AI VISIBILITY AUDIT
AI Visibility Audit: What Free Checkers Can't Tell You
An AI visibility audit (sometimes called an AI search audit) shows how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode describe, cite and recommend your brand against named competitors, and why. I'm Ajay Padhy, a GEO and SEO consultant with 14+ years in search. I build the prompt set around your revenue, analyse the sources behind each answer and hand you a ranked fix list your team can act on.
At a glance
- Fixed scope: a one-off audit that takes about a week at most, with a walkthrough session. No retainer required.
- Custom prompt set: built from your sales conversations and search data, not a generic template — and yours to keep for tracking.
- Beyond a score: every finding traces back to the sources the AI cited, so fixes are specific rather than "create more content".
- Accuracy check: I flag every factual error AI systems repeat about your pricing, products, locations or leadership.
- Honest fit: if a free checker would answer your question, I'll tell you — the DIY checklist below is a genuine starting point.
OUTCOMES
What this engagement is measured on
Every client's goals are different, and most are a mix. In the first weeks we agree which of these matter to you, record a baseline, and report against it every month. Targets are set after the audit, never promised up front.
Visibility, AI search and brand reach
A baseline of your mention, citation and recommendation rate against named competitors.
- What we measure
- Keywords in the top positions, presence in Google AI Overviews, how often AI assistants mention and cite you, and branded search demand.
- What usually moves first
- Answer-ready pages appearing in AI Overviews and AI citations; more keywords entering the top 10.
- What follows
- More branded searches and more recommendations by AI assistants.
Authority: backlinks and topic authority
A list of the sources AI systems use for your category, and where you are missing.
- What we measure
- Relevant referring domains, link quality, Domain Authority/Rating trend and how much of each topic your site covers and ranks for.
- What usually moves first
- New links from relevant sites and more of your topic pages indexed and ranking.
- What follows
- Rankings on the competitive head terms that need authority to move.
CLIENT RESULTS
Results from similar engagements
Anonymised client work I led, delivered with my team at the time. Client names are withheld; the numbers are real.
900+
Keywords appearing in Google AI Overviews (Semrush).
900+ Keywords in AI Overviews for a General Insurer
0 → 150
US keywords appearing in Google AI Overviews, from none before the work began (Semrush).
US keywords in Google AI Overviews
From Zero to 150 US Keywords in Google AI Overviews
Who this is for
Search "AI search visibility" and the results are mostly free checkers and tracking dashboards. They're useful. They'll tell you, for a set of generic prompts, how often your brand name appears. What they can't tell you is whether those are the prompts your buyers actually use, why a competitor wins the answer, or which single page, profile or review site to fix first.
That's the gap a human AI visibility audit fills. I start from your commercial reality — the questions prospects ask on sales calls, the comparisons they make, the objections they raise — and turn that into a prompt set. Then I read the answers the way a buyer would, trace every cited source and score the patterns. The measurement approach is explained in how to measure AI search visibility.
If you want ongoing automated tracking afterwards, I'll recommend a tool from the options compared in AI visibility tools and load the audit's prompt set into it, so the baseline carries over.
- Marketing leaders who need a defensible AI search baseline before approving GEO budget
- Brands that ran a free AI visibility checker, got a score, and don't know what to do with it
- Companies whose sales team hears "ChatGPT suggested…" and it isn't them
- SEO teams adding AI search to their reporting and needing a credible starting prompt set
- Businesses that suspect AI answers contain inaccurate facts about them
DIAGNOSIS
Problems I solve
Common constraints teams face before we begin working together.
"The checker gave us 23/100. Now what?"
"Are these even the right prompts?"
