← Back to Blog
How-To Guide

How to Audit Your AI Search Visibility in 30 Minutes

By CakeSearch  ·  June 2026  ·  10 min read

Most B2B companies have no idea whether they appear in AI-generated search answers. They're investing in SEO, content, and paid search — but they've never tested the question a growing share of their buyers are asking AI models directly.

This guide walks you through a 5-step process to find out exactly where you stand. You don't need any paid tools. You need 30 minutes and a browser.

What you're measuring: AI Share of Voice — the percentage of your buyers' most common research queries where your brand appears in an AI-generated answer across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

Before You Start: Build Your Query List

The quality of your audit depends entirely on whether you're testing the right queries. You want to replicate what your actual buyers search for — not vanity queries where you'd expect to appear.

Build a list of 10 queries across three types:

Category searches (3–4 queries): "best [your category] tools for [use case]", "top [category] platforms for [company size]", "leading [category] software"

Problem-solution searches (3–4 queries): "how do B2B companies [solve the problem you solve]", "what tools help with [pain point]", "[pain point] solutions for [industry]"

Comparison searches (2–3 queries): "[Your category] vs [adjacent category]", "alternatives to [dominant competitor in your space]"

EXAMPLE QUERY LIST — B2B Data Enrichment Company 1. "best B2B data enrichment tools for sales teams"
2. "top contact data platforms for mid-market SaaS"
3. "leading B2B database providers 2026"
4. "how do sales teams find accurate contact data"
5. "tools to improve CRM data quality"
6. "solutions for sales prospecting data"
7. "B2B data enrichment vs data buying"
8. "alternatives to ZoomInfo for mid-market companies"
9. "best prospecting tools for outbound SDR teams"
10. "how to build accurate B2B prospect lists"

Step-by-Step Audit Process

01

Test in ChatGPT

Open ChatGPT (the free GPT-4o model is sufficient). Run each of your 10 queries one at a time. For each response, record:

Use a new chat session for each query to avoid context carryover from prior responses affecting results.

02

Test in Perplexity

Run the same 10 queries in Perplexity (free tier works fine). Perplexity uses real-time web retrieval rather than primarily parametric knowledge, so results will often differ significantly from ChatGPT. Record the same data points.

Research shows only 11% of cited domains overlap between ChatGPT and Perplexity — so you need to test both. (Digital Bloom, 2025 AI Visibility Report)

03

Test in Google AI Overviews

Search your queries in Google. AI Overviews currently appear for approximately 25–30% of searches in the US, so not every query will trigger one. When they do appear, record whether your brand is cited and which competitors are featured. Note: AI Overviews favor brands with strong co-citation on Reddit, YouTube, and high-authority publications. (Heroic Rankings, 2026)

04

Audit Your Own Site for Citeability

Open your homepage, product page, and your two or three highest-traffic blog posts. Read each one asking this single question: "Does this page give an LLM a clear, direct, citable answer to a common buyer question?"

Specifically look for: specific statistics and data points, named methodologies or frameworks, direct answers to common buyer questions (FAQ format), clear expert authorship signals, and concrete case study results.

If your pages are heavy on marketing language and light on specific, quotable facts — that's a primary GEO gap.

05

Check Your Co-Citation Footprint

Search your brand name on Reddit, G2, and Capterra. Note: how many results exist? How recent are they? Are the mentions positive and substantive, or absent? This 5-minute check tells you whether the places LLMs look most often have enough material about your brand to cite.

Scoring Your Results

Add up how many of your 10 queries returned a result that included your brand — across any of the three platforms tested.

ScoreWhat It MeansPriority
8–10 queriesStrong AI presence — you're well-represented for your core buying queriesMaintain and expand to more queries
4–7 queriesPartial presence — you appear for some queries but competitors are capturing buyers you're missingIdentify gap queries and optimize
0–3 queriesSignificant AI invisibility — you're absent from most of your buyers' AI-assisted researchImmediate GEO work needed

What to Do With Your Findings

If you scored 0–3: Start with entity clarity on your homepage and primary product pages, then build out your FAQ and structured data. These are the fastest wins. Simultaneously, audit your co-citation footprint and prioritize getting substantive mentions on Reddit and G2.

If you scored 4–7: You have a foundation — focus on the specific queries where competitors appear and you don't. Analyze what those competitors' pages do differently. Usually it's more factual density, stronger FAQ structure, or better co-citation on specific platforms.

If you scored 8–10: You're ahead of most B2B companies. The next step is tracking movement over time and expanding your query coverage to capture more of your buyers' research journey.

Save time: Create a simple spreadsheet with your 10 queries as rows and ChatGPT / Perplexity / Google AI Overviews as columns. Mark Yes/No for each. This becomes your ongoing tracking document — run it monthly to measure progress.

Want Us to Run a Professional Version of This?

Our free AI visibility check covers 20–30 queries, includes competitive benchmarking, and identifies your specific GEO gaps — with a prioritized action plan. No pitch, just findings.

Book Your Free Visibility Check

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check if my brand appears in ChatGPT?

Open ChatGPT (free or paid) and search for queries your buyers would use — category searches, comparison questions, and problem-solution queries. Note whether your brand appears in the generated answer, and which competitors are mentioned. Document results with screenshots for your baseline.

Why do ChatGPT and Perplexity show different results?

ChatGPT relies heavily on its training data and parametric knowledge, while Perplexity uses real-time web retrieval. Research shows only 11% of cited domains overlap between the two platforms, meaning a brand can appear in one and be absent in the other. A strong GEO strategy optimizes for both.

What is a good AI search visibility score?

For most B2B companies, appearing in 7 or more of 10 tracked buying queries across AI platforms is a strong result. Appearing in fewer than 3 indicates significant GEO gaps that are likely costing you top-of-funnel visibility with AI-assisted buyers.

How often should I run an AI visibility audit?

Monthly is the right cadence for tracking progress. AI search behavior changes as models are updated and the co-citation landscape evolves. A monthly snapshot lets you measure the impact of GEO changes you've made and catch any movement from competitors.

Free — No Commitment

See Where Your Brand Stands in AI Search

We test 15 of your buyers' top queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — and show you exactly where you appear, where competitors are being cited, and what's driving the gap.

Check My AI Visibility

Takes 2 minutes to request. We'll follow up within one business day.