RankNest

AI Visibility Overview

Check whether AI assistants mention your client when customers ask for recommendations, and compare the result with competitors.

Some customers ask an AI assistant for a recommendation instead of searching Google. AI Visibility tells you whether your client shows up in those answers. You add the questions a customer might ask, and RankNest puts them to the assistants you choose every week. It then records whether the client was named, whether the answer linked to the client's site, and which competitors were named instead.

RankNest can check five engines, and you pick which ones for each prompt: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews.

Where to find it

Open a client, then click AI Visibility in the client sidebar. If you haven't added a client yet, start with Add Your First Client.

The first time you open it, the page explains the feature and opens the prompt form with suggestions already loading. Once the client has prompts, the page shows the latest results above the prompt list.

How it works

  1. Add prompts. A prompt is a question a customer might type into an assistant, such as "Who is the best emergency plumber in Tampa?". You can write your own or pick from suggestions built from the client's own data. See Managing Prompts.
  2. RankNest asks each engine. Every active prompt goes to each engine you chose for it. The first check runs within about 30 minutes of adding the client's first prompts, then weekly after that.
  3. Each answer is scored. RankNest records whether the client was mentioned, whether the answer cited a link to the client's site, and which of your tracked competitors appeared.
  4. Read the results. The page shows mention and citation rates, a grid of every prompt against every engine, share of voice against competitors, and a weekly trend per engine. See Reading Results.

Mentioned vs. cited

These two words mean different things throughout the feature:

  • Mentioned means the answer names the client. RankNest matches the client's name, its domain, and any brand terms you set in Client Integrations. Matching is on whole words, so a short brand name won't match inside a longer word.
  • Cited means the answer links to a page on the client's site. An answer can mention a business without linking to it, and the reverse also happens.

When an answer names several brands, RankNest also records the order. If the client is the second brand named, the answer shows #2.

Weekly checks and Run now

Weekly checks are included with the client's prompts and use no research reports. If you want fresh answers before the next weekly check, Run now checks every active prompt straight away. It uses 1 research report per active prompt and shows you the count before anything runs.

You can switch a client between Weekly and Manual with the toggle in the page header. On Manual, nothing runs until you click Run now.

About the answers

Note: Answers are collected through each engine's API. What a signed-in person sees in the consumer app can differ. Treat the results as a consistent weekly sample, not a copy of what every customer sees.

Google's AI Overviews only appear on some searches. When Google shows no AI Overview for a prompt, the answer says so and the client counts as not mentioned for that engine.

Competitors

AI Visibility compares the client with the competitors you track in Competitors. Add competitors there, or from the Top cited sources list on this page, to see share of voice.

Limits

Each plan includes a set number of active prompts per client. See Pricing for the numbers. Paused prompts don't count toward the limit. For how prompts and research reports are counted, and how to add more, see Limits & Add-ons.

Last updated 2026-09-25