"Prospects arrive with wrong information"
"I need to justify the spend to leadership"
AI visibility audit vs free checker vs tracking tool
They answer different questions. Many brands need more than one, in sequence.
| Dimension | Free AI visibility checker | Tracking tool (paid) | Human AI visibility audit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers | "Are we mentioned at all?" | "Is it trending up or down?" | "Why, and what do we fix first?" |
| Prompts | Generic, pre-set | You supply them | Built from your sales and search data |
| Competitors | Often auto-detected | You configure | Chosen with you, analysed in depth |
| Source analysis | Minimal | Domain lists | Page-level, with why it's cited |
| Accuracy check | No | Rarely | Every answer read and logged |
| Output | A score | Dashboards | Ranked fix list + walkthrough |
| Best for | A first look | Ongoing monitoring | Setting strategy and a baseline |
What's in the report: a sample deliverable outline
This is the structure every audit report follows, so you know exactly what you're buying.
- Executive summary — one page: where you stand, the three biggest gaps, the first five actions.
- Prompt set — every prompt, grouped by theme (your brand, competitor comparisons, recommended as the solution) and funnel stage (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU), with why each was included.
- Scorecard — mention rate, citation rate, recommendation share and sentiment for you and each competitor, by platform, theme and funnel stage.
- Answer examples — verbatim excerpts showing how each platform describes you versus competitors.
- Source analysis — the domains and pages cited most often, which ones mention competitors but not you, and which of your own pages are never retrieved.
- Accuracy log — each wrong or outdated fact, where it appears and the probable source.
- Problem classification — each priority prompt marked as absent, described wrongly, mentioned but not recommended, or cited but not named, with the fix for each.
- Readable by AI and entity checks — AI search crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) allowed in robots.txt, CDN and firewall; key pages that make sense without JavaScript; indexation and snippet eligibility; schema; and consistent facts across your profiles.
- Ranked fix list — actions with impact, effort, suggested owner and how we'd measure the effect.
- Re-measurement plan — which prompts to re-run, how often, and with what tool.
Findings are grouped under the three pillars of my Read–Know–Recommend framework: readable by AI, known and corroborated, and recommended in the answer.
Free DIY mini-audit: run this yourself in an afternoon
If you only have a few hours and no budget, do this. It will tell you whether a full audit is worth it.
- Write 15 prompts your buyers would ask, five per theme. Your brand ("what does [brand] cost?", "is [brand] good for…"); competitor comparisons ("[you] vs [competitor]", "alternatives to [competitor]"); and recommended as the solution ("best [category] for [use case]", "how do I fix [problem]?"). Mix early-research and ready-to-buy questions in each.
- Run them logged out, set to your buyers' location, in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google (check for an AI Overview). Run each prompt several times on each platform, because answers vary. Repeat the set monthly.
- Log it in a sheet: were you mentioned (Y/N), recommended (Y/N), cited with a link (Y/N), and which competitors appeared.
- Copy every cited URL. Sort by domain. The domains that appear repeatedly are the sources that shape your category's answers.
- Check those sources for your presence. Are you on the review sites, lists and comparison articles that keep getting cited? If not, that's your off-site gap.
- Mark every factual error about you. Search for the wrong fact in quotes to find where it came from.
- Check your own key pages are indexed in Google Search Console and actually answer the question in the first paragraph.
For a deeper method, see how to improve brand visibility in AI search.
Who should skip the audit
I'd rather tell you now than sell you something you don't need.
- Your Google SEO fundamentals are broken. If key pages aren't indexed or you don't rank for your own brand name, fix that first — SEO consulting will do more for you than an AI audit.
- Your buyers don't use AI assistants to research. Some local trades and very niche B2B categories still buy by referral. Run the DIY check; if nobody in your category is being recommended, the channel may not matter yet.
- You only want a number for a slide. A free checker gives you that. The audit is for teams that will act on the fix list.
- You have no capacity to act for three months. The audit's value decays as models update. Run it when someone can own the fixes.
If you're ready to act and want the full programme rather than a one-off, see my generative engine optimization services.
DELIVERABLES
What you get
Tangible assets, strategic roadmaps and documentation provided during the engagement.
