# AI Share of Voice - Definition, How to Measure It, Pitfalls > AI share of voice is how often AI assistants name your brand, compared with competitors, for a fixed set of buying questions. How to measure it honestly. Source: https://angeo.dev/ai-share-of-voice-definition/ Updated: 2026-09-26 Canonical definition # AI Share of Voice - Definition **AI share of voice is the share of AI answers, for a fixed set of buying questions, that name your brand - compared with the share that name your competitors.** You ask the same questions to assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, count who is named, and divide. It measures presence in the answer, not traffic or sales. **In one sentence:** out of every answer to the questions that matter for your category, how many mention you, and how many mention the others. ## The formula For one prompt set, one group of assistants and one time window: `share of voice = answers that name your brand / answers that name any tracked brand` A simpler version is often useful too: **mention rate** = answers that name you / all answers. Report both. Share of voice tells you your position against rivals. Mention rate tells you if you are there at all. ## Mention is not one thing A brand can appear in an answer in very different ways. Count them separately, or one number hides three. | Level | What it means | Example | | Mentioned | The name appears anywhere | "Stores like A, B and C sell this." | | Recommended | The assistant suggests you | "For bay windows, try A." | | Cited | Your URL is linked as a source | A numbered source link to your page | Tone matters as well. Being named as "the one to avoid" still counts as a mention. Record positive, neutral or negative next to each one. ## Why the number moves so much AI answers are not stable. The same question asked twice can name different stores. In our [pre-registered study of 458 businesses](https://angeo.dev/ai-readability-and-being-named/), only 42% of the businesses named exactly once in the first run were named at all in the repeat run. So one run is not a measurement. You need: - **A fixed prompt set** - the same questions every time, written before you look at results. - **Repeat runs** - at least two per period, and compare the average. - **The same setup** - same assistants, same models, same mode. - **Grounded and ungrounded runs kept apart** - an answer with live web search and an answer from the model alone are different measurements. The gap between them is often the most useful number. **The prompt set decides the result.** Questions that name your brand will always "find" you. Questions written by the same person who wants a good score will drift toward it. Write the prompts first, keep them fixed, and publish them with the number. ## What share of voice does not tell you - **Not traffic.** Many AI referrals arrive with no referrer and show as Direct. Traffic is measured separately - see [how to track AI search traffic in Magento 2](https://angeo.dev/track-ai-search-traffic-magento-2/). - **Not the cause.** A rising number does not show which change caused it. In our study, four technical signals did not separate often-named businesses from once-named ones. - **Not the whole market.** It covers only your prompt set. A different set of questions gives a different number. ## How it fits with the other measurements | Question | Measure | | Can AI systems read my store? | Technical signals - the [AEO scan](https://angeo.dev/ai-magento-audit/) | | Do assistants name me? | AI share of voice and mention rate | | Do people arrive and buy? | AI referral traffic and attributed orders | The full measurement picture is in [How to measure AI visibility for an online store](https://angeo.dev/measuring-ai-visibility/). ## On Magento 2 [angeo/module-aeo-brand-visibility](https://angeo.dev/modules/aeo-brand-visibility/) runs a prompt set you define across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Groq, records mention, recommendation, citation and tone, and scores named competitors in the same run. It is free and MIT-licensed. Provider API costs are yours. ## Questions ### What is AI share of voice? The share of AI answers, for a fixed set of buying questions, that name your brand, compared with the share that name your competitors. ### How is AI share of voice different from SEO share of voice? SEO share of voice is based on ranking positions in a list of results. AI share of voice is based on whether an assistant names you inside one written answer, where usually only a few brands appear. ### How many prompts do I need? There is no fixed number. Use enough questions to cover the real ways people ask about your category, keep the set fixed, and repeat each run, because answers change between runs. ### Can I compare my number with another tool's number? Only if both use the same prompts, assistants, models and mode. Different setups give numbers that cannot be compared. ### Does a higher share of voice mean more sales? Not directly. It shows presence in answers. Sales depend on traffic, price, trust and checkout, which are measured separately. ## Related - [How to measure AI visibility for an online store](https://angeo.dev/measuring-ai-visibility/) - [AI Commerce Visibility - definition](https://angeo.dev/ai-commerce-visibility-definition/) - [AI assistants named 458 shops - study](https://angeo.dev/ai-readability-and-being-named/) - [Magento AI brand visibility module](https://angeo.dev/magento-2-ai-brand-visibility/) Written 22 September 2026. The 42% repeat figure comes from angeo.dev's pre-registered naming study (home-decor category, three assistants, two runs). Disclosure: we publish the open-source brand-visibility module referenced above. ## More on this topic - [Magento 2 AEO Audit - Free CLI Module](https://angeo.dev/modules/aeo-audit/) - [AEO Score - Definition](https://angeo.dev/aeo-score-definition/) - [Grounding in AI Answers - Definition](https://angeo.dev/grounding-definition/)