CaretHow to track your brand in AI answers: our weekly check
On 4 October our marketer bot asked ChatGPT "what is caretbot?" It said it wasn't finding a well-established product by that name. Google's AI Overview, asked the same thing the same morning, gave a full and correct answer about us, with three links to our site.
Same question, same day, two different worlds. That was the first row of a sheet we've filled in every week since. Three weeks in, the score hasn't moved: Caret is named in 1 of 15 answers. I'd still keep the check, because it's the only thing that told us why.
Why a fixed list beats checking when you remember
Most people check their brand in ChatGPT the way they check their own name on Google: once in a while, with whatever wording comes to mind. Every result is a one-off, so you can't tell whether the answer changed or you did.
A weekly check fixes that. Same questions, same settings, same day, so a change in the answer means something.
The method
Pick five questions
One branded question, and four that a buyer would type before they know your name. Ours:
- what is caretbot
- tools to run AI agents as teammates for a small team
- AI bots in Slack that ask for approval before acting
- how to run Claude Code and Codex agents for a team
- AI agents with their own cloud computer
The branded one tells you whether engines know who you are. The other four tell you whether you're in the conversation at all. If you need a new question later, add a sixth row. Don't edit the old ones.
Fix the settings
Write down exactly how each engine is asked, and keep it the same:
| Engine | How we ask | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Logged out, web search on, a new chat per question | It leans on Bing. If Bing doesn't have your pages, it can't name you. |
| Google AI Overview | hl=en&gl=us&pws=0 so results aren't personalized, US IP |
Also log the organic rank for the branded question. |
| Perplexity | In the browser, logged out | A Cloudflare page has blocked us three weeks running. We log a web search as a marked stand-in. |
Log the same columns every week
For each question and engine: named or not, position (1 = first product named), the products named instead of you, and the sources cited. People skip the sources column, and it matters most. An AI answer is mostly a summary of a few pages. If you know which pages, you know where you need to be.
| Question | ChatGPT | Google AIO | Perplexity | Sources cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. what is caretbot | - | Named, #1 | - (stand-in: web search) | caretbot.com (3 links) |
| 2. tools to run AI agents as teammates for a small team | - | - | - (stand-in: web search) | "Best tools" lists, Reddit threads |
| 3. AI bots in Slack that ask for approval before acting | - | - | - (stand-in: web search) | Directories, "best tools" lists |
| 4. how to run Claude Code and Codex agents for a team | - | - | - (stand-in: web search) | Reddit threads, directories |
| 5. AI agents with their own cloud computer | - | - | - (stand-in: web search) | "Best of" lists, directories |
Turn it into three to-dos
End every check with at most three fixes, each with an owner and a date. A check without to-dos is a report nobody acts on.
What three weeks taught us
| Week | Score | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 4 Oct (baseline) | 1/15 | Google AIO answers the branded question well. ChatGPT can't find us. Bing has 0 caretbot.com pages. A web search reads "caretbot" as the account behind a browser, because of an old repo in our GitHub org. |
| 12 Oct | 1/15 | Google's answer now quotes our price, taken from the live site that week. GitHub org renamed. Bing still 0. |
| 18 Oct | 1/15 | Google's AI answer now describes us as "bots that fix SEO," because our SEO blog post is its main source. Organic search reads "caretbot" as a typo for "chatbot," and we slipped from #1 to #4. Bing still 0. |
Fix what the engines read before you write more content. ChatGPT search leans on Bing. While Bing has none of our pages, no blog post will get us into a ChatGPT answer.
Your branded answer is only as good as its sources. When Google's main source became one blog post, its description of the whole company became that post. A plain "What is Caret?" block on the homepage, with matching structured data, gives it a better source.
The generic questions are won by lists and threads. For questions 2 to 5, answers cite "best tools for X" articles, Reddit threads and directories far more than product pages. The to-do there is getting onto the pages that get cited.
An example: our week 3 run, step by step
This is our own run from Sunday 18 October.
It's a schedule, so nobody types the ask. The job reads like this: "Run the weekly AI-answer check. Same five questions, same settings. Log the results in the tracking file, compare with last week, and end with three to-dos with owners and dates."
What came back was a filled table for all 15 answers, a sources list per question, and a comparison with week 2. The headline was "still 1/15," and the details were the useful part: the branded answer drifting toward "SEO tool," Google reading our name as "chatbot," and seven new products named for our category questions. It proposed three to-dos:
- Import the site into Bing Webmaster Tools from Search Console and submit the sitemap. Owner: me, with the engineer adding an IndexNow key.
- Add a "What is Caret?" block high on the homepage with a matching
alternateNameof "caretbot" in the structured data. Owner: the engineer. - Publish the approvals blog post and pitch two "best of" lists that answers cite for question 5. Owner: the marketer.
The Bing ask went to our engineer bot on 19 October. By 21 October it had shipped IndexNow, so every new page pings Bing on deploy, and the Bing Webmaster import was the last step left. Next week's check will show whether it moved.
Still 1/15. Branded answer drifting to "SEO tool". Bing: 0 pages. Organic search reads "caretbot" as "chatbot".
To-dos: 1. Import the site into Bing Webmaster Tools and submit the sitemap. Owner: you, with the engineer adding an IndexNow key. 2. Add a "What is Caret?" block and alternateName "caretbot". Owner: engineer. 3. Publish the approvals post and pitch two "best of" lists. Owner: marketer. All due before next Sunday's check.
Send the Bing ask to the engineer bot.
On it. IndexNow will ping Bing on every deploy.
Reconstructed from our own weekly check, shortened.
How to set it up in Caret
Our marketer bot runs this check. It works in its own browser on its own computer, so it can search the way a person does.
- Sign up at app.caretbot.com. The bot works on its own computer in Caret Cloud, so the check runs with your laptop closed. Team starts with a 7-day trial.
- Create a bot for SEO and write its job: your five questions, word for word, the engine settings, and the columns to log.
- Add a schedule, for example "Sunday 11:00, run the AI-answer check."
- Save the method as a skill, so the steps stay the same each week.
- Let memory carry last week's results, so each run compares instead of starting over.
- Ask it follow-ups in the thread:
- "Which sources were cited for question 3, and which of them could list us?"
- "Ask our engineer bot whether the IndexNow key is live, and recheck Bing."
- "Put the last three weeks in a sheet and attach it."
- Approve anything it wants to post or send, like a pitch email to a list author, from the card in the thread.
FAQ
How do I check if ChatGPT mentions my company? Ask it the same few questions every week, logged out, with web search on and a new chat each time. Log whether you're named and which sources it cites. If it never finds you, check Bing for your pages first.
Why does Google's AI Overview mention my brand but ChatGPT doesn't? They read different indexes. ChatGPT search leans on Bing. In our case Google answered our branded question well while Bing had zero pages of our site.
How often should I track AI search visibility? Weekly is enough. Answers move slowly, and what you'll mostly be measuring is your own fixes. Same day, same questions, same settings.
For the bot that runs our check, see the AI SEO agent. Put a bot on it: start your 7-day trial or download the Mac app.