Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about AI visibility, how AI engines rank your brand, and how Ninar AI helps you get recommended.

What is AI visibility?

AI visibility measures how often and how favorably AI engines mention your brand when users ask purchase-intent questions. When someone asks ChatGPT "best plumber in Austin" or Perplexity "top CRM for startups," the AI either recommends your business — or your competitor's.

Unlike traditional SEO (which optimizes for Google's blue links), AI visibility is about being present in AI-generated answers across engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode. You can check your brand's AI visibility using our GEO Engine or start with a quick scan via Visibility Autopilot.

Why does AI visibility matter for my business?

58% of consumers now use AI for purchase research (Gartner, 2025). Organic click-through rates have dropped 40% since Google launched AI Overviews. Consumers increasingly trust AI-generated recommendations over traditional search results.

If AI engines don't mention your brand, you're invisible to a growing segment of buyers. Your competitors who are being recommended will capture that demand instead. Run a free scan to see where you stand.

How is AI visibility different from SEO?

SEO optimizes your website to rank higher in traditional search engine results (blue links). AI visibility ensures your brand is mentioned in AI-generated answers — a fundamentally different mechanism.

AI engines don't just crawl your website — they synthesize information from across the web, reviews, knowledge bases, and structured data to decide which brands to recommend. This requires a different strategy called Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Our AEO Engine helps you generate AI-optimized content, and the SEO Audit checks your website's technical readiness.

  • SEO: Rank #1 on Google for "best CRM software" — check with SEO Audit
  • AEO/AI Visibility: Get ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to recommend your CRM — check with GEO Engine

Which AI engines does Ninar AI scan?

We scan 12 AI engines simultaneously:

  • Google Gemini — Google's conversational AI
  • ChatGPT — OpenAI's assistant (GPT-4o)
  • Claude — Anthropic's AI assistant
  • Perplexity — AI-powered search engine
  • Google AI Overviews — AI summaries in Google Search
  • Google AI Mode — Google's full-AI search experience
  • Microsoft Copilot — Bing-integrated AI
  • Meta AI — Meta's conversational AI
  • Grok — xAI's real-time AI
  • DeepSeek — Open-source reasoning AI
  • Llama — Meta's open-source LLM
  • Mistral — European open-source AI

Each engine may recommend different brands for the same query. We test all of them so you get a complete picture. Try it yourself with a Visibility Autopilot scan or dive deeper with the GEO Engine.

How is the AI visibility score calculated?

Your score is a 4-signal composite calculated deterministically (not by AI):

  • Mention (40%) — Is your brand mentioned in the AI's answer?
  • Position (30%) — Where in the response does your brand appear? First mention scores highest.
  • Citation (20%) — Does the AI link to or cite your website as a source?
  • Sentiment (10%) — Is the mention positive, neutral, or negative?

Scores range from 0 to 100. We aggregate across all engines and prompts to give you a single, reliable score.

Deterministic scoring — no AI randomness

How often should I run scans?

AI engine outputs change as their models are updated and new content is ingested. We recommend:

  • Weekly scans for active monitoring and score tracking
  • After content changes — run a scan after publishing new AEO content, blog posts, or schema markup to measure impact
  • Monthly scans at minimum to track your baseline and competitor movements

With AI Autopilot, scans can be scheduled to run automatically on your preferred cadence.

Why does my score change between scans?

AI engines are non-deterministic — even with the same prompt, they may produce slightly different answers each time. This is normal. We minimize jitter with several techniques:

  • Temperature=0 across all engine calls for maximum consistency
  • Rolling average trendlines on your history charts to smooth out noise
  • Multi-prompt aggregation — your score is averaged across many prompts, not based on a single query

Focus on the trend over time, not individual scan-to-scan differences. A consistent upward trend means your AI visibility is genuinely improving.

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?

GEO is the discipline of optimizing your brand's presence in AI-generated answers. Think of it as "SEO for AI engines." While SEO targets search engine rankings, GEO targets the content AI engines synthesize when answering user questions.

Ninar AI's GEO Engine scans multiple AI engines with industry-specific prompts and measures how visible your brand is across all of them. Pair it with the AEO Engine to generate optimized content that improves your scores.

