What is AI visibility? The metric, how it is measured, and what a good score is
AI visibility is how often, and how well, AI engines name and recommend your business when buyers ask them who to choose. It is measured by asking the engines the questions buyers ask and scoring every answer: named, position, recommended, cited. In our data a business is named in 35.2% of answers and recommended in 20.6%.
- AI visibility is a measurement: named, position, recommended, cited, per question, per engine, per day.
- Baselines from our data: named 35.2%, recommended 20.6%, own site cited 0.6%.
- A good score is one above your competitors' on the questions that bring customers; there is no universal pass mark.
- One engine is not enough: two engines name the same business first only 26 to 35.7% of the time.
What is AI visibility?
When a buyer asks ChatGPT or Google's AI which accountant, clinic, agency or tool to choose, the answer names a few businesses. AI visibility is your share of those names and picks. It is the AI-era equivalent of a ranking, with one difference: there is no console that reports it. Search Console tells you where you rank on Google; nothing tells you what ChatGPT said about you last Tuesday unless you asked it.
So AI visibility is measured, not reported. You write the questions buyers ask, you put them to the engines on a schedule, and you read every answer for four things: was the business named, where among the names, was it the recommendation, and was its own site cited as a source.
What goes into an AI visibility score?
| Measure | Question it answers | Baseline in our data |
|---|---|---|
| Named rate | In what share of answers is the business mentioned? | 35.2% |
| Position | When named, where does it sit among the brands? | First in 45.1% of named answers |
| Recommended rate | In what share of answers is it the pick? | 20.6% |
| Own site cited | In what share of answers is its site a source? | 0.6% |
| Share of voice | Its share of all brand names in the market's answers | Per market |
| Cited sources | Which pages did the engines use? | reddit.com, en.wikipedia.org, youtube.com most |
Baselines from 7,552 answers, five engines, 35 businesses, 24 August to 7 October 2026.
An AI visibility score blends the first three into one number from 0 to 100, over a rolling window, across the engines and questions tracked. The blend is a convenience; the four measures are the facts, and every score should link to the answers it came from.
What is a good AI visibility score?
There is no universal pass mark, because the questions decide the ceiling. "Best pizza in The Hague" names five restaurants out of hundreds; "which tool tracks ChatGPT mentions" names five tools out of dozens. The useful comparison is against the competitors the engines name on your questions: above them on the questions that bring customers is good, and rising is better than any level. The baselines above say what typical looks like across markets; the restaurant says how far a measured business can move in two months.
Why one engine is not enough
| Engine pair | Same brand named first | Any of the top three shared |
|---|---|---|
| Claude and Gemini | 35.7% | 63.5% |
| Claude and Perplexity | 32.4% | 66.8% |
| ChatGPT and Claude | 32.3% | 60.8% |
| ChatGPT and Perplexity | 32.1% | 56.6% |
| Gemini and Perplexity | 32% | 59.5% |
| ChatGPT and Gemini | 26% | 55% |
Same question, same business, same day. Pairs where both engines named at least one brand.
The engines read different sources and disagree on the answer. Of 1,351 questions put to four or more engines on the same day, 53.3% got no recommendation from any engine and 8% from four or more. An AI visibility figure from one engine is one fifth of the picture, and often the wrong fifth.
What an AI visibility audit covers
- The questions. The ten to fifty things buyers ask before choosing in your market, organised by intent: discovery, comparison, recommendation, local.
- The answers. Each question put to each engine, the answer kept in full, and scored: named, position, recommended, cited.
- The competitors. Who the engines name instead of you, and how often: the market ranking as the engines see it.
- The sources. Which pages the engines used, so you know where your name has to appear.
- The gaps. The questions where you are absent or unrecommended, paired with what your site and your listings lack.
There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.
Google Search Central, AI features and your website
An audit is not a crawl of your homepage with a score attached. Google's own words above apply to Google; for the chat engines there are no requirements at all. Only the answers tell you where you stand.
How to improve AI visibility
The work is generative engine optimization, and it follows from the measures. The named rate moves when the pages the engines read mention you: reviews, directories, forums, comparison articles. Position and recommendation move when those mentions say why you, with facts the engines can repeat. The cited rate moves when your own pages answer the question plainly and can be crawled. And every change has to be re-measured, because the engines change their answers day to day.
How to check your AI visibility for free
The free AI visibility checker on this site writes your buyers' questions from your website, puts them to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and emails the report, usually within 5 to 10 minutes: your named and recommended rates, who AI names instead, and which sources it trusts in your niche. No account, no card. The tool then measures up to six engines every day and turns each gap into a fix.
Questions people ask
What does AI visibility mean?
How often, and how prominently, AI engines name and recommend your business when people ask them buying questions in your market. It is measured by asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews those questions and reading every answer: named or not, where in the list, recommended or not, cited or not.
What is an AI visibility score?
A number from 0 to 100 that summarises those answers over a period: a weighted blend of how often you are named, how high you sit among the names, and how often you are the recommendation, across the engines and questions tracked. Citeon AI shows it as a 28-day rolling score so one day's answers cannot swing it.
What is a good AI visibility score?
It depends on your market and the questions. As a measured baseline across 7,552 answers, a business is named in 35.2% of answers and recommended in 20.6%. A score above your competitors' in the questions that bring customers is good; a score above a universal threshold is not a meaningful target.
Is AI visibility the same as GEO?
AI visibility is the measurement; generative engine optimization is the work that moves it. You cannot do one without the other: GEO without measurement is guessing, and measurement without GEO is a chart.
Can I check my AI visibility for free?
Yes. The free AI visibility checker on this site puts your buyers' questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and emails a report, usually within 5 to 10 minutes, with no account and no card.
How often should AI visibility be measured?
Daily, with a rolling average. Engines change their answers from day to day, and in our data two engines name the same business first only 26 to 35.7% of the time, so a single check on a single engine is noise.
Sources
- Citeon AI measurements, 24 August to 7 October 2026. 7,552 answers, 35 businesses, five engines
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website. AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special optimization
- 5WPR, The state of AI citations 2026. engine overlap and the platforms cited most, from six datasets