Every business owner spends hours in Google Analytics and Search Console. Hardly anyone has asked the question that now matters more: what do ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini actually say about my business right now?
That's what a free AI visibility scan answers. And because almost no one has run one yet, the results are almost always a surprise.
The surprise goes both ways. Some businesses discover they're already being recommended by AI engines they've never optimised for — a pleasant shock that reveals untapped potential. Others find out their brand is invisible across every major AI platform, even though their Google rankings look solid. Both scenarios require action, but the actions are different — and the only way to know which camp you're in is to run the scan.
Here's what yours will tell you.
1. The real number: your AI visibility score
The scan produces a single score that summarises how often, and how favourably, AI assistants mention your business. It's the metric nobody tracks — yet it's the thing steering customers to you or to your competitor before they ever click a link.
Your AI visibility score is calculated from multiple factors:
- Mention frequency — How often do AI engines name your brand when asked relevant questions?
- Citation quality — When you are mentioned, is your website cited as a source, or are you just vaguely referenced?
- Sentiment accuracy — Does the AI describe your business accurately, or does it get your services, location, or reputation wrong?
- Competitive positioning — When a competitor is recommended instead of you, how often does that happen and across which engines?
The score isn't a vanity metric. It's a diagnostic. A low score means AI engines don't trust your brand enough to recommend it — and that translates directly into missed leads. Our AI visibility score explained article breaks down exactly how the scoring works and what each component means.
Think about it this way: if a potential customer asks ChatGPT "who's the best [your service] in [your city]?" and your brand doesn't appear in the answer, you've lost that lead without ever knowing it happened. The AI visibility score captures that reality in a single number you can track over time.
2. Whether you're cited or just "described"
That cited-versus-described distinction is exactly what our ChatGPT recommendation tracking records for you, engine by engine.
There's a big difference between an AI vaguely mentioning your category and it naming your business, citing your site, or recommending you. A scan tells you which one is happening, engine by engine.
This distinction matters enormously. When an AI cites your website, it's signalling that your content is authoritative enough to serve as evidence. When it merely describes you — "there are several agencies in the area" — it's acknowledging your existence without endorsing you. And when it recommends you by name, it's actively steering a potential customer your way.
The three levels of AI mention, from weakest to strongest:
- Generic reference — "There are many marketing agencies in Vancouver." You exist in the AI's worldview, but it's not committing to you.
- Named description — "Launch at Dawn is a marketing agency in Vancouver." The AI knows your name and basic details, but isn't actively recommending.
- Active recommendation — "For marketing in Vancouver, Launch at Dawn is known for..." The AI is putting its reputation behind your name.
Each level represents a different degree of trust. The scan shows you which level you're currently achieving with each engine — and the gap between where you are and where you could be.
Our guide on what AI visibility is and how to measure it explains the different types of AI mentions and why they matter for your business.
3. Which engines get it right
A brand can be beloved by ChatGPT and invisible to Perplexity. That's normal. The free scan breaks your result down per engine so you can see exactly where you're being surfaced and where you're being ignored.
This engine-by-engine breakdown is critical because each AI platform uses different source data and different trust signals:
- ChatGPT tends to favour content with strong authorship signals, well-structured articles, and established domain authority. If you're strong in content marketing, ChatGPT may already be citing you.
- Gemini pulls heavily from Google's own ecosystem — your Google Business Profile, your Google reviews, your Knowledge Panel. If your Google presence is solid but you're weak elsewhere, Gemini might be your strongest engine.
- Perplexity indexes the web aggressively and favours recent, well-cited content. Freshness and backlink quality matter more here.
- Claude emphasises depth and accuracy. Long-form, detailed content that answers questions thoroughly tends to perform well.
Understanding which engines favour you — and which don't — lets you prioritise your efforts. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, you can focus on the engines with the biggest gaps.
Our how-to-run-an-ai-visibility-audit guide shows you how to set up systematic engine-by-engine tracking.
4. The gap between your site and your score
You get a website score (how technically ready your site is) and an AI score (whether AI actually surfaces you). When the website score is high but the AI score is low, you have a classic attribution problem — and a fixable one.
This gap is one of the most common and confusing patterns we see. A business has a beautifully designed website, fast load times, proper meta tags, decent Google rankings — and yet AI engines barely mention them. The site looks great to humans and to Google's crawler, but it's missing the specific signals AI engines use to determine trustworthiness and relevance.
Common reasons for the site-score gap:
- Inconsistent business information — Your website says one thing, your directories say another, and your Google Business Profile says a third. AI engines can't reconcile the contradictions.
- Missing structured data — Your site doesn't declare its entity information in machine-readable format, so AI engines have to guess.
- Thin content on key pages — Your service pages are beautifully designed but contain only a sentence or two of actual content. AI engines need substance to cite.
- No authorship signals — Your content has no named authors, no credentials, no first-person experience markers. It reads as generic rather than authoritative.
The good news: every one of those problems has a specific, implementable fix. And because they're concrete issues, you can verify that your fixes worked by re-running the scan. Our AI visibility checker full guide walks through the diagnostic process step by step.
5. The checklist of what's holding you back
The best part of a scan isn't the number, it's the pass / warn / fail checklist. Missing structured data, thin content, inconsistent business details across the web — each comes back labelled, so you know what to fix first.
The checklist is organised by priority, so you're not staring at a wall of 30 items wondering where to start. Here's how to read it:
Fail items are the critical blockers. These are the reasons AI engines aren't recommending you. Fix these first — they typically account for 60-70% of the improvement you'll see in your next scan. Common fail items include missing LocalBusiness schema, inconsistent NAP data across directories, and pages that are too thin to be cited.
Warn items are opportunities for improvement. Your site is technically okay, but it could be better. Adding FAQ schema, expanding a service page, or getting a few more reviews could push you from "acceptable" to "recommended." These are the items that separate businesses AI tolerates from businesses AI champions.
Pass items are working well. Don't touch them. Your job is to maintain what's passing while fixing what's failing. Too many businesses tear down things that are working in pursuit of perfection and end up worse off.
The checklist approach removes guesswork. Instead of vaguely wondering "what should I do about AI?", you have a prioritised task list with clear win conditions.
Our why-is-my-ai-visibility-score-low article maps the seven most common fail items to their exact fixes.
What the scan doesn't tell you (and what to do about it)
No single scan gives you the complete picture. Here's what it won't reveal:
- Why a specific engine ignores you — it tells you that it happens, but the root cause analysis requires digging into your specific citation sources and comparing them to competitors.
- Historical trends — A single scan is a snapshot. You need to run it repeatedly to see whether your score is improving, declining, or flatlining. Our how often to check AI visibility article covers the right cadence for tracking changes.
- Competitor intelligence — Your scan shows your own score. To understand what competitors are doing differently, you need to scan them too and compare citation sources, content structure, and schema implementation.
The scan is the starting point, not the finish line. It gives you the diagnosis. The treatment plan comes from understanding what each check means and taking targeted action.
For a deeper dive, see our guide on quick wins to raise your AI visibility score.
Run your own free scan
Ready to see the answer? Enter your email to run your free AI scan and we'll send you a magic link — no password, no credit card. Open it and your full report lives in your dashboard: score, engine-by-engine breakdown, and the exact checklist of what's holding you back.
Your scan re-runs automatically during your free 7-day trial, so you can watch every check flip from red to green as you fix what it found. Past the trial, AI Visibility Alerts keeps that same cadence running and pings you when something moves.