What is an AI visibility audit?

A measurement of how often, and how accurately, AI answer engines mention or cite your business for the questions your buyers ask — followed by a diagnosis of why. Vendors call it a GEO audit (generative engine optimisation) or an AEO audit (answer engine optimisation); the term GEO comes from a 2023 Princeton-led paper, AEO is the older name from the featured-snippet era. Same thing: being the source the AI names.

Is AI search traffic actually worth chasing?

Small and growing: across 115,000 sites, AI assistants sent 0.43% of traffic in September 2026, ChatGPT alone 0.34% (Ahrefs). But Semrush found the average AI search visitor converts like 4.4 organic visitors, and Adobe measured AI-referred shoppers converting 42% better than other traffic in March 2026, after converting worse a year earlier. The honest answer is category-specific — Similarweb sees ChatGPT citing brands in about 23% of travel prompts and under 4% of professional-services prompts. We tell you which side you are on.

Do we need llms.txt or special “AI schema”?

No. Google states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode and no special files or markup. Ahrefs found 97% of llms.txt files never get a single request. Anyone selling you an “AI schema package” is selling the keywords meta tag of 2026. The work is rendering, access, structure, facts and mentions — unglamorous, measurable.

Why does Google AI matter if we rank well already?

Because the citations are drifting away from the top ten: in Ahrefs’ March 2026 study only about 38% of AI Overview citations ranked in Google’s top ten, and 31% ranked beyond the top 100. Meanwhile position-one clicks fall 58% when an AI Overview appears. Ranking is no longer the same as being cited.

What does the audit measure that a tool does not?

Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar and SE Ranking track mentions well, and we use them. What they do not do is fetch your pages the way GPTBot does, read your CDN rules, validate your structured data against the visible text, or tell you which of fifty issues to fix first. The audit is the diagnosis; a tracker is the thermometer.

Yes, under the same policy as our other audits: free for medium and enterprise-grade businesses. Some audited companies hire us to do the engineering; the rest leave with a plan their own team can execute. Both work for us.

How is this different from the AI readiness assessment?

This audit is the website half: visibility in AI answers and usability by AI agents. The AI readiness assessment adds the business half — use cases, data, governance, EU AI Act exposure — and includes a lighter version of this audit. If you only care about being found and cited, start here; if you are deciding whether to build with AI at all, start there.

SEO & AEO · Free AI visibility audit

Does ChatGPT know you exist?

Free AI visibility audit (GEO/AEO audit): where you stand in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI answers — and what to fix.

Over a billion people ask ChatGPT every week, and Google shows an AI Overview on roughly four in ten US searches. When your category comes up, the answer names someone. We measure whether it is you, trace why it is or is not, and give you a prioritised fix list — with the parts of “AI SEO” that are theatre labelled as such.

Measured, not guessed: a prompt set across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, with your competitors in the same runs
Diagnosed at the root: crawler access, JavaScript rendering, structured data, content shape and off-site mentions — the things the citation studies actually correlate with
By the team that does the engineering: we ship structured data, server rendering and agent tooling, and we publish the sources behind every claim on this page
Honest about the channel: AI assistants are still under 1% of web traffic across 115,000 sites (Ahrefs). We tell you whether this is worth your budget yet.

The audit

What the AI visibility audit covers

Eight checks. The first measures where you are; the next six explain why; the last asks whether AI agents can use your site, not just read it.

Citation and mention baseline

A set of 20–40 buyer-intent prompts in your category, run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. For each: are you mentioned, are you cited with a link, who is named instead, and how are you described. Share of voice against three competitors you choose.

Crawler access and CDN rules

Which AI bots can reach you, by name: OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended. Sites that block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers — OpenAI’s words. Cloudflare has blocked AI crawlers by default for new sites since July 2025; many owners never decided.

JavaScript rendering

The last published crawler test (Vercel and MERJ) found none of the major AI crawlers execute JavaScript. If your prices, FAQs or product details render client-side, ChatGPT and Perplexity see an empty page. We fetch your key URLs the way they do and show you the diff.

Structured data and entity consistency

Google says no special markup is needed for AI features — and that structured data must match the visible text. We validate Organization, Product, Service and FAQ markup, and check that your name, address, descriptions and categories agree across your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and the review sites AI engines cite.

How we do SEO & AEO →

Content shape

The Princeton-led GEO study measured up to 40% higher visibility in generative engines from adding statistics, quotations and cited sources, while keyword stuffing did nothing. We score your key pages on question-shaped sections, direct answers, quotable facts, comparison tables and freshness — ChatGPT cites pages that are, on average, a year younger than Google’s organic results.

Off-site mentions

Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and review platforms are the most-cited domains across every AI engine (Peec, 30 million sources). Ahrefs found branded web mentions correlate with AI Overview mentions twice as strongly as referring domains do. We map where your category conversation happens and whether you are in it.

Measurement setup

GA4 now has a default “AI Assistant” channel; Search Console blends AI Overview and AI Mode clicks into “Web” and added an impressions-only generative-AI report in June 2026. We check both are configured and explain the dark-traffic problem honestly: a large share of AI referrals arrive with no referrer and hide in Direct.

Agent readiness

Can an AI agent acting for your customer use the site — read it server-rendered, understand your forms, find your prices? We check form semantics, bot verification and WebMCP tool registration. Shopify switched WebMCP on for every store in August 2026; the expectation is spreading.

Our WebMCP and agent readiness guide →

Self-check

AI visibility checklist: six questions

Tick what is true today. Each question maps to a check in the audit; the tally is a rough read, the report is the real one.

