How to Track ChatGPT Visibility: A Practical Guide

ChatGPT is changing how people research products, compare brands, and make purchase decisions, all without leaving the platform.

That matters for marketers because visitors from AI search convert at 4.4x the rate of traditional organic search visitors, according to Semrush research.

But measuring your visibility in ChatGPT isn’t as straightforward as checking your Google rankings. Your brand might appear in one answer, be absent from another, or be mentioned alongside several competitors.

So how do you know where your brand stands? You can track ChatGPT visibility manually with a consistent set of prompts, or use an AI visibility tool to monitor larger datasets and competitors at scale. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do both, which metrics to track, and how to turn the data into action.

How to manually track ChatGPT visibility

First, we’ll show you how to get started with tracking manually. A spreadsheet and a consistent set of prompts are enough to establish a baseline.

Manual tracking can be a useful first step because it helps you to understand exactly what you’re measuring before you start looking at dashboards and scores.

Here’s a simple workflow that you can adapt.

Build a list of customer questions

Start with 20-50 conversational questions that can also serve as prompts your customers ask ChatGPT. 

For ideas, look at: 

• Customer support questions
• Sales conversations
• Reddit discussions
• People Also Ask results
• Your existing keyword research

Ensure that your list is well-rounded by including prompts around the research, comparison, and evaluation stages of the buying journey.

Run your prompt set through ChatGPT

Take your prompt list and manually enter each question into ChatGPT, recording the following data:

• Mentions: The number of times your brand appears in an answer. ChatGPT often doesn’t link out, so mentions can shape a buyer’s opinion before they see a URL.
• Citations: The number of times ChatGPT links to your website or uses your content as a source.
• Competitors: How often your brand is mentioned compared with competitors across your tracked prompts. 
• Sentiment: Whether ChatGPT describes your brand positively, negatively, or neutrally.

These data points provide you with insights on how to optimize your content for AI search. For example, a brand can be frequently mentioned but rarely cited, which suggests ChatGPT knows about the brand but isn’t relying heavily on its website as a source. Review the sources it cites for those prompts, then compare them with your own pages to identify gaps in coverage or supporting evidence before deciding what to update.

Run the same set of prompts weekly or fortnightly and log the results in a spreadsheet. ChatGPT’s mentions and citations can vary even with identical prompts, making frequent checks especially important compared to traditional SEO tracking. Record the same fields each time to compare trends rather than individual responses.

For example, an eyewear brand like Warby Parker might record the following:

Date	Prompt	Brand mentioned?	Cited?	Cited sources	Sentiment	Competitors
5/10	Are Warby Parker glasses worth it?	Yes	Yes	/learn/how-much-do-glasses-cost reviews/quality	Neutral	EyeBuyDirect Zenni Optical GlassesUSA
5/10	What are the best places to buy prescription glasses online?	Yes	Yes	/	Positive	GlassesUSA Zenni Optical EyeBuyDirect
5/10	What should I look for when buying glasses online?	No	No	—	—	Zenni Optical (Ad)
5/10	Which eyewear brands can I virtually try on?	Yes	Yes	/ways-to-try	Positive	Zenni Optical EyeBuyDirect GlassesUSA LensCrafters

This workflow gives you a practical baseline without needing a dedicated platform. As you repeat the checks, look for recurring patterns — such as frequent mentions but few citations, competitors appearing where you don’t, or consistently negative descriptions — rather than reacting to individual answers. Use these patterns to decide where your content or brand messaging needs attention (we’ll cover how to act on them toward the end of this guide).

As you repeat the checks, look for recurring patterns—such as frequent mentions but few citations, competitors appearing where you don’t, or consistently negative descriptions—rather than reacting to individual answers. Use these patterns to decide where your content or brand messaging needs attention (we’ll cover how to act on them toward the end of this guide).

How to track ChatGPT visibility at scale

Manual tracking works well if you’re just getting started, but monitoring your visibility against multiple prompts and competitors is time-consuming. Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit helps automate these checks, giving you a more detailed view of where your brand stands in your industry and helping you prioritize steps to close gaps with competitors or build a lead.

Follow this workflow to get started:

1. Analyze your overall brand visibility in ChatGPT
2. Find topics and pages that perform well for your brand
3. Identify the topics and sources you’re missing
4. Benchmark your ChatGPT visibility against competitors
5. Evaluate your brand sentiment and Share of Voice
6. Explore your brand’s key narrative drivers in ChatGPT
7. Track prompts by search intent

1. Analyze your overall brand visibility in ChatGPT

Launch Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit and click “Visibility Overview” in the left menu.

