Howseen Academy › Module 2: Measure your AI visibility
Howseen Academy · Lesson 2.2
Read the four numbers of AI visibility
Visibility, share of voice, sentiment and position each answer a different question. Read them together and they tell you exactly what to fix.
By Raphaël Aubry, founder of Howseen AI · Updated By the end of this lesson, you can
- Explain what each of the four numbers measures
- Read them together to find the real problem
- Tell a real trend from day-to-day noise
Number 1
What does AI visibility measure?
Visibility is the share of AI answers that name your brand. If 12 of 60 answers name you, your visibility is 20%. It answers one question: do buyers hear about you?
The example above is illustrative: 20 questions asked to 3 engines make 60 answers. Visibility only counts whether your brand is named, not where or how. It is the first number to watch, because a brand that is not named cannot be chosen.
Researchers measure visibility in AI answers in a similar way. The KDD 2024 GEO paper counts the share of an answer's words tied to a source, weighted by how early they appear (Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024).
Number 2
What does share of voice measure?
Share of voice compares you with your tracked competitors: your mentions divided by all the mentions of you and those competitors. It answers: when AI names brands, how often is it you?
Illustrative example: across your answers you are named 12 times and your three competitors 36 times in total. Your share of voice is 12 divided by 48, so 25%.
Share of voice depends on which competitors you track. Add a strong competitor and it drops, even if nothing changed in the answers. Howseen re-reads your saved answers with your current competitor list, so your trend stays comparable after you change it.
Number 3
What does sentiment measure?
Sentiment is how positively the AI describes you when it names you. Being named with a warning is not the same as being recommended.
In Howseen, the Sentiment score is out of 100 and is only computed on answers that name you. A mention with no positive or negative words counts as 60, a mildly positive mention. The Sentiment card on the Overview compares you and your competitors on a scale from -9 to +9. Sentiment is available on the Pro and Business plans.
Number 4
What does position measure?
Position is your average rank among the brands named in an answer: 1 means you are named first. A short list is read from the top, so position matters.
Position is only counted on answers that name you. A visibility of 40% with an average position of 3.5 is a different situation from 40% with a position of 1.2: in the first case you are on the list but rarely the first choice.
Read them together
How do you read the four numbers together?
Find the pattern, then the cause. Each combination points to a different fix, from new pages to third-party mentions to correcting facts.
| What you see | What it usually means | What to do first |
|---|---|---|
| Low visibility, competitors high | You are missing from the pages AI reads | Publish pages for those questions and get listed on cited sources |
| Good visibility, low share of voice | You are named, but competitors are named more often | Win the comparison and alternatives questions |
| Named, but low position | You are on the list, rarely first | Make your strengths explicit and consistent on every source |
| Mixed or low sentiment | AI repeats a complaint or an old fact | Find the source, answer it, refresh old pages and review profiles |
| Strong on one engine, weak on another | Each engine reads different sources | Work engine by engine, with its own cited sources |
Noise vs trend
How do you tell a real trend from noise?
AI answers are written fresh each time, so the same question can name different brands from one run to the next. Judge trends over several runs, not one day.
“AI Mode and AI Overviews may use different models and techniques, so the set of responses and links they show will vary.”
That is why Howseen asks every question again on a schedule: every 3 days on Starter and Pro, every day on Business.
- Compare periods, not single runs: last 7 days against the 30 days before.
- Look at a change that holds over at least two or three runs before you act on it.
- When you change your list of questions or competitors, expect a step in the curve that is not a real gain or loss.
Why it matters: When a Google AI summary appears, people click a classic result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and click a link inside the summary in 1% of visits (Pew Research Center, 900 U.S. adults, July 2025). About 18% of the Google searches in that study showed an AI summary, and 88% of those summaries cited three or more sources.
Questions, answered
What is a good AI visibility score?+
There is no universal benchmark: it depends on your category and on your questions. Compare yourself with your tracked competitors on the same questions, and watch your own trend.
Why did my share of voice drop when I added a competitor?+
Because share of voice divides your mentions by the mentions of every tracked competitor. A new competitor adds mentions to the total. Howseen re-reads old answers with your current list so the trend stays comparable.
Is visibility the same as traffic?+
No. Visibility counts how often you are named in answers. Traffic is the visits that follow. Many people read the answer and never click, so visibility comes first.
Why do my numbers change from one day to the next?+
AI answers are generated fresh each time and engines search differently. Look at trends over several runs before you act.
Which number should I watch first?+
Visibility on unbranded buyer questions. If you are not named, nothing else matters yet. Then share of voice against your main competitors.
See who AI recommends instead of you
Howseen runs your buyer questions on the AI engines every few days, shows who gets named instead of you, and writes the pages that close the gap.
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