How do I compare my AI visibility against competitors?

To compare your AI visibility against competitors, treat it like a mix of share of voice, brand presence, and answer inclusion across major AI systems.

1) Define what “AI visibility” means for your business

Usually it includes:

• How often your brand appears in AI answers
• How accurately you’re described
• Whether competitors are mentioned instead of you
• Whether AI recommends or cites your content
• How prominent you are for key topics and prompts

2) Pick your competitors and key prompt set

Choose:

• 3–10 direct competitors
• 20–100 prompts that matter to your business, such as:
  • “best [product] for [use case]”
  • “[category] tools for [industry]”
  • “[problem] solution for small business”
  • comparison prompts: “your brand vs competitor”

Segment prompts into:

• Discovery: “best X”
• Comparison: “X vs Y”
• Decision: “pricing for X”, “reviews of X”
• Support/education: “how to do X”

3) Test across the main AI surfaces

Check visibility in:

• ChatGPT
• Google AI Overviews / Search Generative Experience
• Perplexity
• Claude or other assistants used by your audience
• Any industry-specific AI tools or copilots

For each prompt, record:

• Is your brand mentioned?
• Is a competitor mentioned?
• Are you cited as a source?
• Are you recommended first, second, etc.?
• Is the description correct?
• Is sentiment positive/neutral/negative?

4) Build a simple scoring model

A practical scorecard per prompt:

• Mentioned: 1 point
• Recommended: 2 points
• Cited as source: 2 points
• Rank position: top = more points
• Accuracy: 0–2 points
• Sentiment: -1 to +1

Then compare totals across:

• Your brand vs each competitor
• Prompt category
• Platform

Example metrics:

• Visibility rate = % of prompts where your brand appears
• Share of AI voice = your mentions / total brand mentions
• Recommendation rate = % of prompts where you’re suggested as a top option
• Citation rate = % of prompts where your domain is cited
• Accuracy score = % of responses with correct details

5) Look at the content and authority drivers

If a competitor shows up more, inspect:

• Their content depth
• Use of structured data
• Third-party mentions/reviews
• Backlinks and authority
• How clearly they answer common questions
• Whether their content is easy for AI to extract

AI systems often surface brands that are:

• Widely referenced
• Clear and concise
• Strongly associated with a category
• Supported by trusted third-party sources

6) Track gaps by topic and intent

Create a matrix:

• Rows = prompt/topic clusters
• Columns = you + competitors
• Cells = visibility score

This reveals:

• Where competitors dominate
• Where you’re absent
• Which content themes need improvement

7) Monitor over time

AI visibility changes as models, search indexes, and content shift. Track monthly:

• Prompt set
• Platform
• Mention/recommendation/citation rates
• Sentiment and accuracy
• New competitor gains/losses

8) Use the results to prioritize action

If you’re behind:

• Publish better comparison pages
• Create concise, factual product/category pages
• Add FAQ/schema markup
• Earn third-party mentions and reviews
• Improve authority on high-value topics
• Fix unclear or outdated claims that confuse AI

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Quick way to start

Make a spreadsheet with columns:

• Prompt
• Platform
• Your brand mentioned? (Y/N)
• Competitor mentioned?
• Your rank
• Citation/source?
• Accuracy score
• Sentiment
• Notes

Then calculate:

• Visibility %
• Average rank
• Citation %
• Share of voice

If you want, I can give you a ready-to-use AI visibility competitor scorecard template in Excel/Sheets format or help you design one for your industry.