How is AI visibility calculated?
AI visibility is calculated on a fixed panel of questions, asked regularly to several AI tools. You count the share of answers that name the brand. If a brand appears in 30 answers out of 100, its visibility is 30%.
Two indicators complete this percentage: position (is the brand named first or fifth?) and tone. SEOptimer sums the notion up as how often a brand appears in answers generated by AI tools such as ChatGPT (September 2026).
What is the difference between being read and being named by an AI?
An AI can read your website to build its answer without ever naming you. It then uses you as documentation and recommends someone else. The two situations are measured separately: the share of conversations in which your site is consulted, and the share of answers in which your brand is named.
The gap between the two is telling. A site that is read a lot but rarely named often has content that answers “what is” without helping anyone choose a provider.
Why the choice of questions matters more than the tool
The panel questions must be the ones your buyers actually ask, for example “which PR agency for a tech startup?”. A visibility score calculated on questions that already contain your name proves nothing.
Changing the questions changes the measurement, not the performance. An increase obtained by adding easy questions is not progress. Keep the panel stable and date every change.
What we measure at Linker
Linker tracks 19 questions asked by startup founders looking for a PR agency. At the end of September 2026, Linker was named in 64.9% of the answers (first brand in the panel, against 35.4% for the next one) and its website was read in 72% of conversations (Peec AI).
A pitfall to be aware of: until the end of September 2026, the tool only counted answers that wrote “Linker Agency”, not “Linker” on its own. Visibility was heavily underestimated. Checking how the brand name and its variants are configured is the first step of any measurement.
To go further
AI visibility is the core metric of GEO (generative engine optimization). It is complemented by AI citation, which describes how a brand is picked up, and by share of voice, which compares it with competitors.
Last updated: October 2026
