'Are we mentioned by AI engines?' is a yes/no question. 'How well are we doing in AI search?' requires six metrics. Here's what each one measures, why it matters, and what a good number looks like.
1. Mention rate
The percentage of your tracked prompts in which your brand is named at least once. If you track 20 prompts and appear in 8 of them, your mention rate is 40%. This is the most fundamental metric — everything else is secondary to whether you're being named at all. Benchmark: strong brands in established categories hit 60–80% mention rates. New or niche brands often start below 20%.
2. Mention position
Where you appear within an answer — first, second, or further down. Being named first in a list of recommendations has meaningfully higher conversion impact than being named third after two competitors. Track your average mention position across all engines, not just whether you're included.
3. Engine coverage
How many of the major AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity) mention you for a given prompt. A brand visible on only one engine is fragile — algorithm changes or training updates can eliminate that visibility overnight. Broad coverage across all four engines indicates a robust citation base that isn't dependent on any single model's preferences.
4. Citation source coverage
The number and variety of high-trust sources citing your brand. AI engines don't just count mentions — they weight them by source authority. A brand appearing on 15 diverse, authoritative sources (Reddit, G2, TechCrunch, independent blog posts) has a much stronger citation profile than one appearing 15 times on its own domain.
5. Answer accuracy
When AI engines describe your brand, is the description accurate? Outdated pricing, incorrect feature lists, or wrong category classification all reduce the quality of your visibility even when you're named. Monitor the actual text of AI answers about your brand weekly and flag inaccuracies — then update the source content the model is retrieving from.
6. Competitor gap
The difference between your mention rate and the highest competitor's mention rate for the same set of prompts. A gap of 20 points or more in a prompt set that matters to you is a clear signal that citation and entity work is needed. The specific sources driving the competitor's higher rate are usually visible in the AI's cited sources — those are your highest-priority targets.
Track all six metrics together. Mention rate without position tells half the story. Position without engine coverage misses fragility. The full picture is what drives the right decisions.