompts, in the same week.
Turn tracking into a weekly routine
The routine itself is simple, and simplicity is what keeps it alive. Once a week, run the same prompt set across the same engines. Log mentions, citations, share of voice, and sentiment in the same format. Flag three things: prompts where you disappeared, prompts where a competitor took the recommendation, and new sources the engines started citing. Those three flags are your brief for the week ahead. Then close the loop. A prompt you lost points to a page that needs clearer facts, a proof point that needs publishing, or third party coverage worth earning. A new cited source tells you where authority in your category is being built. Tracking without action is just a dashboard. Tracking that feeds publishing, week after week, is how a brand moves from mentioned to cited, and from cited to recommended.
See how AI answers describe your brand. Schedra AI Visibility tracks how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek describe, cite, and recommend your brand across the prompts that shape your market. Explore AI Visibility. You can start with a 7-day free trial.
