You can't manage what you don't measure, and classic SEO reports don't show AI answers. You need a small new measurement set.
Three things to measure
- Presence: for a fixed list of buyer questions, how often is your brand mentioned or cited by each major assistant (Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot)?
- Accuracy and sentiment: are the facts right (prices, features, availability)? Are you recommended, listed neutrally or warned against?
- AI-referred traffic and conversion: visits that come from AI assistants, and how they behave.
Why traffic from AI is worth tracking separately
Adobe Analytics reported that traffic to US retail sites from generative AI tools rose 693.4% year on year in the 2025 holiday season (November–December), while noting that the base of users is still modest. It is a small channel growing fast; you want to see it in your own data early.
How to set it up
- Question set: 50–100 questions across the buying journey, by product and market. Keep it stable so you can track change.
- Testing routine: monthly, the same questions on each assistant, recording mentions, position, citations and errors. Tools exist for this, but a spreadsheet works to start. Answers vary between runs, so test several times and track trends, not single answers.
- Analytics: create a channel or segment for referrals from AI assistants; report it next to organic search.
- Share of answer: your mentions divided by all brand mentions in the category for your question set — a rough "share of voice" for AI.
Watch the limits
AI answers are personalised and change often; small samples mislead. Treat the numbers as directional. The goal is to spot big gaps (you're absent, or described wrongly) and to see whether your fixes help over a few months.