Measure AI visibility before expanding the programme.

Separate branded checks from service-discovery questions and factual research. A firm may appear when asked about by name but be absent from a service comparison. Combining those checks into one unexplained percentage can conceal the difference.

Use questions that fit the firm’s real services and audience. Record why each belongs in the sample. Unless you have relevant search-demand data, describe these as selected research prompts rather than high-volume keywords.

Save the exact prompt, observation time, platform and any visible feature or mode. Note relevant location or session context. Preserve the answer capture and the actual cited links where available.

Repeat checks on a defined schedule if the programme calls for a trend. Keep the question set stable or clearly identify changes. An answer can vary between observations, so one appearance does not establish a permanent position.

An answer that names the firm but gives an old office address is a correction priority. Inspect the cited source and the firm’s public profiles. If the answer links to another publisher, record that source rather than assuming the firm’s homepage is responsible.

Improve information that can be supported: service scope, professional identities, contact details and useful original explanations. Buying fabricated endorsements or publishing invented results creates unreliable source material.

Google’s guidance says its existing search requirements and good SEO practices apply to its AI features. There is no special markup that guarantees inclusion. Other assistants have their own experiences and source-selection behaviour.

In our Scarsdale Solicitors case study, the supplied Google generative AI features report shows 58.2K impressions for 1–28 July 2026. The page separately describes owner-reported assistant appearances. That separation prevents a Google metric from becoming an unsupported cross-platform total.

The downloadable CSV gives your team a consistent place to record checks. It contains no prefilled results, market estimates or invented platform scores. Store answer captures in the firm’s approved location and reference them from the log.

• Download the AI visibility observation log (CSV)

Choose AI Visibility for a defined observation and review programme. Choose AI Citations when the priority is the source information behind the answer. The GEO and AEO guide explains how those tasks connect.

A useful next report should show what was checked, what changed and which business questions remain unanswered. It should be possible to inspect the evidence behind every headline.