What is the proprietary prompt library?

Our prompt library contains 21 million+ proprietary prompts covering 82 industries across 609 cities. These are the exact types of questions your potential customers ask AI engines.

Prompts are structured as: industry × service × modifier × city × intent. For example:

  • "Best window cleaning service in San Antonio with free estimates"
  • "Top-rated family dentist near downtown Austin accepting new patients"
  • "sabse accha plumber Mumbai mein kahan milega" (Hinglish)
  • "mejor dentista en Houston con buenas reseñas" (Spanish)
  • "najlepszy dentysta w London blisko mnie" (Polish)
  • "cel mai bun instalator in Birmingham" (Romanian)

We cover 20 intent types — discovery, transactional, conversational, voice search, reviews, pricing, alternatives, safety/risk, DIY vs professional, trust signals, availability, specialty/niche, and more. 609+ cities globally, 5 languages — English, Spanish (52 US Hispanic markets), Hinglish (92 Indian cities), Polish (18 UK cities), and Romanian (15 UK cities). The library is continuously updated as new industries and search patterns emerge.

21M+ prompts · 82 industries · 609+ cities · 5 languages · 20 intents

How does competitor detection work?

When we scan AI engines for your brand, we also extract every competitor mentioned in the same AI responses. Our three-layer detection system ensures accuracy:

  • Layer 1: Regex extraction — Pattern-based extraction of potential brand names from AI responses
  • Layer 2: LLM validation — A fast AI model (Gemini Flash) verifies each candidate is a real business name, not a generic phrase
  • Layer 3: Deterministic filters — Skip lists remove known false positives (service descriptions, headings, generic terms)

You get a ranked list of your top 10 competitors per scan, showing how often AI engines recommend them alongside or instead of you. See it in action in the GEO Engine or Local Discovery.

What industries do you cover?

We cover 82 industries spanning both local services and national/online businesses. Examples include:

  • Home services: Plumbing, HVAC, roofing, window cleaning, pest control, landscaping, electrical
  • Healthcare: Dentistry, dermatology, veterinary, chiropractic, mental health
  • Legal: Personal injury, family law, immigration, estate planning
  • Real estate: Residential, commercial, property management
  • Food & hospitality: Restaurants, catering, hotels, event planning
  • SaaS & tech: CRM, project management, marketing automation, cybersecurity
  • E-commerce: Fashion, beauty, health supplements, pet products

Each industry has tailored prompt templates covering the specific services, modifiers, and intent patterns buyers in that space actually search for.

What is city-level AI visibility?

City-level AI visibility is our unique differentiator. When someone asks ChatGPT "best plumber in Austin," they get completely different recommendations than "best plumber in Dallas." AI engines are location-aware.

Other AI visibility platforms only scan at a national level. Ninar AI's Local Discovery scans across 609 cities — including neighborhoods within major metros — so local businesses can see exactly how visible they are in their specific market.

No other platform on the market offers city-level AI visibility scanning.

Industry first — nobody else does this

Which cities do you cover?

We currently cover 609 cities across multiple regions:

  • United States — Major metros including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Miami, and more
  • United Kingdom — London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and more
  • Europe — Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, and more
  • India — Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and more
  • Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia & more — Dubai, São Paulo, Singapore, and growing

Additionally, 52 US cities get Spanish-language prompt variants to cover the Hispanic market, 92 Indian cities get Hinglish (Hindi-English) prompts, and 18 UK cities get Polish-language prompts while 15 UK cities get Romanian-language prompts — targeting the largest non-English speaking communities in the UK. Ninar AI is the only AI visibility platform with native multilingual support across 5 languages.

I'm a local business. Why should I care about AI visibility?

Local businesses are most affected by the AI shift. When someone asks "best dentist near me" to ChatGPT or Google AI Mode, the AI picks 3-5 businesses to recommend. If you're not one of them, you don't exist to that customer.

Traditional local SEO (Google Maps, GMB optimization) is still important — but AI-generated answers are increasingly replacing map pack results. 85% of local businesses have no AI visibility strategy, which means early movers have a massive advantage. Start with a Local Discovery scan to see how you rank in your city.

What is AI Autopilot?

