Get found when buyers ask AI, not just Google
For twenty years "get found" meant rank in Google. Now millions of buyers open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews and ask like they'd ask a friend, then get a shortlist of 3-5 brands with no click.
AI can run the audit that tells you if you're on that shortlist. It can't invent the answer, so you point it at the real engines and record only what actually shows up.
Fastest path: one prompt, end to end
Paste this into ChatGPT or Claude (turn web search ON) and fill in the brackets:
🤖 AI prompt — paste into ChatGPT / Claude
You are a GEO (generative engine optimization) analyst for a DTC ecommerce brand.
Brand: [brand name + one-line description]
Category: [your product category]
Key competitors: [2-4 competitor names]
Run a live AI-visibility audit and return ONE markdown table.
1. Write 10 buying questions a real customer asks before purchasing in this category (mix "best [category]", "[category] for [use-case]", "X vs Y", "is [brand] any good").
2. For EACH question, actually run it: open ChatGPT search, Perplexity (perplexity.ai), and Google (check the AI Overview). Read the real answers. Do not simulate them.
3. Record, per question: is my brand mentioned (Y/N), which competitors are mentioned, and which sources/domains the answer cited.
4. Do NOT guess or fabricate any result. Every row must reflect an answer you actually saw. If you cannot browse, say so and give me the 10 questions to run myself, with a blank results table.
Columns: Question | Brand mentioned? | Competitors mentioned | Sources cited | Note
Then summarize: in how many of 10 did I appear, and the single biggest gap.
If your chatbot can browse, it runs the whole sweep. If it can't, it will hallucinate a rosy result. Never trust a simulated audit: run the 10 questions yourself and fill the table from what you actually see.
Or do it in 5 steps
- Write 10 buyer questions in a sheet, one per row. Cover the whole funnel: category ("best merino sneaker"), use-case ("running shoe for flat feet"), comparison ("Allbirds vs Vessi"), and brand-check ("is [your brand] legit").
- Run each in ChatGPT (search on), Perplexity, and Google's AI Overview. Three engines, because each picks brands differently (see below).
- Score each answer: brand mentioned Y/N, competitors named, and the domains cited. Reddit, a "best of" listicle, and Wikipedia will show up a lot.
- Read your gap. If you appear in 0-2 of 10, you're invisible and the whole GEO branch is your to-do list. If competitors dominate the cited domains, those domains are your target list (see brand-mentions-authority).
- Re-run monthly. Training data and live retrieval both shift; a one-time audit goes stale fast.
Why AI-first: the engine does the tedious sweep and records citations faster than you can click. Its only failure mode is inventing results, so the rule is browse-and-record, never simulate.
Why this matters now, not "eventually"
- ChatGPT has crossed 900 million weekly users; Gemini's app has grown to 750 million monthly users.
- Roughly 37% of consumers now start a search with an AI tool instead of Google, and 40-55% of shoppers in top categories (electronics, travel, beauty, apparel) use AI search to help decide what to buy.
- AI-referred traffic converts far better than classic organic (reported around 14% vs under 3%), because the AI has already vetted the option before the click.
How the engines pick who to mention
| Engine | How it decides | What moves it |
|---|
| ChatGPT | Leans on training knowledge, favors well-known entities, cites few sources (Wikipedia often) | Be a clear, verifiable entity; broad, consistent mentions |
| Perplexity | Searches live every query, loves Reddit and pages under 30 days old | Fresh content; genuine forum presence |
| Google AI Overviews | Re-ranks Google's index with its own signals | A direct sourced answer near the top + clean schema |
Brand mentions are becoming the new backlink: research finds mention frequency correlates with AI visibility roughly 3x more strongly than backlinks. Getting five respected sites to genuinely discuss your brand now beats one more link.
Re-run monthly.