The AI Search Visibility Problem (And a Simple Solution)

By Robyn White

Every marketer I talk to knows the shift is happening. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini have become search engines. People are asking AI assistants to recommend products, compare services, and find solutions instead of scrolling through Google results.

But here's the question that keeps coming up: How do you know if you're showing up or not?

The Measurement Gap

Traditional SEO gave us rankings. We could track our position for "best project management software" or "eco-friendly yoga mats." We had traffic numbers, click-through rates, and conversion data. The metrics weren't perfect, but they existed.

AI search offers nothing.

You can't check your ranking in ChatGPT. There's no dashboard showing how often Perplexity recommends your brand. Most companies are genuinely guessing whether their AI visibility strategy is working.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

When someone asks Google for restaurant recommendations, they get a list of options and click through to decide. When someone asks Claude or ChatGPT, they get a curated answer with maybe three recommendations or just one.

The AI decides what's worth mentioning. You're either in that answer, or you're invisible, and right now, most brands have no idea which side of that line they're on.

Vibecoding a Solution

Over the weekend, I built a free tool to test whether simple tracking could work. No fancy APIs, no complex integrations, just a straightforward way to see what AI platforms are saying about your brand.

I built it fast with Claude, focused on what would actually be useful, and didn't get stuck in perfect-solution paralysis.

What it tracks:

• How often your brand appears in AI responses

• How you compare to competitors

• Which platforms mention you most

• Trends over time

  
  

The tool is manual. You run the same queries across platforms, record the responses, and track patterns. Simple, but it works.

What I Learned Building It

The most fascinating discovery? ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini answer the same question completely differently.

Ask them all for "best CRM software for small businesses," and you'll get four distinct answers with different brands featured, different reasoning, and different confidence levels. Each model has its own evaluation criteria and training data, which means you can't necessarily optimize for "AI search" as a single channel. You need to understand what the LLMs look for: proof of brand quality, proof your product or service successfully solves customers' problems, and proof people like you.

What Comes Next

Every brand needs to answer this question: "Are we visible where people are actually searching?"

Right now, most of us are trying to figure it out. We can see that investing in SEO continues to work, as does understanding where and how our customers are singing our praises. After all, there's a reason Google has started including Instagram posts and reels in its search results.

The tool I built is free, open-source, and ready to use. It's not sophisticated, but it gives you visibility into a channel that's otherwise completely opaque. Start tracking and see where you show up in order to learn what works.

Because AI search isn't coming, it's already here.

Ready to start tracking your AI visibility? The VisAIbility Tool is free and open-source.

🔗 Try the VisAIbility Tool