Keyword rank tracking was once an essential search engine optimization tactic. But consumers are increasingly searching on generative AI platforms, which do not disclose prompt data, such as words and phrases.
And genAI responses are highly dynamic and personalized. A site may come up as an answer to an initial prompt or, alternatively, in a follow-up.
How can brands evaluate visibility in AI-driven answers against competitors and adjust strategy accordingly?
There are no good answers.
Yet new software solutions are attempting to address the need in various ways.
Knowatoa
Knowatoa is an AI visibility analysis tool with two primary components:
- Crawlability status is a rough equivalent of Search Console for various genAI bots. It checks whether AI bots can access and crawl your site (based on the robots.txt file and hosting settings).
- Visibility analysis scrutinizes your presence in answers on ChatGPT, Claude, Meta AI, and Perplexity.
To use, create an account and enter your domain. The tool will pull keywords (from third-party providers such as Semrush) and use them to generate commercial intent prompts, those that could trigger product or company responses.
Users can then review the prompts and add or delete according to their marketing approach. Users then create a project to collect answers to the prompts from the AI platforms.
The ensuing report resembles a rank tracking tool, allowing you to see which responses include your brand and where. It also discloses the exact answers to a given prompt.
Knowatoa generates prompts from users’ keywords to see which responses include the users’ brands. Click image to enlarge.
The tool also provides a question analysis based on your keywords that includes intent, category, and stage, such as “awareness” or “consideration.”
Knowatoa is free to register and obtain an initial analysis. Paid plans start at $49 per month.
Knowatoa’s question analysis includes intent, category, and stage, such as “awareness” or “consideration.” Click image to enlarge.
Essio
Essio is another premium AI visibility tool with a more generic and visual approach. It provides users with a visibility score across multiple AI platforms, but it doesn’t show which prompts produce brand mentions.
Essio provides users with a visibility score across multiple AI platforms. Click image to enlarge.
My favorite Essio feature is its listing of better-performing competitors, those included in answers for a user’s prompts.
The most actionable part of the report is “influential” links, i.e., various URLs included in responses to your most relevant prompts. The report is handy for reverse engineering the process — responses vs. prompts.
Essio’s pricing starts at $75 per month. To me, it suits large brands that seek a broad overview of their AI visibility.
Essio’s report for “influential sources” is handy for reverse engineering prompts. Click image to enlarge.
Waikay
Waikay checks the training data of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude to ascertain what they know about your brand and competitors.
Waikay checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude to ascertain what they know about your brand and competitors. Click image to enlarge.
Waikay identifies concepts your brand is associated with and tracks “knowledge gaps,” i.e., topics associated with your competitors but not your brand.
Users can rerun reports to see how the training data and missing concepts are evolving for their brands with the addition of new content. Users can create a report on any knowledge gap and receive content topics and ideas.
Waikay runs automated monthly reports to track how users’ content marketing efforts impact AI training data.
Waikay offers a “brand report” for free. Paid plans start at $19.95 per month.
Waikay’s AI Knowledge Map identifies topics associated with your competitors but not your brand. Click image to enlarge.
