AI visibility audit
What does ChatGPT say when customers ask about your business?
More and more people ask an AI assistant instead of opening Google. If your business isn't in the answer, you are simply not part of the conversation – and you lose traffic and sales without seeing why.
Done personally by Vyara Stefcheva · includes a kick-off call and a results callAI assistant · example
Who offers the best office furniture for a 40-person team in Munich?
- Example GmbH – wide range and delivery within two days.
- Second Name AG – better prices for larger orders.
- Third Company – focused on ergonomic solutions.
✕ Your business isn't mentioned
Inside the audit
This is what you get. Click through it.
An example report for a fictional furniture company. Yours has the same structure, built on your own customers' questions, markets and competitors.
Nordlicht Interiors
Office furniture · Munich, Germany · German & English · 62 questions · 5 AI platforms
Mention rate by platform
| Platform | Mentioned | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 8% | Rarely |
| Google AI Overviews | 21% | Sometimes |
| Gemini | 26% | Sometimes |
| Perplexity | 39% | Often |
| Copilot | 13% | Rarely |
Key finding
In questions where customers ask for a recommendation, Nordlicht appears in only 2 of 24 answers. Three competitors appear in more than half – mainly because two industry directories and one news article list them, and not Nordlicht.
Share of voice · who AI names across all 62 questions
- Competitor A48%
- Competitor B37%
- Competitor C29%
- Nordlicht (you)23%
- Competitor D15%
Competitor A wins comparison questions (“which is better…”). You win only when customers already know your name.
Claims AI makes about you that are wrong
Websites AI cites most in your category · are you there?
- Industry directory (national)cited 31×✕ Not listed
- Regional business news sitecited 18×✕ Not mentioned
- Review platformcited 16×✓ 4.6 ★, 38 reviews
- Your websitecited 9×✓ Product pages
- Comparison blog (“best office furniture 2026”)cited 7×✕ Not included
- Reddit / forumscited 6×✕ No discussions
Prioritised action plan
- 1Fix the five wrong facts at their sourceUpdate the old FAQ, the directory listing and make the certificate readable on the site.
- 2Get listed in the two most-cited directoriesBoth appear in more than a third of all answers in the category.
- 3Rewrite 6 key pages as direct answersDelivery, pricing, ergonomics, large orders, warranty, showroom.
- 4Earn one comparison and one news mentionThe sources that decide “which is better” questions.
- 5Re-test the same 62 questions in 90 daysSame platforms, same markets – to measure the change.
Not sure yet? Keep scrolling – the free self-check below shows you in two minutes whether you have a problem.
Done by a person, not a template
Your audit is built around your business.
“Every audit starts with a conversation, not with a tool. I want to understand how you sell, who your customers are and what you need AI to say about you. My tool runs the questions. Choosing them, reading every answer and deciding what you should do – that's my job.”
Vyara Stefcheva · I do every audit personally
| A typical AI visibility tool | Your audit with me |
|---|---|
| Generic prompts generated from your homepage | Questions we define together, from your sales, customers and objections |
| Doesn't know your goals | A kick-off call where we set what success means for you |
| English-first, thin data for smaller markets | Your languages, your markets, your real competitors |
| A score and a dashboard | An action plan that fits your priorities, team and budget |
| The same report for everyone | Written for your business, read and checked by me |
| No one to ask | A results call with me to go through every finding |
Brands I've worked with
Sound familiar?
Four things happening right now.
A competitor shows up, not you
The same question returns three names. Yours is not one of them.
AI gets your facts wrong
Old prices, a service you no longer offer, the wrong address. Customers assume it's true.
Traffic falls with no explanation
People get their answer without visiting your site. You see the drop but not the cause.
There is no data by default
Google gives you reports. For what AI says about you, there is nothing unless you build it.
Free self-check · 2 minutes
Check it yourself, before we ever talk.
Fill in three fields and get five questions phrased the way your customers would ask them. Open each one in ChatGPT or Perplexity and see who gets recommended.
