Which AI-visibility numbers are worth reporting
Also known as: GEO KPIs, AI visibility metrics
Four numbers that survive scrutiny — presence rate, share of voice, citation share and sentiment — and the vanity metrics that do not.
Last revised 2026-09-07. Also available as markdown — request this URL with Accept: text/markdown.
In plain English
The temptation with a new channel is to report whatever is easy to count. Resist it: a number that cannot be acted on will be asked about once, then quietly ignored, and it takes the credible numbers down with it.
Four are worth putting in front of a board, and each answers a different question a board actually asks.
How to fix / set it up
- Report presence rate and share of voice together — one without the other misleads in a predictable direction.
- Separate citation share from mention share, and act on them differently.
- Record how you are described, not only whether you appear.
- Put the sample size next to every number, and a range around it.
The technical detail
**Presence rate** — the share of answers naming you at all. The floor: you cannot take share of an answer you are absent from. Track it per prompt group, because an average across stages hides where you disappear.
**Share of voice** — your naming as a fraction of all brand naming. This is the competitive number, and it needs the competitor set to be meaningful.
**Citation share** — how often your own pages appear as cited sources, as opposed to somebody else's page mentioning you. The two behave differently: you can be named often while every citation points at a review site, which tells you where to invest.
**Sentiment and accuracy** — how you are described when you are named. A brand named in every answer as "the expensive option" has a positioning problem that a visibility chart will never show.
Vanity metrics to leave out: total mentions without a denominator, a single-day score with no range, "AI traffic" presented as the size of the channel (it is a floor, see ai-referral-traffic), and any precise AI Overview share, which nobody can measure from outside.
FAQ
What is a good share of voice?
There is no absolute answer, which is why the trend and the competitor comparison are the report. An absolute target invites gaming the prompt set.
Can I tie this to revenue?
Not directly and not honestly. It is an awareness measure at the moment of decision, so treat it like brand tracking: leading, directional, and not attributable per deal.