Next, enter your site’s domain and click “Get started.”

Select “ChatGPT” from the platform filter at the top to focus exclusively on ChatGPT data. 

This report highlights the key metrics for measuring your AI visibility in ChatGPT. You can track some of these manually, but the visibility tool saves you time and provides a more accurate snapshot. This includes an AI Visibility Score (which benchmarks your brand’s presence against competitors) and Monthly Audience (which estimates the search demand behind the prompts that your brand appears for).

Use these metrics to understand how your AI visibility compares to competitors, so you can track progress and set future goals.

Read this guide if you’re curious about how the AI Visibility Toolkit collects its data.

2. Find topics and pages that perform well for your brand

In Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit, stay within the Visibility Overview report and scroll to Topics & Sources tomap out where your brand already shows up in ChatGPT answers.

Review the following:

• Your Performing Topics: Topics and prompts where your brand already appears. Use these to understand what topics and signals help ChatGPT surface your brand.
• Cited Pages: URLs from your own domain that get cited. These show which pages ChatGPT cites most often and can help you identify patterns worth replicating.

For example, these educational pages from Warby Parker (in the image below) get cited more often, which means they should be monitored consistently to keep product information up to date:

3. Identify the topics and sources you’re missing

Next, identify the prompts and citations where competitors show up, but you don’t. These are your clearest opportunities to expand visibility.

Focus on these two tabs:

• Topic Opportunities: Prompts where competitors appear but you don’t. These highlight content gaps you can fill with new pages or targeted updates.
• Source Opportunities: These show which external sites ChatGPT cites for competitors, which gives you targets for outreach and authority building.

From here, you can create a list of sources to prioritize for PR and media outreach, and list topics to include in your content plan.

For instance, our example eyewear brand is missing out on gift-related topics. To take advantage of that opportunity, they could publish multiple “Best gifts for…” listicles that include Warby Parker sunglasses.

4. Benchmark your ChatGPT visibility against competitors

Using the Competitor Research tool, compare your visibility against competitors to see where they outperform you inside ChatGPT answers — and where you already lead.

Enter your domain along with up to four competitors, then click “Run competitor analysis.” As you enter, Semrush will also suggest competitors based on your category.

Use the comparison across AI Visibility Score, Audience, and Mentions to spot who’s leading in ChatGPT and whether you need to catch up.

Scroll down to Topics & Prompts and use the side-by-side view to spot topics with high AI volume (where competitors gain more visibility).

Use these ideas when planning new content and pages for your website to tap into demand your competitors are already capturing.

Each tab reveals a different visibility pattern, helping you decide what to do next.

For example:

Tab	Meaning	Course of action
Missing topics	Your competitors are mentioned, but your brand isn’t.	Develop new content that directly addresses these topics or prompts. Then find the sources ChatGPT cites for competitors and explore outreach opportunities.
Weak topics	Your competitors are mentioned more often than your brand.	Update existing pages with fresh insights, stronger data, and more value to strengthen your visibility in AI search. Build backlinks from relevant and authoritative sites, as these can directly influence your AI visibility.
Shared topics	Both your brand and competitors are mentioned.	Add unique insights, original data, or strong examples to give ChatGPT more reasons to surface your brand over competitors.
Strong topics	Your brand is mentioned more often than your competitors.	Keep relevant content accurate and up to date, and monitor these topics regularly to maintain your position.
Unique topics	Only your brand is mentioned.	Expand on these topics with related content and add internal links to form a topical hub while strengthening your authority.

Use this data to map your relative performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

5. Evaluate your brand sentiment and Share of Voice

Next, check how ChatGPT talks about your brand. This step helps you understand how often you’re mentioned and whether those mentions are favorable.

Open the Brand Performance report in Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit and use the filter at the top to select ChatGPT.

Then, check your key brand visibility and sentiment metrics.

• Share of Voice: Shows your brand’s overall visibility in AI-generated answers to non-branded questions, compared to competitors. 
• Overall Sentiment: Shows the split between favorable and general mentions in AI-generated responses. A higher favorable share can indicate stronger positive brand perception, while the reasons behind more neutral mentions can help you identify where your messaging may need more clarity.

You can also see the exact business drivers (cross-brand factors) that influence growth in your niche, such as value, trust, and access.

