Understanding AI visibility: a new strategic challenge
The rapid rise of AI search engines is changing the codes of digital marketing. Where the Traditional SEO sought to position a site at the top of Google results, AI visibility focuses on the ability of a brand to be cited, recommended or integrated into the responses generated by artificial intelligences such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Perplexity, Gemini or SGE.
In this context, the question is no longer “am I well referenced?” ”, but rather “am I mentioned when AI responds to my customers? ”. This AI visibility has become crucial: it shapes brand perception, influences trust and can transform a company into an essential reference... or make it invisible.
Why is AI visibility so important?
In a world where artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important, being visible in the results generated by these technologies can offer your brand significant benefits. Whether on ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or other AI engines, how your brand is perceived by these systems has a direct impact upon its credibility, his reputation and its competitive advantage.
Instant credibility
Imagine that a user asks ChatGPT a simple question:
“What is the best hybrid car for the city?”
The responses generated by the AI could well mention a specific brand, like Toyota or Hyundai, with recommendations such as:
“The Toyota Yaris Hybrid is often cited for its value for money and reliability in urban environments.”
In this context, the mention of these brands does not come from a blog post or advertising notice, but from a trusted AI. This gives the brand a instant credibility. The user, seeing that AI is promoting this brand, tends to perceive the brand as reliable and legitimate. In the consumer's mind, to be recommended by an AI is a big guarantee of quality, because the algorithm offers an objective recommendation.
Accelerated notoriety
Unlike traditional search engines, AIs don't just offer a list of links. Elles synthesize information and summarize The best options for the user. When your brand is cited by an AI in a favorable context, you benefit from instant notoriety.
Let's take another example: an Internet user asks the AI about the best SEO tools. If the AI responds by citing MentionLab as one of the most effective platforms for tracking mentions online, this quote is a key moment. Even without directly interacting with your brand, AI allows your name to remain etched in the user's mind. Just being mentioned becomes a memorization strategy.
Users don't just read an answer, They memorize quickly the brands mentioned in the AI results, which considerably increases your visibility.
Competitive advantage
In a market where competition is strong and product differences are often subtle, the ability to be mentioned by artificial intelligence is becoming a major differentiator. When a brand regularly appears in the responses generated by AI, it benefits from an exclusive exhibition and strengthened credibility without having to compete directly on expensive advertising campaigns or traditional content strategies. This privileged position not only influences immediate awareness, but also shapes brand preference over the long term. As AI becomes an essential intermediary in information and decision processes, those who control their visibility in these responses consolidate a competitive advantage that is difficult to make up for by those who remain absent.
“What are the fast delivery pizza options?”
Pizza Hut often appears among the recommendations, So winning Precious visibility without having to invest in an expensive advertising campaign. By being regularly mentioned, the brand strengthens her credibility as a reliable option and increases consumer confidence. Over time, this consistent presence not only builds brand recognition but also creates long-term preference, making it more likely that consumers will choose Pizza Hut when it's time to order. Those who fail to secure similar visibility risk being overshadowed by competitors who have mastered this new form of exposure.
The risks of poor AI visibility management
Disappear from the radars of new users
The younger generations who massively use AIs to inform themselves. For example, a 20-year-old student looking for vodka to buy for a night out will likely ask ChatGPT or Perplexity. If your brand doesn't appear in the answer, it's simply invisible to him, regardless of its quality or its reputation in other circuits. On the other hand, a brand like Absolut, well positioned in AI responses to queries such as “What are the vodka brands the most popular right now?” or “Which vodka should you choose for high-end customers?” , automatically captures the attention of this audience and is an obvious choice.
In the world of generative AI, the absence of a brand does not go unnoticed. When an AI engine does not find clear, structured and credible content from you, it will draw its answers elsewhere, sometimes from your competitors, sometimes from sites with approximate information. These are other players who shape the perception around your sector, or even your brand. This may result a loss of control over your image and dilute your positioning, especially if the content mentioned is unreliable or conveys a message that is contrary to your values...
Missing business opportunities
If you are not mentioned, you will not be considered or contacted. In a context where there are more and more purchasing decisions, whether B2C or B2B, they are influenced by requests made via AIs such as GPT chat, not appearing in the answers is the same as remaining invisible. You are thus missing out on potential leads, of strategic partnerships, or even tenders, simply because theAI did not think of you. More than a visibility issue, it is an issue of credibility And ofmarket access.