Use a private window or a logged-out browser, so the answers aren't personalised to you. Note who appears in each answer. If it's not you, that's what the audit fixes.
The cost of being invisible
What is it worth to be in the answer?
Move the sliders to match your business. It's a rough estimate, not a promise – but it shows why a few percentage points of AI visibility matter.
If AI named you as often as the leader
€0
in additional revenue per year
Estimate: people × 12 months × conversion × visibility gap × customer value.
The short answer
How does a business get recommended by ChatGPT? Three things need to be true: your website states clearly and specifically what you do, for whom and where; that information is written as a direct answer to a question, not as advertising copy; and your name appears in other places too – reviews, directories, media and professional profiles.
A place in AI answers can't be bought. There is no ad slot and no subscription for a better position in the organic answer. AI models cite the sources they find clearest and most often confirmed elsewhere.
How it works
How to appear in AI answers: eight steps.
This is the core of the work. You can do it yourself – it's described in enough detail to start today.
01
Set a baseline
Write down 20 to 30 questions your customers really ask and run them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Note where you are mentioned, who appears instead of you and what is said. Without this snapshot you can't tell whether anything improves.
02
Say clearly who you are
One page should answer without detours: what you do, for whom, where and since when. Marketing promises don't get cited. Specifics do.
03
Write answers, not copy
Every page should open with a direct answer to the question in its title, in the first two or three sentences. Models extract short, self-contained passages. If your answer sits in the middle of the text, it won't be found.
04
Give numbers and conditions
Delivery times, price ranges, warranty, coverage, opening hours. Specific claims are cited far more often than general ones. “Fast delivery” means nothing. “Within 48 hours” does.
05
Add structured data
Schema markup such as Organization, Product, Service, FAQPage and LocalBusiness. It doesn't guarantee a citation, but it makes your information machine-readable and lowers the risk of being described wrongly.
06
Build your presence beyond the website
AI assembles its picture from many sources: Google reviews, industry directories, media, forums and the LinkedIn profiles of your team. If your website is the only place you exist, you are one source – and one source is rarely enough.
07
Let the AI crawlers in
Check that robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot or Google-Extended. Many sites block them without anyone noticing. A blocked crawler can't cite you.
08
Measure regularly
Google Search Console now has a separate report for generative AI. Alongside it, keep a simple table: the same questions, once a month, the same columns. The trend matters more than any single check.
The term
What is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?
GEO (generative engine optimization) is optimization for generative search: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and the AI answers in Google. The goal isn't a position in a list of links, but a mention in the answer itself.
Classic SEO
- You compete for a position in a list of links
- Success is measured in rankings, clicks and traffic
- Keywords are the entry point
- Results are visible in Search Console
- There are ten places on page one
GEO
- You are either in the answer or not part of it at all
- Success is measured in mentions, position and accuracy
- Customer questions are the entry point
- Reporting barely exists – you have to build it
- Usually three to five businesses are named
The two don't exclude each other. Good SEO helps AI visibility but doesn't guarantee it – and that gap surprises most companies that have invested in SEO for years and still don't appear in AI answers.
From client work
An online store, three months of data.
A client with access to Google's new generative AI report in Search Console. The data revealed a channel that had never been measured before – and that was growing fast.
- 122,000
- impressions in AI answers over three months
- 3×
- growth in daily AI impressions within the period
- 15,145
- impressions for the most-cited page alone
Daily impressions in AI answers, start vs end of the period
Source: the client's generative AI report in Google Search Console. Brand name withheld.
AI visibility audit
If you'd rather leave it to an expert.
I check how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI answers describe your business, using the real questions your customers ask – in the languages and markets you work in. For this I use my own tool, which runs each question repeatedly and records every mention and citation.
The scope depends on your industry, number of categories and markets, so every quote is prepared for the specific case. Send me your company name and website, and I'll tell you honestly whether it's worth doing before we talk about money.
