How we measure AI visibility
AI visibility can sound vague, so we keep it practical.
We look at where your brand appears in AI answers, how accurately it's described, who appears alongside you, and which sources seem to shape the result.
How we measure it
We measure AI visibility across four areas: presence, accuracy, competitors and source signals.
Together, they show whether AI systems understand your business, when they recommend you, and what needs to change across your website, content and wider authority signals.
Presence
Do AI systems mention your brand for commercially relevant questions, comparisons and buying journeys?
Accuracy
When your brand appears, is it described clearly and correctly?
Competitors
Which competitors appear instead of you, above you, or alongside you?
Source signals
Which pages, mentions and references seem to influence the answer?
Definition
What AI visibility measurement means
AI visibility measurement is the process of checking how often your brand, pages and competitors appear across a defined set of prompts on selected AI search surfaces.
In practice, that means we are not looking at one keyword and one ranking position in the way traditional SEO tools often do. We are looking at a structured prompt set, grouped by topic and intent, and assessing how your business shows up in AI-generated answers.
That includes questions such as:
- is your brand mentioned at all
- is your website cited as a source
- which pages are being cited
- which competitors are being recommended instead
- how visibility changes by platform, topic or prompt group
- whether your positioning is clear, weak or inconsistent
The goal is not to create a vanity score. The goal is to understand how visible, citable and understandable your business is when real buyer questions are asked in AI-led search.
Tracking
What we track
We track AI visibility in a structured way, not as a general impression.
Our core measurement usually includes:
- tracked prompts across agreed themes, services or commercial topics
- grouped intent, so prompts can be reviewed by category rather than one by one
- brand mentions in AI-generated answers
- citations to your domain and key URLs
- cited pages, so we can see which parts of the site are actually being used
- competitor benchmarking across the same prompt sets
- platform-level differences across the environments we monitor
- movement over time, so reporting is not based on a one-off snapshot
Where relevant, we also review whether important commercial pages are easy to retrieve, easy to understand and easy to cite. That is where measurement becomes useful. It stops being a measurement exercise and starts becoming page-level prioritisation.
Our monitoring layer is powered using enterprise AI visibility platforms, but the reporting and actions clients receive are shaped around Tilio's own prompt sets, analysis and recommendations.
Limits
What we do not claim to measure
This is the most important part of the methodology. We do not claim to measure all AI visibility everywhere, and we do not think anyone should pretend they can.
More specifically, we do not claim:
- to see every answer every user sees across every AI platform
- to measure the full prompt universe for your category
- to treat one sampled visibility score as a complete market truth
- to guarantee that a mention will lead directly to traffic or revenue
- to claim that a citation always means influence, or that no citation means no influence
- to present AI search as a perfectly stable environment where the same prompt always returns the same result
- to collapse all platforms into one neat number without context
That is why our methodology is prompt-based, grouped, comparative and directional. It is designed to produce useful decision-making signals, not false precision.
The point is not to overclaim. It is to understand enough, consistently enough, to improve the pages and topics that matter.
Platforms
Platforms included
We focus on three platforms because they are highly relevant to buyer discovery, comparison behaviour and answer-led search.
Google AI Overviews
Where AI-generated answers appear at the top of search results, often before a user visits any website.
ChatGPT
Where people ask direct buyer questions such as who should I hire, what should I choose, and what are the best options.
Perplexity
A citation-led AI search engine where your pages can be referenced as sources for high-intent queries.
We do not present this as universal measurement of every AI environment. It is measurement across the platforms we actively monitor, using defined prompt sets and structured comparisons. A methodology is more useful when it is clear about where it applies.
Prompt design
Prompt selection and intent grouping
Prompt selection is one of the most important parts of the whole process. A weak prompt set creates weak reporting, even if the charts look polished.
We usually group prompts around a few practical types of intent:
Category understanding
Prompts that test whether AI can describe what your category is and who it serves.
Service or solution discovery
Prompts around what types of business, product or service exist to solve a given problem.
Shortlist and comparison behaviour
Prompts that produce ranked lists, comparisons or recommendations within a category.
Alternatives and competitor evaluation
Prompts that ask for alternatives to a known brand or category leader.
Pricing and fit questions
Prompts that surface cost, constraints or suitability for a buyer's situation.
Trust, proof and credibility checks
Prompts that test whether a brand or claim can be verified or substantiated.
That matters because AI visibility is rarely one-query deep. A commercial decision often sits across a cluster of prompts rather than one exact phrase.
Grouping prompts this way helps us avoid two common mistakes. The first is overfocusing on a tiny number of vanity queries. The second is treating all prompts as equally valuable when they clearly are not. The result is a reporting structure that is easier to interpret and easier to act on.
Signal layers
Mentions, citations, and positioning
These are related, but they are not the same thing.
Mention
Your brand is named in the response.
Citation
The answer includes a source from your website and uses that source as part of the response.
Positioning
How your business is described. You might be mentioned, but described vaguely. You might be cited, but for the wrong page. You might appear often, but mainly in lower-value prompts rather than higher-intent ones.
That is why we separate these layers in reporting. A useful AI visibility report should not just say you were visible. It should help answer questions like:
- were we mentioned or absent
- were we cited from our own site
- which pages were cited most often
- were competitors cited more often than we were
- are we being positioned accurately
- which topics or prompt groups are weakest
That is where measurement becomes commercially useful rather than cosmetic.
