AI visibility tools: what to look for before you pay

2 min read · Updated

The short answer

AI visibility tools ask assistants like ChatGPT about your business and report what they say. A useful one shows you the actual answers with their sources, asks the same questions the same way over time, and tells you which assistants it checked. Be wary of tools that give you a single score without showing the answers behind it.

What a useful tool shows

  • The exact answer each assistant gave, with the date.
  • The sources the assistant cited, where it reports them.
  • Which assistants were checked, by name.
  • The questions asked, kept the same each time so results can be compared.
  • Which statements match your facts and which don't.

Red flags

  • A score with no answers behind it.
  • Claims to track assistants they can't name.
  • Promises to get you recommended.

How Lehvel Observatory works

It asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, keeps every answer with its sources, checks each claim against your facts, and doesn't turn it into a score. We don't monitor Google's AI Overviews.

Questions

Can I check AI visibility for free?

Yes, by asking the assistants yourself in a temporary chat and writing down the answers.

Why do tools show different results?

Assistants answer differently each time and by location. Consistent questions over time matter more than one reading.

What's an LLM SEO tool?

Another name for the same kind of tool: one that reports how large language models describe you.

Keep reading

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