AI Brand Visibility Monitor — Track Your Brand in ChatGPT, Gemini & Perplexity

This AI brand visibility monitor is a GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) tool that tracks whether your brand appears in AI-generated answers — the new search results. It runs your buying-intent prompts (e.g. "What is the best note-taking app for teams?") against ChatGPT (OpenAI), Google Gemini and Perplexity using your own API keys, then analyzes every answer: is your brand mentioned, in what position vs competitors, how often, and with what sentiment. Perfect for AI SEO audits, LLM visibility tracking, share-of-voice in AI answers, and competitor benchmarking in generative search.

GEO vs AEO vs AI SEO — the same job, three names

If you're searching for any of these, this actor is for you:

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — optimizing so generative engines (ChatGPT, Gemini) mention your brand in their answers.
• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — optimizing so answer engines (Perplexity, AI Overviews) cite you.
• AI SEO / LLM visibility — the umbrella term for ranking inside AI, not just Google's blue links.

They all describe the same problem — is your brand visible when a buyer asks an AI? — and this actor measures it directly.

Why monitor AI answers?

AI answers are the new search results. A growing share of product discovery happens inside ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity instead of Google's ten blue links. If the AI doesn't mention your brand when a user asks about your category, you are invisible to that buyer — no ranking, no click, no chance.

Dedicated AI-visibility SaaS tools charge $300+/month for this. This actor is pay-per-check and uses your own LLM API keys, so a full weekly audit of 20 prompts across 3 providers costs you cents of API usage plus a tiny per-check fee. No subscription, no lock-in.

Why this beats a GEO SaaS subscription

	This actor (pay-per-check)	GEO SaaS (Profound, Otterly, etc.)
Pricing	Pay per check + your own API cost	$300–$1,000+/month subscription
API keys	Bring your own — provider prices, no markup	Bundled, marked up
Providers	ChatGPT + Gemini + Perplexity	Varies, often fewer
Custom prompts	✅ Your exact buyer questions	✅ (usually)
Competitor share-of-voice	✅ Position + count vs competitors	✅
Scheduling + change alerts	✅ Monitor mode + webhook	✅
Lock-in	❌ None — cancel anytime	Annual contracts common
White-label agency reports	✅ Export JSON, brand it yourself	Add-on tier

What you get for each prompt × provider check

{
  "prompt": "What is the best note-taking app for teams?",
  "provider": "openai",
  "model": "gpt-5",
  "brand": "Notion",
  "mentioned": true,
  "mentionPosition": 1,
  "firstMentionCharIndex": 0,
  "mentionCount": 2,
  "competitorsMentioned": [
    { "name": "Evernote", "mentionCount": 1, "firstMentionCharIndex": 94 },
    { "name": "Obsidian", "mentionCount": 1, "firstMentionCharIndex": 134 }
  ],
  "sentimentHint": "positive",
  "answerExcerpt": "Notion is widely considered the best note-taking app for teams…",
  "changed": false,
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-02T09:30:00.000Z"
}

• mentionPosition — 1-based rank of your brand among all tracked brands (yours + competitors) by first occurrence in the answer. Position 1 = the AI names you first.
• sentimentHint — a simple keyword heuristic (positive words like best, recommended, leading vs negative words like avoid, expensive, lacks near your brand mentions). It is a hint, not an NLP sentiment model.
• changed — only in monitor mode: true when visibility flipped (gained or lost) vs the previous run for that prompt+provider.
• fullAnswer — included only when you enable includeFullAnswer.

How to use it

1. Set your brand (e.g. Notion) and optionally competitors (e.g. Evernote, Obsidian).
2. Add prompts — the real questions your buyers ask AI assistants.
3. Add your API keys under providers — any subset of:

   {
     "openai":     { "apiKey": "sk-...",   "model": "gpt-5" },
     "gemini":     { "apiKey": "AIza...",  "model": "gemini-2.5-flash" },
     "perplexity": { "apiKey": "pplx-...", "model": "sonar" }
   }
   

   Only providers with an apiKey are queried; the rest are skipped.
4. (Optional) Enable monitor mode and schedule the actor (e.g. weekly). Each run compares against the previous one and flags visibility changes — combine with a webhook for instant alerts.

Why bring your own keys (BYO)? You control the model, the rate limits and the cost — you pay your providers directly at API prices instead of a marked-up SaaS bundle. Your keys are entered in a secret input field (encrypted by Apify), used only to call the providers you configured, and never stored or logged by the actor.

Use cases

Each of these is a real search buyers make:

• "Track my brand's visibility in ChatGPT and Gemini" — run your prompt set weekly and see mentioned/not, position vs competitors, and sentiment across all three engines.
• "Build a white-label GEO report for a client" (agencies) — run a client's prompt set, export the JSON, and deliver an AI-visibility report under your own brand.
• "See which competitors AI recommends first" — competitor benchmarking that shows exactly who the models name before you, and where you sit in the ranking.
• "Get alerted when an AI stops mentioning my brand" — monitor mode + schedule + webhook = an alert the moment visibility flips.
• "Measure GEO/AEO impact after a content push" — watch a new brand or new content start appearing in AI answers as your footprint grows.

Agency GEO reports (white-label)

The strongest commercial use: agencies run each client's buying-intent prompts on a weekly schedule, then package the results — mention rate, position vs competitors, sentiment trend — into a branded GEO / AEO visibility report. Because it's pay-per-check with your own keys, margins stay in your pocket instead of a SaaS vendor's.

Pricing

Pay per prompt-check — one small charge per (prompt × provider) result delivered. Failed provider calls and configuration errors are not charged. LLM token costs are billed by your providers directly at their API rates.

FAQ

What is GEO / AEO and how does this measure it?

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are about being mentioned in AI answers instead of ranking in classic search. This actor measures it directly: it asks the AIs your buyers' real questions and reports whether — and where — your brand appears.

How is this cheaper than Profound, Otterly or a GEO SaaS?

Those charge a fixed monthly subscription (often $300–$1,000+) with API costs bundled and marked up. This actor is pay-per-check and uses your own OpenAI/Gemini/Perplexity keys, so you pay provider prices plus a tiny per-result fee — with no contract and no lock-in.

Are my API keys safe?

Yes. The providers input field is marked secret, so Apify stores it encrypted. The actor sends each key only to its own provider's official API endpoint, and keys are never written to logs, dataset items or error messages. See Apify's secret input fields docs.

Which models are supported?

Any chat model your key can access: OpenAI chat-completions models (default gpt-5), Google Gemini generateContent models (default gemini-2.5-flash), and Perplexity chat models (default sonar). Set the model field per provider to override.

How is sentiment computed?

It's a deliberately simple keyword heuristic: the actor looks at ±200 characters around each brand mention and counts positive words (best, recommended, popular, powerful, leading, excellent, great) vs negative words (avoid, worse, expensive, limited, lacks, poor). It gives a fast directional signal, not a full sentiment analysis — treat sentimentHint accordingly.

How do I schedule a weekly check with alerts?

Create a Schedule (e.g. every Monday 08:00), attach this actor with your saved input and monitorMode: true, and add a webhook on run success to push results (including changed flags) to Slack, email or your reporting pipeline.

What happens if I run it without any API keys?

The run finishes gracefully: it logs a warning ("no providers configured") and pushes a single NO_PROVIDERS_CONFIGURED item (not charged) so schedules and integrations can detect the misconfiguration.

Can AI agents use this actor?

Yes — flat input, clean JSON output, and like every Apify actor it is consumable via the Apify MCP server, so agents can run visibility checks as a tool.