Florian S. Kluge
Glossary
What is AI visibility?
AI visibility is how often, and how favorably, AI assistants and AI search features mention your product, link to your pages as sources, or recommend you when buyers ask questions about your category.
In plain terms
I keep three things apart, even when a report presents a single visibility score.
| Level | What happens | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Mentioned | The answer names your product | Your name appeared in that sampled answer |
| Cited | The answer links one of your pages as a source | The answer presents your page as support, not proof that the claim is correct |
| Recommended | The answer suggests you for the buyer's situation | The answer recommends you, not proof that a buyer shortlisted you |
Citations are visible links. OpenAI says ChatGPT responses that use web search may include citations that open the source. Google describes AI Overviews and AI Mode as showing links to supporting websites.
The levels don't move together. An answer can cite your docs for a technical fact and still recommend a competitor. A product can be recommended without any of its pages being cited.
Why none of them equals paying customers
A mention happens inside someone else's answer. Whether that person visits, signs up and pays is a separate chain, and most of it happens out of view. Answers also vary: Google notes that AI Mode and AI Overviews may use different models, so the responses and links they show will differ. Google's Search Console reports those features within overall Web search traffic.
So a visibility score is a leading signal at best. To know what it's worth, you need click data, a self-reported answer at signup, and billing joined to both.
Why it matters for a SaaS founder
The decision it informs is whether to buy a tracker, hire someone to change the answers, or do neither yet. A tracker is enough if you have someone who already acts on what it shows. If nobody does, the dashboard tells you about a problem and stops there. I compare the two routes in tracker or someone to run SEO, and how to count the customers in is SEO bringing paying customers.
Example
Queuebird is an invented message-queue SaaS. Across 50 buyer prompts asked each month, it is mentioned in 20, cited in 12 (mostly its docs on retries), and recommended in 3. In the same month, 5 new signups said they found Queuebird through an AI assistant, and 2 of them pay. All numbers are invented. Only the last one shows up in revenue.
Frequently asked questions
Is AI visibility the same as AI share of voice?
Share of voice is one way to score it. Peec defines it as your mentions divided by all mentions of your brand and tracked competitors. Ask which brands, prompts, models and dates are included; changing the sample changes the score.
How do I check my AI visibility?
Write down the questions your buyers ask before they buy, ask them in the main assistants, and record mentioned, cited and recommended with the date. Repeat monthly, since answers change. My free AI search check shows whether you already measure this, and what's missing.
Does being cited in an AI answer send traffic?
Only when the reader clicks the link. You can measure the clicks. You can't see the readers who took the answer and never clicked.