AI visibility-tracking tools such as Profound and Peec AI monitor specific prompts and report a business's visibility in the responses, then assign scores to measure how often the business appears (Practical Ecommerce). However, these visibility scores depend entirely on the prompts used and are highly manipulated by some agencies. For example, a response will include a business's name if the prompt contains it, resulting in a visibility score of 100% and elevating the overall average (Practical Ecommerce).
For commerce practitioners, more actionable metrics focus on what consumers actually search for and how brands appear across generative AI platforms. A better approach is to analyze sites with citations across multiple generative AI platforms, enabling focus on user-generated content and social media platforms that impact AI answers, publications trusted by large language models, and competitor citations for analysis (Practical Ecommerce). Visible citations that mention a brand by name drive buying decisions and should be the focus of genAI optimization, while invisible citations (links without naming the source) apparently receive few clicks (Practical Ecommerce).
The key strategy for AI visibility is to provide genAI platforms with information about your business through branded prompts—queries like "What is [your business name]?" or "[Your business name] versus [competitor's name]"—to ensure detailed and up-to-date responses appear in AI systems (Practical Ecommerce).