The short answer
A strong AI visibility report shows which assistants name you and which name your rivals, the exact prompts and sources behind each answer, and a ranked list of fixes you can act on. It should cover ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, confirm the crawlers can reach your site, and repeat on the same terms so you can track progress.
What a good report includes
A useful report answers one question. When someone asks an AI assistant about your category, does your business get named, and why or why not. It should show the exact prompts tested, the answers returned, and whether you appeared. It should name the competitors that showed up instead. Everything else in the report exists to explain those results and to tell you what to change next.
- The prompts tested, in the words a real buyer would use.
- The answers returned by each assistant, copied in full.
- Whether you appeared, and in what position.
- The competitors named instead of you.
- The sources cited behind each answer.
- A ranked list of fixes, most valuable first.
Read the report and you should know three things within a minute. Where you stand today, who is beating you, and the first three fixes worth making. If a report only lists scores without naming the prompts or the sources behind each answer, it cannot be acted on. Detail matters here because AI answers change based on wording, so vague summaries hide the real picture.
Which assistants and crawlers to track
Track the assistants your buyers actually use. That means ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot at a minimum. Each one pulls from different sources, so a report that only checks one tool tells you almost nothing. The report should also name the crawlers that feed these systems, because if they cannot reach your pages, you will never be quoted no matter how good your content is.
- GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot from OpenAI, which feed ChatGPT.
- Google-Extended, which governs use in Google AI features.
- PerplexityBot, which feeds Perplexity answers.
- Bingbot, which underpins Microsoft Copilot.
A report should confirm each crawler is allowed in your robots.txt file and that your key pages return cleanly. It should note the date it checked, because access rules and AI models both change often. If you blocked one of these crawlers last year to save server load, the report should flag it plainly, since that single line can keep you out of every answer.
How it should measure you against rivals
The report must compare you to the businesses that keep getting named. For each test prompt, it should record who appeared, in what order, and which sources the assistant cited. This shows whether you are absent, mentioned in passing, or recommended first. A share of voice figure across all prompts gives you one honest number to track over time, as long as the underlying prompts stay the same.
Citations are the part most reports miss. When an assistant recommends a rival, it usually leans on a handful of pages, a directory listing, a review site, or a strong article. The report should list those exact sources so you can see what the model trusts. Knowing that a competitor gets pulled from one well placed page tells you precisely where your own gap sits.
Numbers alone will mislead you if the prompts are cherry picked. A trustworthy report shows the full prompt set, including the ones where you did well and the ones where you did badly. It should group prompts by buyer intent, such as comparison questions, best in category questions, and problem led questions, because each type rewards a different kind of page.
What actions it should recommend
A report that ends at findings is only half done. The last section should turn results into a short ordered list of fixes, most valuable first. Each action should name the page to change, the reason, and the outcome you are aiming for. You should be able to hand this list to a colleague or a writer and have work start the same week, without another meeting.
Fix the access
Unblock any crawler that cannot reach your pages, then confirm your key pages load cleanly for each assistant.
Close the content gap
Build the plain answer pages the assistants reward, matched to the prompts where you were absent.
Earn the trusted sources
Target the directories, reviews and articles the models already cite for your rivals.
Good actions are specific and testable. Rather than telling you to improve authority, a strong report might say to publish a clear comparison page, to earn a listing on a source the model already cites, or to add plain answers near the top of an existing page. Each fix should be something you can check again in the next report to prove it moved the result.
How often you should get one
Run a full report at the start, then repeat it on a regular cycle, usually monthly or quarterly. AI models update often, and answers can shift within weeks even when your site has not changed. A single snapshot tells you where you stand once. A repeated report tells you whether your work is paying off and whether a rival has just overtaken you in the answers.
Consistency is what makes the numbers mean anything. Keep the same prompts, the same assistants, and the same competitors between reports, so a change reflects the market and not a change in method. Note the date and the models tested each time. When you compare last month to this month on the same terms, you can see progress clearly and defend the spend to anyone who asks.
There is a limit to how often it helps. Checking daily wastes time, because AI answers carry some natural variation and you need a few weeks to see a real trend. A monthly cadence suits most businesses, with a lighter check after any big content push. Match the rhythm to how fast you can actually make changes, since a report you never act on is just paperwork.