Free AI Visibility Checker

Key takeaways

• Most of what an AI reads never makes the cut. Only about 15% of the pages an AI retrieves end up cited in the final answer, per an AirOps study covered by Search Engine Land. Getting crawled is not the same as getting quoted.
• Engines disagree, hard. Citation rates run Perplexity 13.05%, Gemini 6.38%, Google AI Overview 2.11%, and ChatGPT 0.59%, per Superlines data via Onely. The same brand can win one engine and vanish on another.
• Page one is not the finish line anymore. Onely reports 73% of brands get zero AI mentions despite ranking on Google page one.
• A single check is a snapshot, not a verdict. AI answers are non-deterministic, so a trustworthy number needs repeated sampling and confidence intervals (which the full AI Citation Monitor provides).
• This tool is free and instant. No signup wall to see whether ChatGPT mentions your brand right now.

How to use the AI Visibility Checker

1. Type your brand name or domain into the single input at the top of the page. Brand name tends to work best, since that is what people actually ask AI engines about.
2. (Optional) Add a few seed prompts. These are the buyer questions you care about, like "best CRM for small teams" or "affordable project management software." Skip this and the tool uses sensible defaults.
3. Hit run. You'll watch a live progress state move through each engine, one at a time, as the snapshot fills in.
4. Read the results card per engine. Each one shows Mentioned or Not, a short excerpt where you do appear, and the URLs the engine cited.
5. Scan the competitor gaps. The tool flags prompts where a rival shows up and you don't, which is usually the most useful part.
6. Want the trustworthy version with confidence intervals? Click through to the full monitor. More on why that matters below.

What it checks

The checker asks each engine a real question and reads the real answer. It is not scraping a cached ranking or guessing from your SEO. It runs a live query against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, then parses what came back for any sign of your brand.

For each engine, it answers one blunt question: did you get mentioned or not. A mention means your brand name or domain showed up in the generated answer. A citation means the engine actually linked one of your URLs as a source. Those are different things, and the tool separates them so you don't confuse a name-drop with a real citation.

When you do appear, the tool grabs a short excerpt so you can see the context. Being mentioned as "the budget option nobody loves" is not the same as being the recommended pick, and the excerpt tells you which one you got. It also lists the cited URLs, so you can see whether the engine linked your homepage, a blog post, or a third-party review that mentions you.

The competitor gap view is the quiet star here. For each seed prompt, it shows which competitors got named when you didn't. That turns a vague worry ("are we invisible?") into a specific list of prompts you're losing, which is the thing you can actually fix. Pair this with our AI share of voice explainer to read the gaps properly.

One honest limit: this is a single pass per engine. AI answers wobble from run to run (that is just how these models work), so treat the result as a strong signal, not a courtroom transcript. For a number you'd put in a board deck, you want repeated sampling, which is the job of the full monitor.

The checker also reads the cited sources, not just your own URLs. So when ChatGPT recommends a competitor, you can see whether it leaned on a review site, a Reddit thread, or the rival's own blog. That tells you where the citation came from, which is half the battle. Knowing the engine skipped you is useful. Knowing it quoted a G2 listing you've never touched is actionable. If you want the bigger picture of tracking this over weeks instead of once, our AI brand monitoring guide covers how a snapshot becomes a trend line.

A quick definition, because people mix these up. AI visibility is whether answer engines surface your brand at all, across mentions and citations and recommendations. This tool measures the first cut of that: are you in the answer or not. It does not score your content quality or tell you why you got skipped. For the why, you grade the page itself, which is a different tool and a different job.

Why this matters for AI citations

People stopped clicking ten blue links and started asking a machine for the answer. If the machine never says your name, you're not in the consideration set, full stop. And the gap between "ranks on Google" and "gets mentioned by AI" is bigger than most teams assume. Buyers now shortlist vendors from an AI answer before they ever hit a search results page, so the brands the model names are the brands that get the demo. The ones it skips don't even know they're losing.

Start with the retrieval problem. Only about 15% of the pages an AI retrieves actually get cited in the final answer, per an AirOps study via Search Engine Land. So even if an engine reads your page, the odds it quotes you are not great by default. You have to earn the citation, not just the crawl. Our guide on how AI engines choose sources digs into what tips that 15% in your favor.

Then there's the engine lottery. Citation rates vary wildly: Perplexity 13.05%, Gemini 6.38%, Google AI Overview 2.11%, and ChatGPT 0.59%, per Superlines data via Onely. A brand that crushes Perplexity can be a ghost on ChatGPT. That's exactly why checking all four at once beats checking one and assuming the rest match. (They rarely do.)

