How It Works

Not just a score. A methodology.

SeenByAI doesn't just count mentions. Here's exactly how it measures your brand's position across five AI systems, and why the methodology matters.

Methodology developed by Stu Miller, co-founder of Smart Insights, built on 16 years of digital channel research.

Two types of AI visibility. Two different problems.

AI Search

Perplexity and Google AI Overviews search the live web in real time when a query is made. Your visibility here depends on current content, citations, and page structure. Can improve in days or weeks.

AI Knowledge

ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini draw on what they learned during training. Your visibility depends on how widely your brand is covered across authoritative sources on the web. Changes take 6–12 months as models retrain.

The Gap

The gap between your two scores tells you which problem you actually have, and which to prioritize first. A brand with low AI Search but high AI Knowledge has a different problem from one where both are low.

Three tiers. The buyer journey, in AI.

Discover

Does AI mention your brand when someone asks a category question? ("best nail wrap brands", "best CRM for small business"). This is top-of-funnel. Measured by mention rate across Tier 1 category queries.

Consider

When AI compares your brand head-to-head with a competitor, who wins? ("Mylee vs Hello Nails", "Pipedrive vs HubSpot"). Measured by win/draw/loss across Tier 2 comparison queries.

Trust

When someone asks AI directly about your brand's reputation, does it endorse you or hedge? ("are Hello Nails any good?"). Measured by sentiment across Tier 3 reputation queries.

Together these three scores give a complete picture of where in the buyer journey AI is helping or failing your brand.

Five AI systems. No blind spots.

Each model has different training data, different citation logic, and different user bases. A brand that appears in Perplexity may not appear in ChatGPT, and vice versa. Tracking all five prevents blind spots.

Perplexity Sonar

AI Search, live web retrieval

Google AI Overviews

AI Search, above organic results

ChatGPT (GPT-4o)

AI Knowledge, largest user base

Claude (Anthropic)

AI Knowledge, growing enterprise

Gemini (Google)

AI Knowledge, Google ecosystem

The Playbook. Not just scores. A plan.

The Playbook is generated from your scores across all three tiers and both AI types. Actions are split by channel:

AI Search actions

Content, citations, page structure. Results in days or weeks.

AI Knowledge actions

Brand authority, third-party coverage, editorial presence. Results in months.

Effort & timing

Each action has an effort rating (Easy, Moderate, Involved) and a timing estimate so you know what to tackle first.

Pro subscribers get step-by-step implementation guides for every action, built on the same structured approach Smart Insights has used for 16 years to teach digital marketing best practice. The same publication that brought structured frameworks to content marketing, social, and marketing automation is now bringing them to AI visibility.

Built on Smart Insights research

Why this methodology is different

Most "AI visibility" tools were built in 2024 by people new to the space. SeenByAI's methodology comes from a publication that has tracked digital channel evolution since 2009, the same approach Smart Insights applied to content marketing, search, social, and marketing automation as each one emerged.

What that means in practice:

Channels evolve in patterns. AI visibility today looks like SEO in 2010, content marketing in 2012, marketing automation in 2014. The patterns repeat. The methodology accounts for that.
Hype is the enemy of measurement. Smart Insights has called every channel shift early, and called out a lot of overhyped ones too. The Playbook is honest about what's proven and what isn't.
Frameworks beat tactics. Discover/Consider/Trust isn't a SeenByAI invention, it's the buyer journey applied to a new channel. The framework is what makes the data actionable.

How a report runs

Sign up

Enter your brand URL and up to 3 competitors (free tier).

We crawl your site

SeenByAI analyses your brand and generates category-specific prompts.

Hundreds of real queries

Real prompts sent to all five AI systems. Real responses scored and classified.

Your report

Scores, competitor comparison, and your Playbook. Under 15 minutes.

Paid plans run monthly automatically. Score history tracks whether your AI visibility is improving over time.

FAQ

Questions about the methodology

AI Search measures visibility in tools that search the live web (Perplexity, Google AI Overviews). AI Knowledge measures whether models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini know and recommend your brand from their training data alone. You can rank well in Google but have a low AI Knowledge score if your brand isn't covered across enough authoritative sources.

Three tiers mapping to the buyer journey in AI. Discover = does AI mention you in category searches. Consider = does AI recommend you over competitors in head-to-head queries. Trust = does AI endorse your brand's reputation when asked directly.

Five: Perplexity Sonar (live web), Google AI Overviews (live web), ChatGPT (training data), Claude by Anthropic (training data), and Gemini by Google (training data).

The Playbook analyses your scores across all three tiers and both AI types, then generates specific actions ranked by effort (Easy/Moderate/Involved) and expected timing. AI Search improvements show results in days or weeks. AI Knowledge improvements take months. Pro subscribers get step-by-step implementation guides.

Monthly is ideal. AI models update their training data and search indexes regularly. Monthly tracking lets you see trends and measure whether your improvements are working. Paid plans automate this.

AI Search improvements (content, citations, page structure) can show results in days to weeks. AI Knowledge improvements (brand authority, third-party coverage) take 6–12 months as models retrain on new data. The Playbook is honest about both timelines.