Losing control over your image
Artificial intelligences do not “create” an opinion about your brand, they aggregate it from what exists online. In other words, if your content is absent, obsolete or poorly positioned, the AI will draw on other sources that are sometimes inaccurate, competing or of low quality to generate a response. The perception that a user (or a potential customer) will have your brand won't come from you, but from a third party. Conversely, if you control your presence in these responses, you directly influence the message transmitted, the associated tone, and the Perceived positioning. It is now a new field of brand management.
Let's take an example that can have a devastating impact for a brand: let's say a user asks an AI “Where can I buy a computer keyboard?” If the AI finds content that praisesamazon for its quality and impeccable customer service, then Amazon will be recommended without hesitation. But what if the AI comes across negative reviews or unflattering reviews about a brand like Temu, where some customers expressed dissatisfaction with product quality or delivery times? The AI could then recommend Temu by mentioning attractive prices, but with an undertone that the quality leaves something to be desired. Result? A negative brand perception could be instantly disseminated, even if it is not representative of the overall customer experience.
Traditional SEO vs AI Visibility
The pillars of classic SEO
Traditional SEO is based on three essential pillars:
- The pillar Technical SEO : This pillar ensures that the site is accessible and that Google robots can easily explore it.
- The pillar SEO content : It's about creating relevant content that clearly meets the user's search intent, while providing added value.
- The trust pillar: For Google, it is crucial to demonstrate the expertise of the site through in-depth content and quality backlinks.
But, in the face of new search trends, classic SEO alone is no longer enough. AI visibility is becoming essential for SEO agencies and large businesses that want to remain competitive.
AI visibility: A new approach to SEO
AI platforms like ChatGPT or Gemini no longer just list links with descriptions. They generate more engaging responses, often in the form of conversational summaries, without always displaying the sources. This represents a major change in optimizing visibility. The selection criteria for AIs differ from those of traditional search engines:
Quality and clarity of content: AIs favor clear, precise and well-structured content that is able to answer the user's question directly.
- Credibility of the source: AI assesses the reliability of the source to provide relevant and reliable information.
- Relevance and freshness: The answers must be current and adapted to the specific requests of users.
- Conversational and educational structure: AIs are looking for formats that facilitate immediate understanding, offering a more engaging experience.
While traditional SEO is mainly adapted to Google robots, AI visibility optimizes for conversational intelligences capable of understanding, interpreting and reformulating information in a specific context. User intent, content structure, and response tone are becoming crucial selection criteria.
The impact of AI visibility on your SEO strategy
In a world where AIs like ChatGPT play a central role in disseminating information, brands have the opportunity to gain credibility and In notoriety by being mentioned in a valuable way in their responses. This visibility is not limited to being in a list of links; it is based on the perception of the brand as a reliable and relevant source. En appearing strategically In the AI responses, brands can get a increased exposure and be seen as leaders in their field. The challenge is therefore to control this dynamic by optimizing the brand's presence in favorable contexts and by building a solid image that attracts the attention of AIs. This requires a thoughtful content strategy And a proactive approach to be recognized as a reference in a constantly evolving digital ecosystem.
Why this evolution is crucial for SEO agencies
If SEO agencies continue to focus only on traditional search results, they may miss out on this new source of visibility. In a world where AIs like ChatGPT are becoming more and more popular, it is essential to ensure that your brand is visible on these new platforms. Optimizing for AI is a major competitive advantage for those who succeed inintegrate efficiently in their SEO strategy.
Measuring and monitoring a brand's visibility on AI platforms
If you want to assess the visibility of your brand on AI platforms such as GPT chat, Perplexity, or Gemini, there are no tools like the Google Search Console but one method is possible. Here is the detailed process for those who want to try this method. There are also methods such as Mention Lab, MarketBrew, SEMrush, AccuRanker...
Create multiple accounts to avoid data distortion
To obtain relevant results that are not influenced by personal user data, it is crucial to create different user accounts. This allows multiple profiles to be tested without recommendations or personal preferences interfering with the results obtained. This process is critical to ensure that AI responses are objective and not biased by past research or personal settings.
Interrogate AIs directly with strategic queries
The next step is asking AI-specific questions. This may include requests like:
- “What is the best SEO agency for AI visibility?”
- “Who are the leaders in the SEO AI sector?”
These questions need to be formulated strategically to get as accurate results as possible. This can take some time, as you may need to rephrase your requests several times to see if your brand is mentioned.
