You've heard that people are using ChatGPT and DeepSeek to find product recommendations. But you have no idea whether your brand shows up when they ask. Before you can improve your AI visibility, you need to know where you stand.
Here are five concrete methods to check if AI search engines mention your brand — from quick free checks you can do in five minutes to systematic monitoring that covers every major engine at scale.
Method 1: Direct Manual Queries (Free, 5 Minutes)
The fastest way to check is to ask AI engines directly — but not by typing your brand name. That tells you nothing useful. Instead, ask the way your customers ask.
Open each of these AI engines and run the same query:
Use queries like:
- "What are the best [your category] tools for [your target customer]?"
- "Compare the top [your industry] software"
- "What should I use for [the main problem your product solves]?"
Note whether your brand appears in each response, where it appears (first, middle, or buried at the end), and how it's described.
Limitation: AI engines randomize responses slightly between sessions. A single check may not reflect your typical visibility. Run each query 2-3 times for more reliable results.
Method 2: Systematic Manual Testing Across Query Types (Free, 1-2 Hours)
A single query gives you a data point. A structured set of queries gives you a picture. Cover three query types to get meaningful coverage:
Category queries — "Best [category] tools," "Top [category] platforms for [use case]"
Comparison queries — "[Competitor A] vs [Competitor B] vs alternatives," "Compare [category] options"
Problem queries — "How to [solve the problem your product addresses]," "What's the best way to [specific task]"
Create a simple spreadsheet with engine names as columns and your query list as rows. Mark each cell: mentioned (✓), not mentioned (✗), or mentioned inaccurately (!). After testing 10-15 queries across 3-4 engines, you'll have a clear picture of your AI visibility landscape.
Limitation: This approach breaks down at scale. Running 15 queries × 4 engines × 3 repetitions = 180 manual checks. For ongoing monitoring, you need a more efficient approach.
Method 3: Use RankWeave's Free Brand Check (Free, 2 Minutes)
RankWeave runs a multi-engine scan automatically. Enter your brand name, your industry, and 2-3 queries — RankWeave queries DeepSeek, ChatGPT, and Kimi simultaneously and reports back:
- Mention rate per engine
- Share of voice relative to competitors
- What each AI engine actually said about your brand
- Competitor brands that appeared alongside you
The free tier runs a basic scan without requiring an account. This is the fastest way to get a cross-engine baseline in one place rather than logging in and out of four different AI products.
Method 4: Google Alerts for Brand Mentions in AI-Related Coverage (Free, Ongoing)
While this doesn't directly check what AI engines say, it helps you monitor when journalists, researchers, or bloggers write about your brand in the context of AI tools and recommendations. Content published about you online influences what AI models learn about your brand over time.
Set up Google Alerts for:
- Your brand name + "AI"
- Your brand name + "ChatGPT"
- Your brand name + "recommended"
- Your brand name + competitor names
When your brand gets mentioned in coverage about AI recommendations or in "best of" lists, that's a positive signal for future AI training data. When it's absent from such coverage, that's a gap to address.
Method 5: Third-Party AI Monitoring Tools (Paid, Ongoing)
For sustained visibility tracking, manual methods don't scale. Dedicated AI monitoring platforms automate the query-response-analysis loop and give you trend data over time.
What to look for in an AI monitoring tool:
- Multi-engine coverage — At minimum: ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, and Kimi
- Mention rate tracking — Percentage of relevant queries that return your brand
- Share of voice — Your position relative to competitors
- Trend tracking — How visibility changes week-over-week and month-over-month
- Accuracy monitoring — Alerts when AI describes your brand incorrectly
For a comparison of available tools, see our guide to the best AI brand monitoring tools for 2026.
Which Method Should You Start With?
| Your situation | Recommended method |
|---|---|
| Never checked before | Method 1 (manual direct queries) |
| Want a structured baseline | Method 2 (systematic spreadsheet) |
| Want cross-engine data fast | Method 3 (RankWeave free check) |
| Want to track content coverage | Method 4 (Google Alerts) |
| Need ongoing automated monitoring | Method 5 (dedicated tool) |
Most teams start with Methods 1 or 3 to understand their current position, then graduate to Method 5 once they're actively optimizing and need trend data to measure progress.
What To Do After You Check
Finding that AI engines don't mention you — or mention you inaccurately — is common, especially for newer or smaller brands. The good news: AI visibility is buildable.
The most impactful starting points are your knowledge graph presence (Wikidata entity, Schema markup on your site) and your content authority (comprehensive guides in your niche that AI engines can cite). For a step-by-step improvement roadmap, see our AI search optimization checklist — a 70+ item guide covering everything from technical foundations to brand signals.
The brands getting recommended by AI engines today are the ones that gave AI models clear, structured, consistent information about who they are and what they do. That process starts with knowing where you stand right now.