Custom prompt set
Visibility scorecard
Cited-source analysis
Accuracy log
Problem classification
Ranked fix list
Walkthrough session
WORKFLOW
How an engagement works
A clear, four-phase delivery model ensuring accountability from kickoff to ongoing impact.
- 01Phase 1
Scope
A short call to agree platforms (by default ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode), 3–5 competitors, markets, the buyer questions that matter commercially, and the languages your buyers use, including Hindi, Hinglish or regional languages where relevant. - 02Phase 2
Run
Run each prompt several times per platform, logged out and set to your buyers' location, capturing every answer, citation and variation between runs. - 03Phase 3
Analyse
Score visibility, trace sources, log inaccuracies and find the patterns behind competitor wins. - 04Phase 4
Hand over
Deliver the report, prompt set and fix list in a walkthrough, with a recommendation on next steps (including "do it yourselves").
Ways to work together
Every engagement is led by me personally. For execution, I work with a small team of specialists — technical SEO, content, development and automation — so you get senior thinking without agency layers, account managers or hand-offs.
Audit & roadmap
A fixed-scope diagnosis with a prioritised roadmap your team can act on. Typically 2–4 weeks.
Advisory retainer
Ongoing senior guidance: monthly strategy, reviews of your team's work, and a direct line to me when decisions come up.
Strategy + execution
I own the strategy and stay your single point of contact; my specialist team handles implementation — technical fixes, content, builds and reporting.
Proof from past work
TOOLING
Tools I use
Industry-standard platforms and custom automation stacks used to audit, track, and execute.
FAQ
AI visibility audit: questions clients ask
Straight answers to what people usually want to know before a first call.
An AI visibility audit, sometimes called an AI search audit, measures how AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode mention, cite and recommend your brand compared with competitors. A good audit also explains why: which sources the AI relies on, which facts it gets wrong and which specific fixes are likely to change the answers.
They are accurate for what they measure: whether your brand appears for a generic set of prompts at one moment. Their limits are prompt relevance, single-run snapshots and no explanation of causes. Use one for a quick first look, then build a prompt set that reflects real buyer questions before making decisions.
Yes, several software companies offer one. It's a fair first look, but it is a single snapshot of generic prompts, usually run once each, with no explanation of why a competitor wins. The DIY checklist on this page is the next step.
About a week at most from scoping call to walkthrough. The prompt count depends on scope, usually 40 to 100 prompts depending on the number of platforms, competitors and markets. Most of that time goes into running prompts repeatedly, tracing cited sources and checking accuracy by hand — the parts automated tools skip.
Monthly is a sensible default for tracking, using the same prompt set so results are comparable. A full audit is worth repeating every six to twelve months, or after a major model update, rebrand or product launch changes what AI systems should be saying about you.
AI brand visibility tracking is repeated, scheduled measurement of how often and how favourably AI systems mention your brand for a defined set of prompts. It shows trend over time. It works best when the prompt set comes from an audit, so you are tracking the questions that actually drive buying decisions.
The audit shows exactly where it happens: which prompts use your URL as a source while the answer credits the information generically or names a competitor. It usually means the model takes your facts but doesn't connect them to your brand. The fixes are putting your brand name next to your original data and definitions, naming your company consistently everywhere, and earning mentions on sites that name you.
Analytics only shows part of it, because many people read an AI answer and then visit directly or search your brand name. Add "An AI assistant (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini…)" as an option in your enquiry form's "How did you hear about us?" field, and the same value as a lead source in your CRM. It won't catch everything, but it records influence that would otherwise show up as direct or branded search.
Yes, in the longer run. AI won't show you overnight: like Google, it builds an understanding of context and relevance before recommending a brand, so consistent presence raises your chances over time. AI answers the general questions itself, and users click through when their intent is higher, so the visits may be few but they tend to matter more.
Guides worth reading first
Free tools to check your site
Related services
Have a growth problem worth solving?
Tell me where you're stuck. On a 30-minute intro call I'll tell you where I think the constraint is and what I'd look at first — whether or not we end up working together.