What each number means, and why you can rely on it.

AI visibility is how often, and how favourably, AI assistants name your brand when people ask the questions your buyers ask. This page explains how BotSay measures it. It is never behind a form.

Written by the BotSay team. Last reviewed 26 Sep 2026.

To see each number on its own screen, read What the five measures mean and How BotSay measures your numbers in the docs.

1. The five measures, in one line each
2. How sure we are of a number
3. How we know a change is real
4. Which questions count towards which number
5. How each engine is asked
6. Why every week
7. How sentiment is scored
8. What is outside our reach

The five measures, in one line each

Mention rate. Of the answers we read, the share that named you.

Share of voice. Of every brand mention in those answers, the share that was you.

Average rank. When you are named, how early. Lower is better.

Your pages cited. Of every link the answers gave, the share that pointed at your sites.

Sentiment. How favourably you are described, from 0 to 100, scored by a model.

How sure we are of a number

Mention rate is counted from a known number of answers, and we print that count beside it. From the count we work out the likely range: the span the true figure almost certainly sits in. More answers give a narrower range, which is why we read every question on every engine each week. The other four measures, Share of voice, Average rank, Your pages cited and Sentiment, show a figure and its movement, without a range. These are numbers you can stand behind. Our guide How many questions do you need to track AI visibility? shows what each plan gives you.

How we know a change is real

A change in Mention rate from one week to the next is real once it is larger than the two weeks' combined uncertainty. In this example, last week's 27.8% was likely between 25.1 and 30.7, and this week's 34.0% is likely between 31.1 and 37.0. The two ranges do not overlap, so BotSay calls it what it is: a real change, up 6.2 points.

A steady week is useful too. When nothing moved enough to count, the reading says so and tells you how big a change would have needed to be, so you know where the bar sits for next week.

Which questions count towards which number

Questions that name your brand are reported on their own, because an answer to them names you almost by definition. Your headline figures come from the questions that do not name you, which is where winning a mention means something.

How each engine is asked

We ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode through each provider's official developer access or a licensed search-data provider, with web search switched on where the engine offers it, in English. Each question is asked as the country you choose for it, the United States unless you pick another. Gemini cannot be pointed at a country, so it gives the same answer wherever it is asked from. A question asked in a new country is a new question, so its answers are never mixed with the old country's. Every engine gets the same questions in the same week.

Why every week

A complete weekly reading means every week compares cleanly with the last: same questions, same engines, same method. That is what lets us say with confidence that you moved. A week is compared with the one before only when every engine answered in full, and the reading tells you when one did not, so every comparison you see is like for like.

How sentiment is scored

A language model reads each sentence that names you and scores how favourably it describes you, from 0 to 100. We label the figure as estimated wherever it appears.

What is outside our reach

We measure what the engines answer when asked through each provider's official developer access or a licensed search-data provider. A logged-in person with a long chat history may see something different. We measure the questions you chose, so the question set shapes every figure. You add questions one by one, or accept the ones BotSay recommends from your website address.