Use these insights to benchmark your brand against competitors and decide which areas deserve more focus in your messaging and strategy.

For example, Warby Parker leads on omnichannel experience and risk-reduced customer retention, but Zenni and GlassesUSA outperform it on price-led customer acquisition:

This shows Warby Parker where to lean in (exams, in-store pickup) and where to tighten their strategy (broader assortment, more generous shipping/return policies).

6. Explore your brand’s key narrative drivers in ChatGPT

Next, open the Narrative Drivers report to see which real customer questions ChatGPT answers with your brand and which sources it relies on.

If your brand consistently shows up in these answers, you influence how people perceive you long before they visit your site.

Scroll to the Dive Deeper area to see both the types of questions ChatGPT answers about your brand and category, and the sources it relies on to generate those answers.

Here, apply filters to identify prompts where you could improve your position — or where your brand is completely missing.

You may find high-intent prompts where your competitors appear, but your brand doesn’t. This will help you plan content to fill those gaps.

For example, for Warby Parker, ChatGPT recommends competitors when asked about prescription sports sunglasses. This highlights a gap that Warby Parker could address with content on sport-friendly eyewear.

7. Track prompts by search intent

Prompt tracking helps you understand how ChatGPT presents your brand across different types of queries. Rather than tracking prompts in one giant set, group them by intent for a better view into the ways people research your category and brand.

Start by researching potential prompts in the Prompt Research tool. Enter your topic idea and review the prompts most relevant to it.

Focus on the following three types:

• Branded prompts: Questions that mention your brand, such as “What are the pros and cons of Warby Parker?” or “What are alternatives to Warby Parker?” These prompts can uncover misinformation, outdated information, or gaps in your brand narrative.
• Bottom-funnel prompts: These reflect questions from users who are preparing to buy, such as “What are the best places to buy prescription glasses online?” or “Which online eyewear brands offer good-quality glasses at affordable prices?” These tell you whether ChatGPT is recommending your brand when the user is actively evaluating options.
• Feature and education prompts: These help you understand whether ChatGPT associates your brand with what you actually offer, and could include “Which eyewear brands can I virtually try on?” or “What should I look for when buying glasses online?” This type of prompt can reveal whether ChatGPT understands your product category and differentiators.

Once you’ve identified relevant prompts, click “Monitor” to track your brand’s visibility for those queries using Prompt Tracking.

You can also navigate directly to the Position Tracking tool and create a new project. Once set up, it’ll show you metrics like:

• Average Position: Shows how high your domain appears among ChatGPT’s cited sources (e.g., first, second, third).
• Visibility: Reflects your share of top citations across the prompts you’re tracking. 

Use this data to identify which topics, pages, and sources are associated with stronger visibility, then use those patterns to guide your content and outreach strategy.

It’s important to remember that ChatGPT is an AI model, not a fixed database, meaning visibility scores and citations can shift between checks. Each check is a sample of ChatGPT’s responses, not a complete count of every answer it could give. Answers can vary even when you use the same prompt.

Other factors that can affect visibility include:

• Small changes in how a question is phrased
• Updates to the model or the way ChatGPT processes a query
• The updated sources ChatGPT uses over time (as websites are updated, new content is published, or competitors strengthen their own presence)

For that reason, focus on trends over time rather than the results of individual checks. Track the same set of prompts regularly, and if a single result feels too noisy to act on, widen your prompt set. A larger sample can give you a more reliable picture of how your brand appears across ChatGPT conversations.

Turn ChatGPT visibility data into action

Tracking your visibility is only useful if the data helps you understand what to do next. Use each metric to identify where your brand needs attention:

• Low mentions on an important topic — Create new content or refresh existing content to address the topic more clearly and comprehensively.
• Missing citations on an important page — Make the page clearer, more useful, and easier for AI systems to understand. Then look for relevant outreach opportunities to strengthen your presence across authoritative sources.
• Low share of voice — Review which competitors appear more often and the topics and sources driving their visibility. Use those insights to strengthen your own content and coverage.
• Negative sentiment — Investigate the business issues, customer experiences, or messaging that may contribute to the way your brand is described. Then address the underlying issue rather than simply trying to change the wording.
• Strong visibility on a topic — Keep the relevant content accurate and up to date, and look for related topics where you can build on that strength.

The goal isn’t to chase every change in ChatGPT’s responses. Use your data to identify consistent gaps, prioritize the areas that matter most to your customers, and make improvements that strengthen your brand’s presence across AI-generated answers.