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AI visibility has its own vocabulary: mentions, citations, share of voice, sentiment, prompt sets and consideration sets. Shared definitions keep marketing, leadership and vendors measuring the same thing.
What does AI visibility mean?
AI visibility is how often and how accurately AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Mode include your brand when people ask questions you should be part of. It covers being named, being described correctly and being cited as a source. The terms below are the vocabulary teams use to measure and improve it.
Which terms describe what AI says about you?
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| AI visibility | How often and how accurately AI assistants include your brand in relevant answers |
| Mention | Your brand is named in an AI answer |
| Citation | A page is linked or listed as a source for the answer |
| Presence rate | Share of answers in a sample that include your brand |
| AI share of voice | Your presence rate compared with your competitors' on the same questions |
| Position | Where your brand appears in a list or answer |
| Sentiment | Whether the description of your brand is favourable, neutral or negative |
| Accuracy | Whether the facts stated about your brand are correct and current |
| Consideration set | The group of brands an AI tends to associate with a question |
Read AI share of voice for how presence and share of voice are calculated, and mentions vs citations for why the two are tracked separately.
Which terms describe how it is measured?
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Prompt | The question or instruction given to the assistant |
| Prompt set | The fixed list of buyer questions used for measurement |
| Run | One execution of a prompt; repeated runs reveal variation |
| Baseline | The first measurement used for later comparison |
| Volatility | How much answers change between runs or over time |
| Branded prompt | A question that names your company |
| Unbranded prompt | A category question that does not name any company |
| Source domain | The website an AI answer cites |
Unbranded prompts show discovery: whether you appear when buyers do not know you yet. Branded prompts show description: what AI says once someone asks about you by name. Keep them separate.
Which terms describe how AI finds information?
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Training data | The large body of text a model learned from, with a cut-off date |
| Live retrieval | Searching the web at answer time to fetch current sources |
| Grounding | Basing an answer on retrieved sources rather than memory alone |
| AI crawler | A bot that fetches pages for training, search or user requests |
| Entity | A distinct thing, such as a company or person, that a system can identify |
| Earned media | Coverage you did not pay for, such as articles, reviews and interviews |
| Answer-first content | Content that states the direct answer before the detail |
Is AI visibility the same as GEO or AEO?
They overlap. Generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) usually describe the work of improving content for AI answers. AI visibility describes the outcome you measure: whether and how you appear. Many teams now use AI visibility as the umbrella term because it is easier to explain to leadership. Arrow's comparison of AI visibility and SEO covers how the disciplines fit together.
How should a team use this glossary?
Agree on definitions before buying tools or setting targets. If marketing means "mentions" and the vendor reports "citations", the numbers will not match. Write down which terms you track, how they are calculated and which prompt set they use. Then review them monthly with the quick wins and gap analysis guides.
Sources and editorial scope
Reviewed October 5, 2026. Platform-specific statements link to the documentation beside the claim. The workflows and examples are Arrow AI editorial guidance. AI answers vary between runs and change over time; studies cited here describe their own samples. Fictional scenarios illustrate a method; they are not customer results, measured demand or evidence of ranking gains.
Part of AI Share of Voice. Explore the Arrow AI visibility platform or request a free audit to see how often AI includes your brand today.