An SEO audit tells you how your site ranks in Google. That's still useful, but it misses a growing part of how customers choose: they ask an AI assistant, get a short answer with two or three names, and contact one of them. An AI visibility audit shows whether you're in that answer, and why or why not.
What does an AI visibility audit measure?
It measures three things: presence (are you named?), accuracy (is what AI says about you correct?) and influence (which websites shape the answers in your market?). Everything in the audit serves one of these.
The 8 parts of a good audit
| Part | What it checks | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Question set | 20–50 real customer questions: "best" questions, comparisons, problems, prices, local searches | The list itself, so tests can be repeated |
| 2. Multi-tool testing | Each question in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews or AI Mode, Gemini and, if relevant, Copilot | Every answer recorded, with dates |
| 3. Share of voice | How often you're named compared with your main competitors | A baseline score you can track |
| 4. Source map | Which websites AI tools cite when they answer | A list of the pages and platforms that shape your market's answers |
| 5. Accuracy check | What each tool says about your business: services, location, prices, who you serve | A list of wrong or outdated facts to correct |
| 6. Technical access | Whether AI crawlers can read your site: robots.txt, indexing, content hidden behind scripts, structured data | Specific technical fixes |
| 7. Content gaps | Which customer questions have no page on your site that answers them directly | Topics for new pages and articles |
| 8. Action plan | All of the above, ranked by effort and impact | A short, ordered to-do list |
Why the question set matters most
The results are only as good as the questions. Questions should sound like customers, not keywords, and must never include your business name. A CPA firm might test "Best accountant for a restaurant in Austin?", "How much does a CPA charge for an LLC tax return?" and "Do I need a CPA or is bookkeeping software enough?"
Each question should be asked more than once. AI answers vary between tries, so a good audit counts what repeats and ignores one-off results.
What you should have at the end
When the audit is done, you should be able to answer five questions without help:
- In how many of our test answers are we named, and how does that compare with our top 3 competitors?
- Which AI tools know us, and which don't?
- What does AI get wrong about us?
- Which websites do AI tools trust in our market, and are we on them?
- What are the first three things to fix, and why those?
If the report doesn't answer these, it's a data dump, not an audit.
How much does an AI visibility audit cost?
Prices vary widely because the scope does. As a rough guide to what's on offer in 2026:
| Type | Typical price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Free | A basic check with 10 questions in 4 tools (our guide) |
| Automated tool report | About $100–500 | Scores and charts from automated prompts; little interpretation |
| Done-for-you audit | About $1,500–5,000 | Manual testing, source map, accuracy check and an action plan |
| Enterprise audit | $8,000 and up | Hundreds of questions, several markets or brands, detailed reporting |
For most businesses, the do-it-yourself check first and a done-for-you audit second is the right order. Some agencies, including us, include an audit in a free trial.
Red flags to watch for
- Guaranteed placement. No one can guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend you. AI answers can't be bought or controlled.
- A score with no sources. If the report can't show the actual answers and the sources cited, you can't check or act on it.
- No competitor comparison. "You're named in 20% of answers" means little until you know a competitor is named in 70%.
- No action plan. Measurement without next steps leaves you where you started.
- Questions that include your name. Asking "Is [your business] good?" tests nothing. Customers who don't know you yet won't ask that.
What happens after the audit?
Most action plans come down to three kinds of work, in this order:
- Quick fixes: correct wrong facts on your site and profiles, and unblock AI crawlers if needed.
- Content: pages and articles that answer your customers' questions directly, with specific facts AI tools can quote. Our guide What are AEO and GEO? explains why this works.
- Mentions elsewhere: reviews, directories and articles on the sites that the source map showed AI tools trust.
Then re-run the same question set every month to see what moved.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an AI visibility audit take?
For a business with one website and a handful of competitors, 3 to 10 working days. Most of the time goes into asking the questions, checking the sources AI tools cite and writing the action plan.
Is an AI visibility audit the same as an SEO audit?
No. An SEO audit checks how your site ranks in Google's results. An AI visibility audit checks whether AI tools name and describe your business correctly. A good AI visibility audit includes a few SEO checks, because AI tools rely on pages they can find and read.
How often should I repeat an AI visibility audit?
Do a full audit once, then re-run the same question set every month or quarter. Keeping the questions the same is what makes results comparable over time.
Can I do an AI visibility audit myself?
Yes, a basic version. Ask 10 customer questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google and Gemini and record who gets named. A full audit adds competitor benchmarks, a source map, technical checks and a prioritised plan.
Get your AI visibility audit free
Our 10-day free trial includes a full AI visibility audit and 3 articles written for your business. If you don't like the work, you owe nothing.
Start your free trial