How we calculate AI visibility
The methodology behind India's first AI visibility leaderboard for brands.
What is the Cited AI Visibility Score?
The Cited AI Visibility Score measures how frequently a brand appears in AI-generated answers to non-branded consumer-intent queries across 5 major AI platforms: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Scores range from 0 to 100, where 100 means the brand is mentioned in every AI response across every platform. The score is calculated as a simple average of per-platform mention rates, with each AI platform weighted equally.
Brands are discovered from AI responses — not pre-selected — making the index a true reflection of which brands AI actually recommends. The Cited Index currently tracks 257+ brands across 8 categories in India.
01Which AI platforms do we track?
Every brand is measured across 5 AI platforms, weighted equally:
02How do we design queries?
Every query is written as a real consumer with no brand in mind — the way people actually type into ChatGPT. No brand names, no marketing jargon, no leading language.
We use 6 consumer-language query archetypes, each reflecting a different way real shoppers ask AI for help:
Quality control: Every query is tested against a banned vocabulary list (no marketing jargon like “D2C”, “premium segment”, “value proposition”) and scored for consumer authenticity — “would a real person actually type this?”
Minimum 20 queries per category for statistical relevance.
03How is the score calculated?
Four steps:
- Run all category queries across 5 AI platforms
- Parse every response — extract ALL brand entities mentioned (LLM-driven discovery)
- For each brand, calculate mention rate per platform
- AI Visibility Score = simple average across all platforms
Display threshold: A brand must have ≥5% mention rate on at least 2 platforms to appear in the index.
04What do sentiment and position mean?
Sentiment is classified from how AI describes the brand. Positive means AI uses favourable language, mixed means a blend of pros and cons, and negative means AI flags concerns. Sentiment is aggregated across all mentions across all platforms.
Position measures where in the AI response a brand appears. #1 means it's the first brand mentioned. Lower is better. Position measures recommendation priority — being mentioned first carries significantly more weight than being listed fifth.
Framing tags are the specific words AI uses to describe a brand (e.g., “stylish”, “affordable”, “durable”). Shown for the top 3 brands per category on the free index; full breakdown available in the paid platform.
05How often does the index update?
Monthly. Each edition runs all queries fresh across all 5 AI platforms, discovers brands from the new responses, and recalculates all scores. New categories are added regularly. Historical comparisons (the delta column) show month-over-month change in visibility scores.
06How do brands get included?
Brands are discovered automatically from AI responses — not manually added or sponsored. Any brand meeting the display threshold (≥5% mention rate on at least 2 platforms) appears in the index.
If your brand doesn't appear, it means AI platforms aren't mentioning you in response to consumer queries in your category. A GEO audit can help you understand why and how to improve your AI visibility.
Request a GEO audit →07Limitations & what the score doesn't capture
The Cited AI Visibility Score does not measure:
- Purchase conversion or click-through rates
- Paid ad placements within AI responses
- Regional variations within India (national average only)
- Real-time changes (monthly snapshots only)
AI responses are non-deterministic — the same query can produce different responses across runs. This is why we use multiple runs and aggregate across queries for confidence.
The index reflects consumer-intent queries. Enterprise B2B queries or highly technical searches may show different brand distributions.