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AI search glossary.

Plain-English definitions for the terms you'll encounter in AI visibility, AEO and generative search.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

The discipline of optimizing content and brand presence so AI engines include your brand in generated answers.

AI Overviews

Google's AI-generated answer block shown above traditional search results, powered by Gemini.

AI search

Search experiences where an LLM generates a synthesized answer instead of (or above) a list of links.

AI visibility

How often, prominently and accurately AI engines mention or cite your brand in their answers.

AI visibility checker

A tool that scores a domain's presence in AI answers across one or more engines.

AI visibility score

A 0–100 rollup metric combining mention rate, citation rate, rank and sentiment per engine.

Answer engine

An AI assistant that returns a generated answer rather than a list of links (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude).

Brand mention

Any instance of your brand name appearing in an AI-generated answer, with or without a link.

ChatGPT

OpenAI's consumer AI assistant; the largest answer engine by user base in 2026.

Citation

An explicit reference in an AI answer to a source URL.

Citation rate

Share of tracked AI answers that link to URLs you own.

Claude

Anthropic's AI assistant, known for conservative citation behavior and strong enterprise adoption.

Co-mention

When your brand and a competitor are named in the same AI answer.

Engine

Shorthand for a specific AI answer engine (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude).

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

Closely related to AEO; often used for the content-optimization slice of the AEO discipline.

Gemini

Google's AI assistant, powering Google AI Overviews and the Gemini app.

Grounding

An AI engine's process of retrieving real-time web content to back its answer.

Hallucination

A factually wrong claim generated by an AI engine, often presented with high confidence.

LLM (Large Language Model)

The underlying neural network powering an AI engine (e.g. GPT-5, Claude 4, Gemini 2.5).

Mention rate

Share of tracked prompts where the AI names your brand.

Perplexity

A citation-first AI answer engine known for research-grade source linking.

Prompt

The user query sent to an AI engine; the unit of measurement in AI visibility tracking.

Prompt set

The curated collection of prompts a brand tracks to measure its AI visibility.

Rank position

When an AI answer lists multiple brands, the order yours appears (1st, 2nd, etc.).

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

An LLM pattern where the model retrieves source documents before generating an answer.

Sentiment

Whether an AI mention frames your brand positively, neutrally or negatively.

Share of voice (SOV)

Your brand's mention count divided by the total mention count of you plus tracked competitors.

Source pool

The set of websites an AI engine typically draws from when generating answers in your category.

Verbatim capture

Storing the exact AI-generated answer text rather than only aggregate counts - required for sentiment and accuracy review.

Visibility gap

A tracked prompt where competitors are mentioned but your brand is not.

Zero-click answer

An AI-generated answer the user reads without clicking through to any source.

Keep reading

Concept

What is AI visibility?

The plain-English definition and the 5 metrics that matter.

Read

Framework

AEO – Answer Engine Optimization

The 3-layer framework: on-site, off-site, measurement.

Read

Reference

Methodology

Sampling, confidence tiers and engine coverage.

Read