Log in Start free

Documentation

What is AI visibility?

Learn what AI visibility means, why it matters, and how Ranktune measures brand presence across AI answer engines.

   
                                         
                             
                                                                                                                               
   

# What is AI visibility?

AI visibility is how often — and how clearly — your brand shows up when people ask AI tools for recommendations, comparisons, and research answers.

Traditional SEO tracks rankings in search results. AI visibility tracks whether models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity mention, cite, or recommend you in generated answers — and whether Google AI Overviews cite your pages.

## Why it matters

Buyers increasingly start research in AI chat interfaces. If competitors appear in those answers and you do not, you lose consideration before a click ever happens.

Strong AI visibility usually means:

- Your brand is named in high-intent prompts for your category
- Your site is cited as a trusted source
- Competitors are not dominating the prompts that matter most to you

## How Ranktune measures it

Ranktune runs buyer-style prompts against major AI models and scores how your brand and competitors appear in the responses. A visibility report typically includes:

| Signal | What it shows |
|--------|----------------|
| Overall / self score | How visible your brand is across tracked prompts and models |
| Share of voice | Your share of all brand mentions vs tracked competitors |
| AI understanding | How accurately models describe who you are and what you do (separate from mentions) |
| Provider scores | Performance by AI platform |
| Competitor comparison | Where rivals appear and you do not |
| Recommendations | Prioritized actions based on real model responses |
| History | How scores change over refreshes |

Visibility and understanding are related but not the same. A brand can be rarely recommended yet clearly recognized — or frequently named without models knowing its category. See [Understand your report](/docs/ai-visibility/understand-your-report#ai-understanding-entity-recognition).

You can run and retrieve reports in the product UI, or programmatically with the [AI visibility API](/docs/api-reference/ai-visibility).

## Typical workflow

1. Choose a website (HTTPS) and optional competitors
2. Optionally [prefill](/docs/api-reference/ai-visibility#prefill-competitors-and-prompts) suggested competitors and prompts
3. [Queue a visibility report](/docs/api-reference/ai-visibility#run-a-visibility-report)
4. [Poll the job](/docs/api-reference/jobs) until it completes
5. [Fetch the latest report](/docs/api-reference/ai-visibility#get-the-latest-report) and [history](/docs/api-reference/ai-visibility#get-visibility-history) for charts

## Related product

For a product overview, see [AI Visibility](/ai-visibility) on the marketing site.

What is AI visibility?

AI visibility is how often — and how clearly — your brand shows up when people ask AI tools for recommendations, comparisons, and research answers.

Traditional SEO tracks rankings in search results. AI visibility tracks whether models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity mention, cite, or recommend you in generated answers — and whether Google AI Overviews cite your pages.

Why it matters

Buyers increasingly start research in AI chat interfaces. If competitors appear in those answers and you do not, you lose consideration before a click ever happens.

Strong AI visibility usually means:

Your brand is named in high-intent prompts for your category
Your site is cited as a trusted source
Competitors are not dominating the prompts that matter most to you

How Ranktune measures it

Ranktune runs buyer-style prompts against major AI models and scores how your brand and competitors appear in the responses. A visibility report typically includes:

Signal	What it shows
Overall / self score	How visible your brand is across tracked prompts and models
Share of voice	Your share of all brand mentions vs tracked competitors
AI understanding	How accurately models describe who you are and what you do (separate from mentions)
Provider scores	Performance by AI platform
Competitor comparison	Where rivals appear and you do not
Recommendations	Prioritized actions based on real model responses
History	How scores change over refreshes

Visibility and understanding are related but not the same. A brand can be rarely recommended yet clearly recognized — or frequently named without models knowing its category. See Understand your report.

You can run and retrieve reports in the product UI, or programmatically with the AI visibility API.

Typical workflow

Choose a website (HTTPS) and optional competitors
Optionally prefill suggested competitors and prompts
Queue a visibility report
Poll the job until it completes
Fetch the latest report and history for charts

For a product overview, see AI Visibility on the marketing site.