"Who does the best coffee catering in Portland?" A growing share of customers now ask that question to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google's AI Mode instead of scrolling through search results. The assistant answers with two or three names. If yours isn't one of them, that customer never sees you.
So it's worth knowing whether the assistants recommend you. Finding out is harder than it sounds.
Why asking once doesn't tell you
The obvious test is to open ChatGPT and ask. The trouble is that AI answers vary. Ask the same question twice and you can get different businesses. Ask Gemini and you get a third list. Phrase it the way a customer would ("Who caters office coffee near me?") and the list changes again.
A useful answer needs the same set of questions, asked of several assistants, more than once, on a schedule, with the results counted. Doing that by hand every week isn't realistic.
AI visibility, now built into BrightSite
Every BrightSite plan now includes AI visibility, under SEO → AI visibility. It asks your customers' questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, and Claude, and records who they name. ChatGPT, Gemini, and AI Mode answer each question three times per check, because their answers vary.
Setting up a campaign:
- Describe your business: local or anywhere in the US, your name, what you do, your city and state, and your website. Add up to five other names people use for you so those mentions count too.
- Choose the questions. Start from suggested questions and add your own, worded the way customers ask.
- Pick the assistants (Claude can be switched off) and a schedule: weekly, every other week, or monthly.
The first check runs right after setup, and Run now runs another, up to three times a day.
What you see
Four numbers sum up each check: mention rate (how often you're named), share of voice (your mentions against everyone named), average position in the answers, and your site cited (how often an answer links to your website). Each has a trend over time, filterable by assistant.
The Questions grid shows every question against every assistant. Click a cell to read the full answer with your name highlighted. Competitors shows who the assistants name and how often. Sources lists the websites the answers cited, split between answers that named you and answers that didn't.
How to show up in ChatGPT more often
The Improve tab turns the results into a to-do list:
- Questions where others were named and you never were. These usually point to a service or area your site doesn't clearly cover. A page that answers that question directly is the fix.
- Sites cited only in answers that left you out, each with a suggested next step. These are the directories, review sites, and articles the assistants trust for your category. Getting listed or mentioned on them is often the fastest way into the answers.
- Checks on your own site, like whether AI crawlers can read it and whether your business details are in structured data.
The basics behind all of this are covered in how to rank on ChatGPT and how to get cited by AI search. BrightSite sites already handle some of it for you: structured data, an llms.txt file, and instant indexing so Bing, which ChatGPT searches, sees changes within minutes.
Ask an agent instead
Lumi, Claude, and ChatGPT can set up campaigns, suggest and change questions, run checks, and summarize where you're missing and why.
What it doesn't do
It reports what the assistants said to these questions at check time. It can't make an assistant name you, and answers will keep shifting from check to check. That's why it measures rates over many answers instead of a single yes or no. Answer text is kept for 13 months, and check summaries longer.
Limits by plan
| Launch | Grow | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaigns | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Questions per campaign | 5 | 10 | 10 |
The AI visibility campaign add-on gives you one more campaign and up to 25 questions per campaign for $29 a month or $290 a year. Free trials use Launch limits. See SEO tracking limits and add-ons.
Setup steps and every setting are in the AI visibility docs.
AI visibility is included on every BrightSite plan, from $29 a month. Already on BrightSite? Open SEO → AI visibility and set up your first campaign. Everyone else can see how it works or start a free trial.