Also called: AI search visibility, answer-engine visibility
AI visibility is the degree to which a brand is mentioned, cited, or recommended inside the answers generated by AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
AI visibility is how present a brand is inside the answers that generative AI engines write for real user questions. Where classic search visibility is about ranking a link on a results page, AI visibility is about whether the engine names you, cites you, or recommends you inside the answer itself — the place where the buyer actually decides.
It is measurable, but only statistically. An engine's answer to the same question varies from run to run, so a single query is noise, not a measurement. Honest AI visibility is expressed as the share of sampled answers that mention or recommend a brand for a given set of buyer questions, reported with a confidence interval rather than a single deceptive number.
AI visibility is distinct from sentiment (whether the mention is positive) and from citation (whether the engine links a source). A brand can be visible but framed negatively, or cited as a source without being recommended as a choice. A complete picture measures presence, framing, and citation separately.