Industries
AI visibility for professional services firms: get named
The questions clients ask AI assistants about law, accounting and consulting firms, what the answers say about you, and how to be the firm they name.
AI share of voice: what it measures and how to raise it
What share of voice counts in AI answers, how it differs from Mention rate, why it moves, and how to raise it.
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Anyone who has tracked share of voice in search or social knows the idea: how much of the attention in a space goes to you. It carries over to AI answers. When a buyer asks an assistant a question, the answer usually names a few brands, and your share of voice tells you how much of that naming goes to you.
What share of voice measures in AI answers
How we measure defines it in one line: of every brand mention in those answers, the share that was you. By "those answers" we mean the answers to the questions you track, on every engine you track.
In social listening, share of voice is your mentions out of all the mentions in a set of conversations. AI answers work the same way, since you are counting names, with one difference: you pick the questions, so the figure covers the topics you want to win.
Keep questions that name your brand in a separate count. An answer to "Is [your brand] any good?" names you almost by definition. Base your headline share of voice on the questions that leave your name out, because a mention there is one you earned.
How it differs from Mention rate
Mention rate is the share of answers that named you, so it counts answers, while share of voice counts names. Take an answer that names you and four rivals. It counts once toward your Mention rate, and for share of voice it adds one mention of you and five to the total.
So the two can drift apart. If the answers that name you carry long lists, you can appear in many of them and still hold a modest share. A brand named in fewer answers, alone or beside one rival, can hold a large one.
The picture below shows every brand named in one week of answers for an invented brand, and the share each one holds. The invented brand holds the second-largest share, with one rival ahead of it and the rest split among several others.
- Novaly28.6%
- TesseraYou21.4%
- Pinefield17.9%
- Kestrel Pay12.5%
- Orbita8.9%
- Other brands10.7%
A share like this means you are on the list but sharing it. The work then is to turn up in more of the answers where rivals appear.
Why share of voice moves
Share of voice is a fraction, and either part of it can change from week to week.
- You are named more often. Your count grows and your share rises.
- Rivals are named more often. When a rival wins mentions on the questions you track, the total grows while your count holds, and your share falls.
- Answers name more brands. If an engine starts answering with longer lists, the extra names join the total, and your share falls even though you are named just as often.
This works in reverse too. A rival dropping out of answers lifts your share without a single new mention of you.
How to raise it
Share of voice rises when you start being named in answers that name your rivals today. Most of that comes from two kinds of work.
- Pages to write. Find the questions where rivals are named and you are not. Read what the answers say and which pages they link to, then write the page that answers that question for your product, plainly and with facts. It also helps to see what the engine looked for before it wrote: for every answer, BotSay shows the searches the engine ran to write it, as set out on the product page.
- Places to be mentioned. Look at the sources the answers cite. The review sites, communities and publishers that come up again and again are where the engines look when they decide who belongs in your category, and a listing there that describes you well puts your name in front of the engine when it writes.
Rank each piece of work by how many of your questions it could win and start at the top. Note the day each piece goes live so you can match it to the readings that follow.
How sure a change is
BotSay shows share of voice as this week's figure and how far it moved from last week. Counted from a few answers, a share can swing on a single reply, and it settles once the count reaches a few hundred.
So to judge a move in share of voice, read it beside Mention rate. Mention rate tells you whether you are named in more answers, and BotSay shows it with its likely range, the span the true figure almost certainly sits in, and the number of answers behind it. Here is an invented brand's Mention rate on two readings.
Mention rate, two readings
The figures as a table
| Week | Mention rate | Likely range (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Last week | 27.8% | 25.1 to 30.7 |
| This week | 34.0% | 31.1 to 37.0 |
Example, using an invented brand
The two ranges sit clear of each other, so the rise is real. BotSay calls a change in Mention rate real only once it clears both weeks' uncertainty, and it runs the exact test, which also finds real changes whose ranges overlap a little. More answers give a narrower range, and our guide How many questions do you need to track AI visibility? shows how the number of questions you track sets it.
If Mention rate shows a real rise and share of voice rose with it, you won mentions. If share of voice rose and Mention rate held still, look at who left the answers before you report it. Either way, keep the questions, their wording and the engines the same from week to week, so each reading compares with the last. The full method is on How we measure.
Counting it every week
Done by hand, the counting adds up fast. Ten questions on six engines is 60 answers a week, each with its own list of brands to tally. BotSay asks your questions on all six engines every week, through each provider's official developer access or a licensed search-data provider, and works out the five measures from the same answers. Your reading arrives in the weekly email.
What you gain with BotSay
- Share of voice counted for you across six engines, on the same questions every week.
- A Mention rate you can report with confidence, with its likely range and a label when a change is real.
- The searches each engine ran before it answered, so you know what the engines went looking for.
- Pages to write and places to be mentioned, ranked by how many questions each could win.
- One fixed monthly price with everything included and no add-ons. Plans differ only in the number of questions, from $59 a month for 60 questions.
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What AI says about your brand: how to check it
Run a hand check of AI answers this week, then track five numbers to see whether you are moving, and use the answers to decide what to write and fix.
Six engines on every plan
See where your own brand stands.
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