Search AI monitors how a business appears across AI-powered search platforms such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. Instead of only watching traditional rankings, it helps agencies understand whether a business is even being surfaced in AI-generated recommendations.
That makes it a new visibility layer. A business can be strong in traditional search and still be weak in AI-generated discovery. Search AI helps expose that gap.
What Search AI is
#When someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation, that AI may or may not mention the business you are trying to grow. Search AI runs those kinds of questions across multiple AI platforms and measures whether the business appears, how prominently it appears, and which competitors are being surfaced instead.
Steps and details
- Whether the business was mentioned
- Approximate position in the response
- How confident the system was in the match
- What competitors were mentioned instead
- Which source signals the AI appeared to rely on
- An overall visibility score across platforms
Who can use it
#From the agency side, Search AI is available when the platform has the right AI provider configured. For customers, access is controlled through the custom plan feature settings, just like other premium feature controls.
Steps and details
- Use
Enabledwhen customers should access Search AI freely - Use
Upgradewhen you want the feature visible but gated - Use
Hiddenwhen you want it removed from the customer interface
OpenRouter is required
#Search AI specifically requires OpenRouter. OpenAI alone cannot power it because Search AI needs access to multiple AI ecosystems through one provider layer.
Steps and details
The OpenRouter provider does not need to be your default AI provider. It simply needs to exist and be marked ready so Search AI can use it.
A common setup is OpenAI as the default for everyday AI features and OpenRouter connected alongside it specifically for Search AI.
Set up Search AI
#Start by making sure an OpenRouter provider is connected and ready. Then go to Dashboard -> Search AI and work through the setup wizard.
Steps and details · includes a table
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| Welcome | What Search AI does and what it costs |
| Your Business | Name, category, location, description, competitors, plus optional AI generation of a richer query profile |
| Locations | Per-location settings, or one shared set for all locations |
| Launch | Review the summary and start the first scan |
Step · What to do
- Welcome
- What Search AI does and what it costs
- Your Business
- Name, category, location, description, competitors, plus optional AI generation of a richer query profile
- Locations
- Per-location settings, or one shared set for all locations
- Launch
- Review the summary and start the first scan
Business details matter
#The better the business information is, the better the generated queries are. A vague setup creates vague scans. A detailed setup creates a much stronger picture of how the business is actually represented in AI-driven search.
Steps and details
- Use the real business name as it appears publicly
- Choose the clearest business category
- Add the city, region, and country unless the business is online-only
- Write a useful business description with specialties and positioning
- Add competitors where comparison matters
How query generation works
#Search AI can generate query themes automatically from the business profile. This helps the scan cover direct-brand questions, discovery questions, comparison questions, and quality or value-focused searches.
Steps and details · includes a table
You can also add your own custom questions when you want to test something more specific.
| Theme | What it tests |
|---|---|
| Direct mention | Whether the AI knows the business by name |
| General discovery | Whether the business appears in broad category searches |
| Recommendation | Whether the business is actively recommended |
| Comparison | Whether it appears in side-by-side style prompts |
| Quality focused | Whether strong-review framing surfaces the business |
| Value focused | Whether affordability-oriented prompts surface the business |
| Specialty | Whether niche or service-specific prompts surface the business |
Theme · What it tests
- Direct mention
- Whether the AI knows the business by name
- General discovery
- Whether the business appears in broad category searches
- Recommendation
- Whether the business is actively recommended
- Comparison
- Whether it appears in side-by-side style prompts
- Quality focused
- Whether strong-review framing surfaces the business
- Value focused
- Whether affordability-oriented prompts surface the business
- Specialty
- Whether niche or service-specific prompts surface the business
How Search AI scans work
#Once launched, the system generates the queries, sends them across multiple AI platforms through OpenRouter, repeats them enough times to measure consistency, then analyzes the resulting responses.
Steps and details
The goal is not just to detect one lucky mention. It is to measure how consistently the business appears across the query set and across different AI ecosystems.
- Queries are generated from the business profile
- The same query themes are tested across multiple AI platforms
- Multiple runs per platform help measure consistency
- The responses are analysed for mentions, rank, competitors, and source signals
Which platforms are checked
#Steps and details · includes a table
| Platform | Typical model role |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OpenAI model access through OpenRouter |
| Google Gemini | Google model access through OpenRouter |
| Perplexity | Perplexity model access through OpenRouter |
Platform · Typical model role
- ChatGPT
- OpenAI model access through OpenRouter
- Google Gemini
- Google model access through OpenRouter
- Perplexity
- Perplexity model access through OpenRouter
What the metrics actually mean
#The dashboard turns raw AI responses into metrics the agency can use. The most important one is the overall visibility score, but platform-specific scores, theme-level performance, competitor visibility, and consistency are what explain that number.
Steps and details
- Overall visibility score
- Platform breakdown
- Theme performance
- Competitor analysis
- Source analysis
- Representation accuracy
How to read the dashboard
#The visibility score gives a top-line summary, but the real value comes from looking underneath it. A business might be strong on direct-brand prompts and weak on discovery prompts, or strong on one AI platform and weak on another.
Steps and details
That is what turns Search AI into an actionable agency tool instead of just an interesting metric.
Scheduling and historical tracking
#Search AI re-scans automatically once a week (Mondays), and you can trigger a refresh manually from the dashboard. Historical scans let you compare where visibility is improving and where it is slipping.
Steps and details
This is useful for reporting because it gives the client a before-and-after narrative rather than a single isolated snapshot.
Multi-location use
#If an organization has multiple locations, Search AI can be used with location-specific context and competitors. That matters because AI visibility can vary by city, by branch, and by how clearly each location is represented online.
What usually improves AI visibility
#A strong Google Business Profile
Steps and details
- Review volume and recency
- Presence on multiple trusted platforms
- A better website and stronger local SEO signals
- Consistent business information across the web
- Active review responses and strong reputation signals
- Structured data and clearer entity signals