AI Autopilot is our end-to-end automation engine. With one click, it runs the entire visibility improvement loop:

  • Scan — Probe all 12 AI engines across your selected cities
  • Score — Calculate your 4-signal visibility score and identify gaps
  • Generate — Auto-create AEO-optimized content, schema markup, and social posts
  • Publish — Push content to Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook
  • Monitor — Track score changes and report on ROI per post

No other AI visibility tool goes from scan to publish. Competitors show you a score; we fix it.

Scan → Generate → Publish → Monitor in 1 click

What content does Autopilot generate?

Based on your scan results and identified visibility gaps, Autopilot can generate:

  • AEO-optimized articles — Blog posts structured for AI engines to cite and reference
  • Schema markup — FAQ, HowTo, LocalBusiness, and Organization schema to feed AI knowledge
  • Social posts — Platform-optimized captions for Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube
  • AI-generated images & videos — Via Cognitive Videos, our integrated AI media engine

All content is generated with your brand voice, industry context, and visibility gaps in mind. Head to Visibility Autopilot to try it.

Can I review content before it's published?

Yes. Autopilot can run in two modes:

  • Assisted mode — Content is generated and queued for your review. You approve before publishing.
  • Autonomous mode — The full loop runs automatically. Best for teams who want hands-off execution after initial setup.

You can switch between modes at any time. Most users start with assisted mode and move to autonomous once they're comfortable with the output quality.

What is Cognitive Videos?

Cognitive Videos is our flagship AI generative platform for creating images and videos. It's integrated directly into Ninar AI so you can generate branded visual content and push it to social channels without leaving the dashboard.

Use cases include: social media video posts, product showcases, testimonial graphics, branded infographics, and short-form video content for Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Which social channels can I publish to?

Ninar AI supports direct publishing to:

Each campaign includes scheduling intelligence — optimal posting times and best days based on industry benchmarks — to maximize engagement and ROI per post.

Does Ninar AI also do email and SMS campaigns?

Yes. Ninar AI includes a full email and SMS campaign suitecontact management, template builder, automations, A/B testing, and analytics. While AI visibility and content distribution are our core focus, the campaign suite gives you a complete marketing stack in one platform.

This means you can replace tools like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or Twilio alongside your AI visibility tools — one subscription instead of five. Get started at Email Campaigns or SMS Campaigns.

What is Mia?

Mia is Ninar AI's built-in AI assistant. She can help you navigate the platform, interpret your visibility scores, suggest content strategies, and answer questions about your scan results — all within the dashboard.

Is there an API?

API access is available on Business ($79/mo) and Agency ($199/mo) plans. The REST API allows you to trigger scans, retrieve visibility scores, pull competitor data, and integrate Ninar AI into your existing tools or client dashboards. See Pricing for full plan details.

The Agency plan also includes white-label capabilities — offer AI visibility scanning under your own brand to your clients.

Is there a free plan?

Yes. The Free plan includes 1 scan per month with 2 AI engines via Local Discovery. It's designed to let you see your AI visibility score and understand the value before committing. No credit card required. See all plans at Pricing.

What plan do I need for AI Autopilot?

AI Autopilot is available on the Growth plan ($79/mo) and above. The Growth plan includes 15 scans/month, Autopilot, AI video generation via Cognitive Videos, and publishing to all social channels. Compare plans.

Can I run scans for multiple brands?

Multi-brand support is available on Business ($79/mo) and above. You can register multiple brands in Local Discovery, track their visibility separately, compare competitor landscapes per brand, and manage them all from one dashboard.

The Agency plan ($199/mo) adds unlimited scans and white-label capabilities — perfect for marketing agencies managing multiple client brands.

Do you offer annual pricing?

Yes. Annual plans come with a 20% discount compared to monthly billing. You can switch to annual billing from your account settings at any time.

What happens if I exceed my scan limit?

If you reach your monthly scan limit, you can either upgrade your plan or purchase additional scans as one-time AI credits. Your existing data and history are always accessible regardless of your scan balance.

Still have questions?

Run a free AI visibility scan and see how AI engines rank your brand — or reach us at hello@ninar.ai.

Run Free Scan Local Discovery