Key Takeaways
- AI Visibility measures how likely AI platforms are to mention, cite, or recommend your brand when users ask relevant questions
- Unlike traditional SEO that optimises for rankings, AI Visibility focuses on being selected as a trusted source that AI can quote
- Research shows brand search volume has the strongest correlation (0.334) with AI mentions — stronger than backlinks or domain authority
- Brands can improve their AI Visibility by ensuring AI crawlers can access content, building entity recognition, and structuring content for extraction
What is AI Visibility?
AI Visibility is the likelihood that AI platforms will mention, cite, or recommend your brand when users ask questions related to your industry, products, or expertise. Unlike traditional search engine visibility where you optimise for rankings, AI Visibility is about being selected as a trusted source that AI can quote in its responses.
When someone asks ChatGPT "What's the best project management tool for small teams?" or queries Perplexity about "top AI visibility scanners," the AI doesn't show a list of links. Instead, it synthesises an answer from hundreds of sources and may cite just 2-5 of them. AI Visibility determines whether your brand makes it into those crucial citations.
Why AI Visibility Matters Now
The shift from search-based discovery to AI-based discovery is accelerating. ChatGPT now has over 1.5 billion monthly users. Perplexity processes more than 100 million queries per month. Google AI Overviews appear in approximately 47% of search results.
Gartner predicts traditional search engine traffic will decrease 25% by 2026 as users shift to AI-powered answers. For brands, this creates a fundamental change in how customers discover products and services.
Being visible in AI responses is exponentially more valuable than ranking #7 on Google. When AI mentions your brand, it comes with an implicit endorsement. Users trust AI recommendations in a way they never trusted search result rankings.
How AI Visibility Differs from Traditional SEO
Traditional SEO and AI Visibility share some foundations but differ in critical ways.
SEO optimises for rankings — getting your page to appear higher in a list of search results. AI Visibility optimises for citations — being selected as one of the few sources AI quotes when answering a question.
SEO focuses on keywords, backlinks, and page speed. AI Visibility focuses on entity recognition, content extractability, and knowledge graph presence. While there's overlap in areas like structured data and content quality, roughly 60% of AI Visibility factors are unique to how AI platforms select sources.
The measurement is different too. SEO success means higher rankings and more organic traffic. AI Visibility success means your brand is mentioned when users ask AI platforms relevant questions.
What Drives AI Citations?
Research into AI platform behaviour reveals several key factors that influence citation decisions.
Entity Recognition: AI platforms need to recognise your brand as a distinct entity before they can confidently recommend it. Wikipedia accounts for 22% of LLM training data. Having a Wikipedia article dramatically increases AI recognition. Wikidata, the structured knowledge base behind Wikipedia, is directly consumed by AI systems.
Brand Search Volume: The #1 correlated factor with AI mentions is brand search volume (0.334 correlation). If people search for your brand, AI considers you relevant and authoritative.
Content Structure: AI platforms extract specific passages to cite. Research on Google AI Overviews shows the ideal citable passage is 134-167 words, self-contained, and directly answers a question.
Cross-Platform Presence: AI systems cross-reference multiple platforms. Presence on Reddit, review sites (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot), and industry publications strengthens your credibility. 100% of software tools ChatGPT recommends have Capterra reviews. Reddit accounts for 40.1% of Perplexity citations.
How to Measure Your AI Visibility
Unlike SEO metrics that show rankings and traffic, AI Visibility requires testing what AI platforms actually say about your brand.
Ansly analyses 147 factors across 12 categories, including live testing against ChatGPT and Perplexity. The AI Visibility Score (0-100) gives you a clear metric for tracking improvement over time.
Key metrics include:
Getting Started with AI Visibility
Improving your AI Visibility starts with understanding your current position. Run a scan to see your AI Visibility Score and identify the specific factors holding you back.
Focus first on ensuring AI crawlers can access your content. Check your robots.txt to confirm GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot aren't blocked. Add an llms.txt file to explicitly signal AI-readiness.
Build entity recognition by creating or updating your Wikipedia presence, Wikidata entry, and Google Knowledge Graph signals. Get listed on review platforms relevant to your industry.
Structure your content for extraction. Write self-contained paragraphs that make sense without surrounding context. Add summary blocks and key takeaways. Format headings as questions that match what users ask AI.
AI Visibility isn't a one-time optimisation. AI platforms continuously update their knowledge, and your competitors are constantly publishing new content. Regular monitoring helps you track improvements and catch any regressions.
Conclusion
AI Visibility represents a fundamental shift in how customers discover brands. As more users turn to AI platforms for recommendations, the brands that invest in AI Visibility now will have a compounding advantage.
The question isn't whether you need to optimise for AI — it's whether you'll start before your competitors do.
Sanjey Karunananthan
Founder & CEO at Ansly
Sanjey is the founder of Ansly, the AI Visibility Scanner. With a background in software engineering and digital marketing, he helps brands understand how AI platforms perceive their content.