Analyze responses and identify mentions of your brand
Once you've interviewed the AIs, the analysis actually starts. You'll need to go through each answer, find out if your brand is on it, and take notes on:
- Frequency of mention: Does your brand appear regularly in the responses?
- Type of mention: Is it presented positively, negatively, or neutrally?
- Background: What context does AI associate with your brand? This can include things like products, services, or industries in which you are seen as a leader.
This analysis requires patience, as you may need to read several pages of results for each query.
Store and organize data in tools like Excel
Once you've collected the answers, organizing the information becomes critical. You will have to record everything in an Excel file or a similar spreadsheet, by categorizing the various mentions:
- The request (ex: “Best AI SEO Agencies”)
- The date of the search
- The results obtained (brand mention, type of mention, etc.)
- The exact link or source
This can quickly become unmanageable if you're interviewing hundreds of AIs, as each search can require numerous iterations.
In-depth link and content analysis
The next step is to analyze the relationships that appear in the AI results. You will need to visit each link mentioned to review:
- The content: What type of content is used to support your brand mention? Is it a blog post, a review, a product page?
- The specific elements: What keywords, data, or references are used to make your brand appear in these results?
This means going through each website carefully to determine exactly why and how these mentions are being made.
Tracking changes over time
The last tedious aspect of this manual method is monitoring developments. To do this, you will need to:
- Save results over time: You will have to test your queries regularly to see if mentions of your brand change, if they become more positive, more frequent, or if they disappear completely.
- Analyze AI updates: AI algorithms can change and that could affect the visibility of your brand in responses. This requires regular follow-up, both for the queries you've tested, but also for new trends that may emerge.
Limitations of manual methods:
All of this seems doable, but there are several drawbacks to this approach:
- High processing time: If you're doing this for multiple requests, it can take hours or even days.
- Variability of responses: AIs respond differently depending on how questions are formulated. This makes it difficult to track results consistently.
- Difficulty keeping up with changes over the long term: Keeping track of the evolution of hundreds of requests manually becomes very complex.
Automation: The Solution
Because of these limitations, it is becoming obvious that automation is the key to successfully exploiting AI visibility. Many specialized solutions allow you to monitor the evolution of your brand's visibility on AI platforms in real time, without having to recreate accounts, store data in Excel files, or analyze each link manually. Specialized tools offer faster analysis, plus specifies and more scalable, making it possible to track hundreds or even thousands of requests effortlessly. This frees you from repetitive work and allows you to focus on more comprehensive and effective strategies.
Specialized tools: towards automated and strategic analysis
To overcome these limits, innovative solutions are emerging:
MentionLab: understanding the AI algorithm, to make your brand appear
MentionLab Massively queries AI engines, automatically detects brand quotes, analyzes tone, position, and recency, and calculates an AI visibility score. It also identifies the competitors mentioned, the missed editorial opportunities and offers concrete recommendations to strengthen the brand's presence.
The interest of MentionLab does not only lie in a pretty interface or readable graphics, it is in the revelations that are drawn from it.
Take Absolut Vodka as an example. Despite a worldwide reputation, The brand is only mentioned in 50% of AI responses over the last 7 days. In other words, when a user asks ChatGPT which vodka to choose, Absolut doesn't even appear in the answer. This is a strong, and potentially worrisome, signal for a brand of this size.
Another key insight: competitive positioning. Absolut is ranked 3rd, behind Grey Goose (63%) and Belvedere (51%). MentionLab doesn't just show these numbers, it contextualizes them. Who is ahead of you, by how much, and above all, on what types of requests you are losing ground.
This data makes it possible to identify missed opportunities, to identify trends (up or down), and to adjust your content or press relations strategy accordingly. These are weak signals that only a tool like MentionLab can reveal and which, in the long run, make a real difference in a well-executed SEO/GEO strategy.
MarketBrew : the algorithmic vision of SEO, applied to AI
MarketBrew is an advanced tool that models the behavior of search engines, including those based on AI. It makes it possible to reproduce the algorithms of an engine (such as Google or a conversational engine), then to simulate how a page will be interpreted, scored and potentially selected.
The main interest lies in its ability to predict: by analyzing the attributes of a page: HTML structure, HTML structure, lexical field, content depth, backlinks, the tool predicts whether, yes or no, it will stand out in an AI response.
MarketBrew also displays a semantic proximity graph between your page and the analyzed query.
Example of use: an agency can compare two similar pieces of content on the same subject (e.g. “best smartwatch”) and determine which one is more likely to be cited by an AI in a synthetic response.