Here's the stat that tends to get people out of their chair. Onely reports 73% of brands get zero AI mentions despite ranking on Google page one. Page one used to mean you'd won. Now it means you're eligible, and a big majority of eligible brands still get skipped. The citation rate glossary entry explains why that number is so brutal.

Last point, and it's the boring-but-true one. AI answers are non-deterministic. Ask the same question twice and you can get two different brand lists. So a single check is a snapshot, and a trustworthy number needs repeated sampling and confidence intervals (which the full AI Citation Monitor provides, and our methodology page explains exactly how). This free tool gives you the snapshot fast. The paid monitor gives you the number you can defend.

One of those four engines deserves its own callout: Google AI Overviews. It sits on top of the search results millions of people see every day, and it cites sources right there in the box. If you mostly care about that surface, run the focused AI Overview Checker too, then compare what it finds against the broader picture here. And if you'd rather browse every free tool we offer in one place, the tools hub lists them all.

Engine	Citation rate (Superlines via Onely)	What this checker reports
Perplexity	13.05%	Mentioned or not, excerpt, cited URLs
Gemini	6.38%	Mentioned or not, excerpt, cited URLs
Google AI Overview	2.11%	Mentioned or not, excerpt, cited URLs
ChatGPT	0.59%	Mentioned or not, excerpt, cited URLs

Rates above are industry-wide averages from the Superlines via Onely data, not your brand's specific numbers. Run the checker to see your actual mentions per engine.

Common mistakes

• Checking one engine and calling it done. ChatGPT silence does not mean Perplexity silence. Check all four, because the rates above prove they behave nothing alike.
• Treating a single run as the truth. One snapshot is directional. If you need a defensible number, sample repeatedly and use confidence intervals.
• Confusing a mention with a citation. Getting name-dropped in prose is nice. Getting your URL cited as a source is better. Read the excerpt and the cited URLs, not just the green "Mentioned" badge.
• Ignoring the competitor gaps. The prompts where rivals appear and you don't are your roadmap. Skipping them is skipping the whole point.
• Assuming Google rank carries over. It mostly doesn't. See the 73% stat above, then go fix the pages AI is actually reading. Start with the AI Citation Readiness Grader.
• Forgetting the crawler can't even reach you. If your robots.txt blocks AI bots, you were never in the running. Run the AI Crawler robots.txt Checker before you blame your content.

FAQ

What is an AI visibility checker?

An AI visibility checker tests whether AI answer engines mention or cite your brand when people ask buyer questions. This one queries ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews live, then reports Mentioned or Not per engine with an excerpt and cited URLs. It's the fastest way to see your real AI presence today.

Does it actually check if ChatGPT mentions my brand?

Yes. It sends a real query to ChatGPT (and three other engines) and reads the actual answer for your brand name or domain. If you show up, you get a Mentioned badge and a short excerpt. If you don't, you get a clear Not Mentioned, plus which competitors got named in your place.

Is the AI visibility checker free?

Yes, completely free and instant, with no signup wall to run a snapshot. The paid AI Citation Monitor adds the things a one-off check can't give you: repeated sampling, confidence intervals, competitor share of voice over time, source tracking, and prescriptive fixes. The free tool is the snapshot. The monitor is the ongoing measurement.

Why do results change when I run it twice?

Because AI answers are non-deterministic. The same prompt can produce different brand lists on different runs, which is normal model behavior, not a bug in the tool. That's exactly why a single check is a snapshot and a trustworthy figure needs repeated sampling with confidence intervals, which the full monitor handles for you.

Which engines does it check?

Four today: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Those are the engines AI Citation Monitor tracks live. Microsoft Copilot support is coming. We check all four in one run because citation rates differ wildly between them, so checking only one would give you a misleading picture of your real visibility.

What's the difference between a mention and a citation?

A mention means your brand name or domain appears somewhere in the generated answer. A citation means the engine linked one of your URLs as a named source. The checker separates them so you know whether you're being talked about or actually being used as a reference. Citations carry more weight. See our AI citation glossary entry.

My brand ranks on Google but isn't showing up in AI. Why?

You're not alone. Onely found 73% of brands with page-one Google rankings get zero AI mentions. AI engines pick sources differently than classic search. Our guide to how to get cited by ChatGPT walks through the usual culprits and the fixes.

Want more than a snapshot? Run the free instant check on the homepage, then read up on AI citation tracking to understand the ongoing measurement. If you're shopping around, our roundup of the best AI visibility tools lays out the options honestly. And once you know where you stand, the AI Crawler robots.txt Checker and the AI Citation Readiness Grader help you fix the plumbing so the engines can find, read, and quote you.