- A kick-off call with me to understand your business, customers and goals
- 60+ questions we define together, around your categories and customer types
- A report on where you appear, in what position and who appears instead of you
- A check of whether the claims AI makes about you are accurate
- The specific gaps on your website that keep you from being cited
- An action plan ordered by impact and effort
- A one-hour results call to go through every finding together
How we work together
From first message to action plan.
Step 1
You send your website
Company name, website and the markets you sell in.
Step 2
First observations, free
A quick check and an honest answer on whether an audit is worth it for you.
Step 3
Kick-off call
We talk about your business, customers, goals and competitors, and agree on the questions to test.
Step 4
Custom audit
60+ of your questions, across platforms and languages, run with my tool and reviewed by me.
Step 5
Report and results call
A report written for you, an action plan by impact and effort, and an hour to go through it together.
What clients say
"Vyara got into the context of our company, asked exactly the right questions and in two hours brought order to the chaos in our marketing. Not general talk – a concrete solution."
"She helped us build an effective SEO and localization strategy for nPloy and gave us much more than a consultation – she gave us perspective."
"With Vyara's help we multiplied our sales on the platform. Our organic traffic also jumped sharply."
Some reviews are translated from Bulgarian.
Honestly
Who it makes sense for, and who not.
It makes sense if
- Your website has been live for at least a year and has content
- Your customers compare options before they buy
- You sell something with a clear category: a product, a service, a location
- Someone can carry out the work after the audit
It doesn't, if
- Your website is new and there is nothing to cite yet
- You expect a guaranteed first place – nobody can promise that
- You need sales from this channel this month
- Nobody will own the implementation afterwards
Frequently asked questions
How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my business?
You can't pay for a place in the answer. The work goes in three directions: your website says clearly and specifically what you offer, to whom and where; your content is written as direct answers to questions, not as advertising; and your name appears beyond your website – in reviews, directories, media and professional profiles. The eight steps above describe this in detail.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT's answers?
Not in the organic answer. ChatGPT now shows ads in some markets, but they are labelled separately and don't change which businesses the model recommends in its own text.
How do I know if I have a problem?
Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the questions your customers ask, from a private window or a neutral account. If competitors appear and you don't, or the information about you is wrong, you have a problem worth solving.
Is AI the reason my organic traffic is falling?
Often, at least in part. When AI Overviews or a chatbot answer the question directly, fewer people click through. Search Console's generative AI report and an AI channel in Google Analytics help you see how much.
Should I let AI crawlers into robots.txt?
In most cases, yes. If GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot or Google-Extended are blocked, those systems can't read your pages and are much less likely to cite them. There are exceptions, for example paid content you don't want reused.
How long does it take to see results?
Usually weeks to a few months. Changes on your own website can be picked up quickly; mentions on other websites and in the media take longer to build and to be reflected in AI answers.
Does it make sense for a small business?
Yes, if customers compare options before buying and your category is clear. Small markets and smaller languages have fewer competing sources, so a well-prepared small business can be recommended faster than in a large market.
Which languages and markets do you cover?
I run the questions in the languages your customers use and in the markets you sell in, including smaller European markets where most AI visibility tools have little data.
What if AI says wrong things about my business?
Find where the wrong information comes from – an old page, a directory listing or an outdated article – and correct it at the source. Then publish the correct facts clearly on your own website so AI models have a better source to rely on.
Who wrote this page
Vyara Stefcheva
Independent marketing strategist and expert in applied AI for marketing and business, specialising in AI search and GEO. She has helped scale more than 300 brands across three continents, co-founded the marketing agency Zahara Consult (acquired in 2025) and has taught more than 20,000 people.
Everything on this page comes from real projects, including the data in the case above. More about Vyara →
Last updated: October 2026
Request your audit
Let's see what AI says about you.
Tell me your website and where you sell. I'll look at it personally and get back to you with first observations – free, with no obligation. If an audit makes sense for you, we'll set up the kick-off call.