I have asked ChatGPT and Perplexity to recommend companies in my category and seen the answers.
My robots.txt and CDN settings allow OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot (I decided this on purpose).
My key pages show prices, FAQs and details with JavaScript disabled.
My Organization and Product structured data validates and matches the visible page.
My business name, description and details are identical on Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and the main review sites.
GA4 shows an “AI Assistant” channel and I know what it reported last month.

0 of 6 — Invisible

Probably absent from AI answers, and probably for a fixable technical reason. Start with the crawler and rendering checks.

The audit replaces these guesses with measured prompt runs and crawler logs, then ranks the fixes by effort and likely impact.

How it works

From domain to prioritised fixes

01
Send your domain
The form below, plus the names of three competitors and, if you have them, the questions customers ask before buying. A 15-minute call if you prefer talking.
02
We measure
Prompt runs across the five engines, crawler-eye fetches of your key pages, structured-data validation, an off-site mention map and a check of your analytics setup.
03
You get the report
Share of voice against competitors, the exact pages and sources AI engines cite instead of you, every technical blocker with a fix, and a 90-day plan ranked by effort and impact. Written for the owner.
04
You decide
Fix it with your own team, hire us for the engineering, or decide the channel is not worth it yet — the report will say so if the numbers say so.

What you walk away with

A report you own, whichever way you go.

AI visibility scorecard: mention and citation rate per engine, share of voice against three competitors, sentiment and accuracy of how you are described
Citation gap map: the domains and pages AI engines cite for your category instead of you
Technical blocker list: crawler access, JavaScript rendering, structured data and entity-consistency issues, each with a concrete fix
Content shape review of your five most important pages against what the citation studies reward
Measurement setup check: GA4 AI Assistant channel, Search Console generative-AI report, and what the numbers can and cannot tell you
A prioritised 90-day plan, and a fixed quote if you want us to do the engineering — no obligation

Find out who the AI recommends instead of you.

A free AI visibility audit costs you a form submission. Being the company the answer never names costs you quietly, every day.

Jump to the form

Full AI readiness assessment·SEO & AEO service·WebMCP & agent readiness guide

Fair questions

What is an AI visibility audit?: A measurement of how often, and how accurately, AI answer engines mention or cite your business for the questions your buyers ask — followed by a diagnosis of why. Vendors call it a GEO audit (generative engine optimisation) or an AEO audit (answer engine optimisation); the term GEO comes from a 2023 Princeton-led paper, AEO is the older name from the featured-snippet era. Same thing: being the source the AI names.
Is AI search traffic actually worth chasing?: Small and growing: across 115,000 sites, AI assistants sent 0.43% of traffic in September 2026, ChatGPT alone 0.34% (Ahrefs). But Semrush found the average AI search visitor converts like 4.4 organic visitors, and Adobe measured AI-referred shoppers converting 42% better than other traffic in March 2026, after converting worse a year earlier. The honest answer is category-specific — Similarweb sees ChatGPT citing brands in about 23% of travel prompts and under 4% of professional-services prompts. We tell you which side you are on.
Do we need llms.txt or special “AI schema”?: No. Google states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode and no special files or markup. Ahrefs found 97% of llms.txt files never get a single request. Anyone selling you an “AI schema package” is selling the keywords meta tag of 2026. The work is rendering, access, structure, facts and mentions — unglamorous, measurable.
Why does Google AI matter if we rank well already?: Because the citations are drifting away from the top ten: in Ahrefs’ March 2026 study only about 38% of AI Overview citations ranked in Google’s top ten, and 31% ranked beyond the top 100. Meanwhile position-one clicks fall 58% when an AI Overview appears. Ranking is no longer the same as being cited.
What does the audit measure that a tool does not?: Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar and SE Ranking track mentions well, and we use them. What they do not do is fetch your pages the way GPTBot does, read your CDN rules, validate your structured data against the visible text, or tell you which of fifty issues to fix first. The audit is the diagnosis; a tracker is the thermometer.
Is it really free?: Yes, under the same policy as our other audits: free for medium and enterprise-grade businesses. Some audited companies hire us to do the engineering; the rest leave with a plan their own team can execute. Both work for us.
How is this different from the AI readiness assessment?: This audit is the website half: visibility in AI answers and usability by AI agents. The AI readiness assessment adds the business half — use cases, data, governance, EU AI Act exposure — and includes a lighter version of this audit. If you only care about being found and cited, start here; if you are deciding whether to build with AI at all, start there.

Sources: Google I/O 2026 keynote: AI Overviews 2.5B monthly users · OpenAI DevDay 2026 (Engadget live blog): 1.2B weekly ChatGPT users · Pew Research: clicks with and without AI summaries (Jul 2025) · Ahrefs: AI Overviews and position-1 CTR (Feb 2026) · Ahrefs: AI Overview citations vs top-10 rankings (Mar 2026) · Ahrefs: brand mentions and AI Overview correlation (May 2025) · Ahrefs: AI vs search traffic benchmark (115k sites) · Ahrefs: do AI assistants prefer fresh content (Jul 2025) · Ahrefs: llms.txt study (Jun 2026) · Semrush: AI search visitors worth 4.4x (Jul 2025) · Similarweb: generative AI statistics 2026 · Adobe: holiday 2025 AI referral traffic · Peec AI: top domains cited by AI search (Mar 2026) · GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024) · Google Search Central: AI features and your website · OpenAI crawler documentation · Vercel & MERJ: the rise of the AI crawler (Dec 2024) · Cloudflare: AI crawlers blocked by default (Jul 2025) · GA4 default channel groups (AI Assistant) · Google: generative AI performance reports in Search Console (Jun 2026)