← Blog · 2026-10-17 · 3 min read

How to Check if ChatGPT Recommends Your Product (Free, 10-Minute Method)

More and more buyers start their search by asking an AI assistant: "What's the best invoicing tool for freelancers?" or "What are some alternatives to Mailchimp?" The assistant replies with a shortlist of three to five products. If yours isn't on it, that buyer may never visit your site.

Google gives you Search Console. AI assistants give you nothing. Here's how to check your AI visibility yourself in about 10 minutes, and what to look for.

Step 1: Write the questions your buyers actually ask

Don't search for your own brand name. Asking "What is Acme?" only tells you whether the model knows you exist. Buyers don't know you yet. They ask category questions.

Write 5 to 10 questions in these four patterns:

1. Best-for: "What's the best [category] for [audience]?"
2. Alternatives: "What are good alternatives to [biggest competitor]?"
3. Price-sensitive: "What's an affordable [category] under $30 a month?"
4. Use-case: "Which [category] works best for [specific job]?"

Example for an email tool: "What's the best email marketing tool for a solo creator?", "Alternatives to ConvertKit?", "Cheapest email tool with automations?"

Step 2: Ask more than one assistant

Ask every question in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. Use a logged-out or fresh session if you can, because history and memory can skew the results.

Different assistants often give different answers. Perplexity and ChatGPT's search mode pull live web results. Claude, without search, relies mostly on what it learned in training. Gemini is grounded in Google. Being recommended by one assistant doesn't mean you're recommended by all of them.

Step 3: Record four things for every answer

Make a simple table with one row per question and assistant:

• Mentioned? Is your product named at all?
• Position: if the answer is a ranked list, where are you? #1 matters far more than #5.
• Competitors named: who gets recommended instead? Count them across all answers.
• Sources cited: click every citation. These are the pages the AI trusted.

Step 4: Calculate your mention rate

Mention rate is the number of answers that mention you divided by the total number of answers. Ten questions across four assistants gives you 40 answers. If you're named in 6 of them, your mention rate is 15%.

Also note your average position when you are mentioned, and your top rival's mention rate. The gap between you and that rival is the most useful number in the whole exercise.

Step 5: Read the sources. This is where the fixes are

The cited sources tell you why the AI answered the way it did. In most software categories you'll see the same kinds of pages again and again:

• Review sites (G2, Capterra)
• Reddit threads ("what do you use for X?")
• "Best X tools" listicles and roundups
• Product Hunt pages and directories
• Competitors' own comparison pages

If your competitor appears on six of the cited pages and you appear on none, that's your answer. Your to-do list is to get onto those pages honestly: claim the review profile, answer the Reddit thread as the maker, and pitch the listicle author.

Step 6: Repeat it, because one check isn't enough

AI answers are non-deterministic. Ask the same question twice and you can get a different list. A single check is a snapshot, not a measurement. To see real progress, ask the same fixed set of questions on a regular schedule (weekly is ideal) and watch the trend.

The shortcut

Doing this by hand takes 10 minutes the first time and gets tedious fast. AskRankly does all of it automatically:

• writes 10 buyer-intent questions for your product,
• asks all four assistants,
• calculates your mention rate, position and top rivals,
• lists every cited source,
• and gives you 3 to 5 specific fixes.

The first scan is free and takes about 60 seconds. If you want to track the trend weekly, plans start at $19 a month.

FAQ

Is ChatGPT's answer the same for everyone? No. Answers vary between runs, users, locations and model versions. That's why measuring across many questions and repeating over time beats any single screenshot.

Does ranking #1 on Google mean ChatGPT will recommend me? Not necessarily. AI assistants weigh third-party mentions, reviews and comparison content heavily. Plenty of products that rank well on Google are missing from AI answers, and the reverse happens too.

How long does it take to improve AI visibility? Assistants that search live (Perplexity, ChatGPT search) can reflect new mentions within days to weeks. Training-data-based answers change much more slowly.