How to check AI visibility for free: a weekly routine before you pay for a tracker

Before you start: prepare ten prompts and a log

Checking AI visibility means asking the assistants your customers use the questions they would ask, then recording whether your brand is named, who else is named and which sources are cited. It costs nothing but time. This guide reads the vendors' help pages and documentation dated October 29, 2026 to set the routine.

• Write ten prompts: four category questions such as the best option for a job in your market, three problem questions in a customer's words, two comparison questions that name a competitor, and one question about your own brand.
• Make a sheet with columns for date, assistant, prompt, brand named (yes or no), position in the list, competitors named, sources cited and whether the description is accurate.
• Pick the assistants: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, plus Google Search for AI Overviews.

Step by step: run the check in each assistant

• Step 1: open ChatGPT in a private window or signed out. OpenAI's help page says web search works without signing in, and that saved memory and approximate location can change how a question is searched.
• Step 2: paste a prompt as a customer would type it and note the answer in your sheet.
• Step 3: open Sources, when shown, and record which pages are cited. OpenAI says results and citations can be incomplete, outdated or incorrect, so open a cited page to confirm it supports the answer.
• Step 4: repeat the same prompts in Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot.
• Step 5: search the same questions on Google and note whether an AI Overview appears. Google says AI Overviews often do not trigger.
• Step 6: add a city or region to prompts where your customers are local, since ChatGPT can use approximate location for results.

Free checkers that speed the first pass

Semrush offers a free AI Search Visibility Checker that takes a domain and reports mentions, citations, a breakdown by platform, the pages cited most and a competitor comparison for ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. Use it for a one-off baseline beside your manual log.

AIclicks offers a free AI Visibility Checker with no signup. You pick up to 5 prompts and it returns whether ChatGPT recommends your brand, which competitors it names and which sources it cites. Its page calls this a one-time snapshot, so it gives a baseline, not a trend. AIclicks also publishes a free GEO audit that checks whether a site is set up to be cited by AI platforms, for example crawlability and structured data. It tests your site rather than what assistants say, so it answers a different question.

Verify results and troubleshoot odd answers

• Answers vary. Run each prompt on at least two days before you draw a conclusion, and look for patterns across ten prompts rather than one answer.
• If your brand is missing, read the sources the answers cite. Those pages are where assistants found their information, and they may be review sites, lists or forums rather than your own site.
• If your brand is described wrongly, note which cited page holds the wrong detail and fix it at the source.
• If an assistant gives no sources, start a web search from the tools menu and ask again.
• For your own traffic, use Search Console: Google says clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode count in the Web search type of the Performance report. In GA4, look at sessions whose source is an AI assistant.

When a tracker adds something a weekly look does not

A benchmark of 95 websites found organic search sent 39 times more visits than AI assistants, and a second study found no reliable link between AI visibility and later branded search or direct traffic, so measure first and pay later. A paid tracker adds value when you need more prompts than you can read in a week, daily history, several countries or competitors side by side, or reports for clients. Compare plans in the small business shortlist and read how AIclicks sizes its plans before you start a trial.