But it is a technical, demanding tool, designed for senior SEO analysts. The interface is not always intuitive, and it takes time to properly interpret the scores.
SEMrush and AccuRanker : SEO tracking giants that adapt (slowly) to AIs
SEMrush and AccuRanker are essential tools in classic SEO. They make it possible to monitor the positioning of keywords, the evolution of traffic, the strategy of competitors, etc.
Recently, some experimental modules or extensions offer AI-related functionalities, such as:
- Locate content snippets included in AI results (Perplexity or plugins GPT chat)
- Detect if a brand or domain is mentioned,
- Follow changes in visibility according to requests.
But be careful! these functionalities are not yet centralized or designed for purely GEO use (Generative Engine Optimization). You often have to use third-party tools, plugins or homemade scraping to fully exploit them.
Example of use: an SEO manager can identify if his content on “ethical banking” is included in some AI responses, but will have to cross-check the information manually.
Clearscope and SurferSEO
Boosting semantic relevance to appeal to AIs
These two tools are not directly aimed at analyzing AI, but they have a very clear impact on the content that is most likely to be picked up by conversational engines.
Their strength: semantic analysis in real time. Starting froma target request, they list the secondary keywords, lThe angles addressed by the competitors, and offer an optimized text structure.
This makes it possible to produce extremely clear pages, well contextualized, which respond directly to research intentions, which is what AIs like ChatGPT or Gemini value.
Which mattress should I choose for back pain?
A brand that writes an article thanks to SurferSEO can structure its content to respond in a complete and legible manner increasing its chances of being mentioned in an AI response. They do not offer direct visibility monitoring on AI, but constitute a strong technical basis for improving the impact of content in language models.
Strategies to improve AI visibility
To become a reference in AI responses, it is no longer enough to repeat keywords. Here are the levers to activate:
Create “response-oriented” content
It's the preferred format for AIs like ChatGPT. A question asked clearly, a Direct response, without detour or debate. This type of content works very well because it provides simple, structured and reliable information. When multiple sources Go in the Same meaning, lAI can use it effortlessly, without rephrasing. For example, if three reliable sites all give the same answer to a specific question, the content automatically becomes a reference. Result: more chances of being included, better indexed, more visible. By making the answer obvious and unquestionable, you transform the content into a ready-to-use response exactly what conversational engines are looking for.
Strengthen brand authority
Les artificial intelligences, such as Google SGE or ChatGPT, attach great importance to Credibility of sources when they generate responses. To be mentioned, your brand should not only offer quality content, but also be seen as a reliable authority in its field.
A telling example is that of Harvard Business Review, which, thanks to its publications written by top-level experts and its presence on renowned sites, is constantly cited in AI responses related to management and strategy. The trust granted to HBR makes it an essential reference in its sector.
Update your content regularly
Each AI engine has its own criteria. Test your content on different platforms and adjust the artificial intelligences, especially those of search engines, which favor recent information. Old or outdated content can be ignored by AIs, which has a direct impact on your visibility. To maximize your chances of being mentioned, it is crucial to revisit and update your pages regularly, to align your information with current trends andadapt your responses to the latest developments in the sector. For example, a technology company could regularly update its product guides to reflect new features or innovations, in order to maintain relevance in the results generated by AIs like Google BERT or GPT.
Leveraging Mention Lab analytics
One of the key assets of Mention Lab lies in the strategic reading of its reports. Beyond simple presence data, these analyses make it possible to identify specific queries on which a brand is absent, not very visible, or misinterpreted by generative AIs.
By understanding wherefore Some requisitions Don't don't lead to your brand (content that is too general, lack of clarity, lack of authority signals, poor structuring...), you can adjust your editorial strategy in a targeted manner. This can involve enriching existing content, creating new pages that are better calibrated for AI algorithms, or even more clearly structuring the expertise elements on your site.
MentionLab also allows you to prioritize high-impact actions, by crossing identified opportunities with data such as the frequency of requests or their relevance to your market. This transforms raw observations into concrete, performance-oriented decisions.
AI visibility, the new frontier of digital marketing
La AI visibility is no longer an option: it is an imperative for any brand that wants to remain relevant and influential in a digital world driven by artificial intelligence. Tools like MentionLab pave the way for proactive, measurable and intelligent management of this new form of conversational referencing. Brands that invest today in optimizing their AI visibility will be the leaders of tomorrow not only found, but recommended, cited and remembered by the artificial intelligences that millions of users consult every day.