Actions
How this becomes website actions
Measurement only matters if it changes decisions.
Once we know where visibility is strong, weak or inconsistent, we turn that into practical website actions. That often includes:
- improving service pages that are too vague or hard to summarise
- strengthening pricing pages and buyer FAQs
- adding clearer comparison or alternatives content
- tightening internal linking between commercial pages and supporting proof
- reducing inconsistent language across the site
- improving the pages most likely to earn citations
- fixing gaps where competitors are repeatedly winning the same prompt groups
For clients on ongoing support, this does not stop at reporting. From Level 2 it feeds directly into content production, content optimisation and actions each month, starting at 6 to 20 content pieces per month and rising with your level.
In other words, the output is not “here is your score, good luck”. The output is a clearer view of what to improve first, what can wait, and which pages are most likely to influence AI visibility in a commercially meaningful way.
Deliverables
What clients actually receive
The exact format depends on whether you start with an audit or ongoing support, but the output is designed to be practical.
If you start with an AI Visibility Audit, the focus is usually on baseline visibility, current gaps and the next steps.
If you move into ongoing support, clients typically receive:
- tracking across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, rising to all 10 answer engines from Level 2
- 50 to 100 tracked prompts at Level 1, rising to 250 or a bespoke set at Level 4, monitored daily
- competitor benchmarking, from 3 to 15 tracked at Level 1 to expanded category benchmarking above it
- a baseline AI search audit on day one and an AI search playbook with roadmap
- dashboard access with named logins
- 6 to 20 content pieces per month from Level 2, rising to 35 or more at Level 4
- a content calendar mapped to your prompt gaps and a technical retrieval audit from Level 2
- referral tracking from answer engines and AI bot traffic analysis from Level 2
- brand truth base, claim monitoring and corrections with before and after evidence from Level 3
- third party mentions with 90 day impact measurement at Level 4
- an onboarding call and a monthly insight summary covering findings, trends and next steps
- a quarterly benchmark review
That means clients receive more than visibility data alone. They receive structured measurement, competitor context, clear content actions and, on implementation plans, page improvements that turn AI visibility into a practical workflow.
Where these figures are used
Any claim we publish about our own visibility, or about yours, is produced by the method described above. These are the pages that quote it.
AEO and GEO agency
Carries our own measured visibility in the UK AI search agency category. The figure, its date and its scope come from the method on this page.
AI search agency
The broader entry page, describing the same measurement in less technical terms.
AI Visibility Audit
A fixed-price application of this method to your own category, with the raw data included.
Pricing
How much measurement each level buys: prompt counts, engines, competitors and reporting cadence.
Questions about how we measure
What is AI visibility measurement?+
AI visibility measurement is the process of checking how often your brand, pages and competitors appear across a defined set of prompts on selected AI search surfaces. It uses a structured prompt set grouped by topic and intent to assess how a business shows up in AI-generated answers.
What does Tilio track for AI visibility?+
Tilio tracks brand mentions in AI-generated answers, citations to your domain and key URLs, cited pages, competitor benchmarking across the same prompt sets, platform-level differences, and movement over time. Prompts are grouped by commercial theme or service area.
Which platforms does Tilio measure AI visibility on?+
Tilio measures AI visibility across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. These platforms are tracked because they are highly relevant to buyer discovery, comparison behaviour and answer-led search.
What does Tilio not claim to measure?+
Tilio does not claim to see every answer every user sees, to measure the full prompt universe for a category, to treat a sampled score as a complete market truth, or to guarantee that a mention or citation directly leads to traffic or revenue. The methodology is directional and designed to produce useful decision-making signals, not false precision.
How does Tilio select and group prompts for AI visibility tracking?+
Tilio groups prompts around practical types of commercial intent: category understanding, service or solution discovery, shortlist and comparison behaviour, alternatives and competitor evaluation, pricing and fit questions, and trust, proof and credibility checks. This avoids overfocusing on vanity queries and helps produce reporting that is easier to interpret and act on.
What is the difference between a mention, a citation, and positioning in AI visibility?+
A mention means your brand is named in the AI response. A citation means the answer includes a source from your website and uses it as part of the response. Positioning is about how your business is described: you might be mentioned but described vaguely, or cited from the wrong page. Tilio separates these layers in reporting because they have different commercial implications.
How does AI visibility measurement translate into website actions?+
Once Tilio identifies where visibility is strong, weak or inconsistent, that data informs specific website actions: improving service pages that are too vague, strengthening pricing pages and buyer FAQs, adding comparison or alternatives content, tightening internal linking, and fixing gaps where competitors are repeatedly winning the same prompt groups.
What do clients receive from Tilio's ongoing AI visibility service?+
Ongoing work runs on four levels. Level 1 clients receive tracking across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity, 50 to 100 tracked prompts monitored daily, competitor benchmarking, a baseline audit, dashboard access and a monthly insight summary. Level 2 adds 6 to 20 content pieces per month, a content calendar mapped to your prompt gaps, a technical retrieval audit and referral tracking. Level 3 adds factcheck, and Level 4 adds third party mentions.