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What to Track to Be Found in AI
Checking one AI tool on your phone tells you almost nothing. To know whether you are found in AI, you need a fixed set of questions, every major tool, and the same measurements every time.
The short answer
To know whether you are found in AI, track a fixed list of the questions customers ask before choosing a business like yours, across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. For each answer, record whether you were named, whether you were linked, which competitors were named and in what position, and the gaps. Then watch the trend across regular scans.
The questions, fixed and in customers' words
Everything else depends on this. Track the questions a person asks before they pick someone, in the words they would type into a chat, and mix broad ones ('best family lawyer in Fort Lauderdale') with specific ones that reflect what makes you different. Keep the wording fixed from scan to scan, so a change in the answer reflects the tools and not your phrasing.
All five tools, not just your favourite
Your customers use different tools and you cannot know which. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews read different sources and often disagree, so being found in AI on one says little about the others. Track every question in all five, and look at each tool separately as well as together. A gap that shows up in only one tool usually points to a different fix than a gap that shows up everywhere.
Named versus linked
Record two things per answer, not one. Were you named? And did the answer link to your website? A mention without a link still introduces you, but the customer has to go and search for you. A link puts your site one tap away. Tracking both shows whether you are being recognised, being sent traffic, or both.
Competitors, their positions, and the gaps
An answer that leaves you out rarely leaves everyone out. Note which competitors are named and where in the answer they appear, because being first in a list of five is not the same as being fifth. Across all your questions, that becomes a leaderboard: the share of answers naming each business.
The most useful single measurement is the gap: a question where a competitor is named and you are not. Each one is a specific, fixable problem, and Found in AI pairs every gap with a suggestion of what to publish.
- Which competitors are named, and how often
- Their position in each answer compared with yours
- The share of answers naming each business across all your questions
- Gaps: a competitor named, you not
The trend, and how often to scan
AI answers move on their own as models are updated and sources change, so any single scan carries some noise. What tells you whether you are becoming easier to find is the trend across several scans, and what changed since the last one. A summary score helps you see the direction at a glance; Found in AI rolls your results into a 0 to 100 score and a letter grade.
Scan often enough to see change but not so often that you chase noise. Found in AI scans monthly or weekly depending on the plan. Weekly suits a business that is actively publishing and wants to see the effect sooner; monthly suits one checking that nothing has slipped.
Your checklist
- Write ten to fifteen customer questions and fix their wording
- Ask every question in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews
- Record for each answer whether you were named and whether you were linked
- Note every competitor named and their position in the answer
- List each gap where a competitor is named and you are not
- Choose a scan cadence and stick to it, then judge progress by the trend
Common questions
How many questions should I track?
Enough to cover your main services and the areas you serve from a few angles. A short list can miss whole parts of your business; a sprawling one is hard to act on. Found in AI tracks a set number per plan and helps you choose and word them.
Is a high score a guarantee that customers will find me?
No. The score summarises what the tools said in your tracked questions at the time of the scan. It is a measurement, not a promise about any future answer.
Why track competitors at all?
Because 'not named' on its own does not tell you what to do. Knowing who is named in your place, and where they are described, points you at the sources and pages that are worth working on.
Read next
What Does It Mean to Be Found in AI?
More customers now ask ChatGPT or Perplexity who to hire before they ever open a search page. Being found in AI is about what those answers say about you.
Read the guide →How to Be Found in AI: A Practical Playbook
There is no single trick that gets a business found in AI. There are a handful of levers, most of them ordinary good practice, and a way to tell whether pulling them moved anything.
Read the guide →How AI Assistants Decide Which Businesses to Mention
Nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly how an answer is put together. What they have published, and what you can observe, still tells you a lot about where to put your effort.
Read the guide →See where you stand today.
Found in AI asks five AI tools the questions your customers ask and shows where you are named, where you are linked and where a competitor is named instead.