Does AI mention your client? How to check

Pew Research Center analyzed the Google browsing of 900 US adults in March 2025. When Google showed an AI summary, people clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% when there was no summary, and clicked a link inside the summary in about 1% of visits. The study covers Google and one month, so treat it as a snapshot. It still points to why it can matter whether a client is named in the answer itself, which is what the AI Mention Tracker checks.

What the AI Mention Tracker checks

You type in questions a customer or journalist might ask, such as "what's the best clean skincare brand for sensitive skin," and the tool runs them live against an AI assistant. It reports whether your client was mentioned, whether the mention read as positive or negative, and which competitors appeared instead. You paste five to eight questions, one per line, and run them together as one batch.

Read the competitor list

The mention is the headline result, and the competitor list beside it is just as useful. If a rival keeps appearing in answers your client should be in, you have a specific gap to name. Any result that cites a source also gives you a pitch target. If an answer cites a particular outlet in your client's category, that outlet influences what the answer says. That makes it worth pitching, whatever its traditional reach.

A trade publication with modest readership can be worth pitching if the answers cite it.

What to do with a low result

A client who does not show up has given you information about where the gap is. The fix is unlikely to be a single pitch. It points to more coverage in the outlets that the answers cite for that category, and clear, consistent public information that an answer can draw on. This takes longer than landing one placement and resembles the older work of building a client's media presence.

How it fits with coverage tracking

Tracking traditional coverage still matters: what got covered, what got ignored, and what worked well enough to repeat. AI visibility adds a layer on top of that and does not replace it. Treat the outlets an AI model cites like any other high-value target list, pitch them deliberately, and run the check again in a few months once the work is in. A pitch for one of those outlets can go through Writing Review first.