AI visibility audit · October 2026
AI Visibility Audit: Is AI Recommending Your Business?
More buyers now ask ChatGPT or Perplexity who to hire before they ever search Google. An AI visibility audit tells you whether those assistants name your business, who they name instead, and what to change so you get recommended. Here is what a good audit checks, how to run one yourself, and how to get one in a few minutes.
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Free check
See if AI names you
ChatGPT and Gemini answer three buyer questions with live web search. You see who they recommend. No card.
$0 · about a minute
Full audit
Find out why, and what to fix
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok, a Citro Score against named competitors, a check of your site, and a 90-day plan.
$29 /month · first month refundable
What an AI visibility audit is
An AI visibility audit measures whether AI assistants recommend you when a buyer asks a question like "who is the best accountant near me" or "what software should a small clinic use." It runs those questions across the assistants your buyers use and records three things: whether you were named, who was named instead, and which websites the answer drew on.
The last part matters most. AI assistants build their answers from pages they find on the web: review sites, directories, "best of" lists, Reddit threads and your competitors' own pages. If you are missing from those sources, or your own site is hard for AI to read, you get left out. A useful audit shows you exactly which of those gaps is costing you.
What a good AI visibility audit checks
| Check | Why it matters | How Citro does it |
|---|
| Questions your buyers ask | Generic keywords don't match how people talk to AI. The audit should use real buyer questions. | Builds buyer personas for your business and writes their questions. You can edit both. |
| Every major assistant | Each assistant reads different sources and gives different answers. | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok on every run, live with web search |
| Who gets named instead of you | Knowing the competitors AI prefers tells you who you are up against. | A Citro Score with a head-to-head against named competitors |
| The sources behind each answer | These are the sites you need to be on. | Lists the sites each answer read, and which ones name rivals but not you |
| Your own website | Blocked AI crawlers, missing schema or thin service pages make you hard to recommend. | Checks llms.txt, AI crawler access, sitemap, schema markup and key page types |
| A plan you can act on | A score with no next step doesn't change anything. | A 90-day plan, each item checked against your live site so it never suggests something you already have |
How to run an AI visibility audit yourself
You can do a basic audit by hand in an afternoon. Here is the process.
- Write 5 to 10 buyer questions. Use the words a customer would use, not your industry's jargon. "Who does emergency plumbing in Grand Rapids" beats "residential plumbing services provider."
- Ask each assistant with web search on. Put every question to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok. Use a logged-out or fresh session so past chats don't skew the answer, and don't mention your business name.
- Record who gets named. For each answer, note whether you appear, where you appear in the list, and which competitors appear.
- Record the sources. Most assistants cite the pages they used. List them. The sites that show up again and again are where you need to be listed or mentioned.
- Check your own site. Make sure your robots.txt doesn't block AI crawlers such as GPTBot and PerplexityBot, add an llms.txt file, add schema markup for your business and services, and make sure each service you sell has its own clear page.
- Pick three fixes and repeat in a month. Get listed on the sources that keep coming up, fill the gaps on your site, then ask the same questions again to see what changed.
The hard part is doing it the same way every time. Answers change from one session to the next, so a one-off manual check can mislead you. That is the reason to use a tool.
What you get from a Citro audit
- A Citro Score that shows how often AI recommends you across five assistants, and how that compares to your named competitors.
- Every answer, with its sources, so you can see exactly what each assistant said and which sites it read.
- A check of your website for the things that make AI less likely to recommend you.
- A 90-day plan that names the pages to build or update and the sites to get listed on, written for a small team.
See a sample audit, or read why AI recommends your competitors for the most common causes.
Find out if AI recommends you
The free check asks ChatGPT and Gemini three questions your buyers would ask and shows who they name. It takes about a minute and needs no card.
Run the free check
Common questions
What is an AI visibility audit?
It checks whether AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok recommend your business when buyers ask for options in your category. A good audit also shows who gets named instead of you, which websites those answers drew on, what on your own site makes you hard for AI to read, and what to fix first.
How much does an AI visibility audit cost?
Agencies often charge several hundred to a few thousand dollars for a one-time audit. Citro's
free check costs nothing and needs no card. The full Citro audit is $29 a month on Starter, with the first month refundable, and $119 a month on Professional for unlimited re-runs.
Can I run an AI visibility audit myself?
Yes. Write down the questions your buyers ask, put each one to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok with web search turned on, and record who gets named and which sites are cited. Then check your own site for crawler access, an llms.txt file, schema markup and clear service pages. It takes a few hours by hand. Citro does the same work in a few minutes and repeats it the same way each time, so you can compare results month to month.
How long does an AI visibility audit take?
The Citro free check takes about a minute. A full Citro audit across five assistants usually finishes in a few minutes.
How often should I run an AI visibility audit?
Once a month is enough for most small businesses. AI answers shift as assistants update and as new pages get published, so a monthly check shows whether your fixes are working. Citro Starter includes one full audit a month.
Is an AI visibility audit the same as an SEO audit?
No. An SEO audit checks how you rank in Google's links. An AI visibility audit checks whether assistants name you in their answers. They overlap, since AI assistants often read the same pages search engines rank, but a business can rank well on Google and still be left out of AI answers.