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You Can’t Track AI Like Traditional Search. Here’s What to Do Instead.

You Can’t Track AI Like Traditional Search. Here’s What to Do Instead.

Traditional search tracking is built on a simple promise: type a query, get a result, and track your ranking. AI doesn’t work that way. 

Assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t show fixed results—they generate answers that vary with every run, every model, and every user.

“AI rank tracking” is a misnomer—you can’t track AI like you do traditional search.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t track it at all.

You just need to adjust the questions you’re asking, and the way you measure your brand’s visibility.

Ahrefs Brand Radar—our database of millions of AI prompts and responses that helps you track directionally.

An analysis of BMW AI visibility showing 40.2% AI Share of Voice (#1 among competitors), 100M search demand, and 37.1M web visibility. Displays luxury car brand comparisons including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche, Lexus, and Volvo across different AI platforms, with AI Overviews showing 371K mentions for BMW.

A major stumbling block when it comes to AI search tracking is that none of us know what people are actually searching en masse.

Unlike search engines, which publish keyword volumes, AI companies keep prompt logs private—that data never leaves their servers.

That makes prioritization tricky, and means it’s hard to know where to start when it comes to optimizing for AI visibility.

To move past this, we seed Brand Radar’s database with real search data: questions from our keyword database and People Also Ask queries, paired with search volume.

Ahrefs Brand Radar AI responses report showing AI search tracking for BMW ChatGPT responses. The volume of the prompt "What is the INFINITI QX55 comparable to?" is highlighted, with an arrow pointing at the number "22K"

These are still “synthetic” prompts, but they reflect real world demand.

Our goal isn’t to tell you whether you appear for a single AI query, it’s to show you how visible your brand is across entire topics.

If you can see that you have great visibility for a topic, you don’t need to track hundreds of specific prompts within that topic, because you already understand the underlying probability that you’ll be mentioned.

By focusing on aggregated visibility, you can move past noisy outputs:

  • See if AI consistently ties you to a category—not just if you appeared once.
  • Track trends over time—not just snapshots.
  • Learn how your brand is positioned against competitors—not just mentioned.

Think of AI tracking less like rank tracking and more like polling.

You don’t care about one answer, you care about the direction of the trend across a statistically significant amount of data.

went viral on TikTok after unboxing videos took off in April.

TikTok creative center insights dashboard for #labubu hashtag showing 852K posts in the last 12 months in the United States (3M overall). Features an "Interest over time" graph displaying steady growth from 2014 to 2025 with a significant spike around April 2025, reaching peak interest levels.

May: Thousands of “Labubu” related search queries start showing up in the SERPs.

Ahrefs Brand Radar dashboard showing search queries spiking for the "Labubu" brand in May 2025

July: Search volume spikes for those same “Labubu” queries.

Ahrefs Brand Radar dashboard showing search demand spiking for the "Labubu" brand in July 2025

Also in July, web mentions for “Labubu” surge, overtaking market-leading toy Funko Pop.

A zoom-in on Ahrefs Brand Radar data showing an arrow point towards "Labubu" mentions spiking higher than Funko Pop in July 2025

August: Labubu crosses over into AI visibility, gaining mentions in Google’s AI Overviews in late August—overtaking another leading toy brand: Kaws.

A zoom-in on Ahrefs Brand Radar data showing an arrow pointing towards "Labubu" AI Overview mentions spiking higher than all competitors in August 2025

Also in August, Labubu overtakes all other competitors in ChatGPT conversations.

Ahrefs Brand Radar dashboard showing an arrow pointing to moment "Labubu" ChatGPT mentions overtake competitor mentions in August 2025

This example shows that AI is part of a wider discovery ecosystem.

By tracking it directionally, you can see when and how a brand (or trend) breaks through into AI.

In all, it took four months for the Labubu brand to surface in AI conversations.

By running the same analysis on competitors, you can evaluate different scenarios, replicate what works, and set realistic expectations for your own AI visibility timeline.

marketing platform.

But, AI responses still describe us primarily as an ‘SEO’ or ‘Backlinks’ tool.

By putting out consistent AI features, products, content, and messaging, our positioning is now beginning to shift on some AI surfaces.

You can see this when the red trend line (AI) overtakes the green (Backlinks) in the chart below.

Ahrefs Brand Radar dashboard showing Ahrefs' visibility for prompts related to the topics of AI, SEO, and Backlinks analysis. Shows each topic trended over time, with an arrow pointing the the moment when the topic of AI overtakes the topic of Backlinks.

by about a third.

Ahrefs' study on the "Impact of AIOs on Position #1 CTR" analyzing 300,000 keywords. Shows three bars: Forecasted CTR (March 2025) at 0.040, Change showing -0.014 (-34.5% decrease) in red, and Actual CTR (March 2025) at 0.026. Demonstrates the negative impact of AI Overviews on click-through rates for top search results.

That means being named in AI answers is no longer optional.

AI assistants are already part of the discovery journey.

People turn to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot for product recommendations, not just quick facts.

If your brand isn’t in those answers, you’re invisible at the exact moment decisions are made.

That’s why tracking AI visibility matters.

Even if the data is noisy, it shows whether you’re part of the conversation—or whether competitors are taking the spotlight.

Micro and macro AI tracking: You need both views

In a perfect world, tracking AI visibility on a micro and macro level isn’t an either–or choice.

Micro tracking for high-stakes AI prompts

Micro tracking is about zooming in on the handful of queries that really matter to your business.

These might include:

  • Branded prompts: e.g. “What is [Brand] known for?”
  • Competitor comparisons: e.g. “[Brand] vs [Competitor]”
  • Bottom-of-funnel purchase queries: e.g. “best [product] for [audience]”

Simple line graph from Ahrefs Brand Radar showing search trend data for AI tool queries over time from May to August 2025, with two lines tracking "Which AI tool is best for SEO analysis?" and "What is the best AI tool for marketing?" The orange line shows an upward trend reaching 1 mention in August 2025.

Even though AI responses are probabilistic, it’s still worth monitoring these “make or break” queries where visibility or accuracy really matters.

Macro tracking for overall AI visibility

Macro tracking is about zooming out to understand the bigger picture of how AI connects your brand to topics and markets.

This approach is about monitoring thousands of variations to spot patterns, find new opportunities, and map the competitive landscape.

Ahrefs Brand Radar dashboard analyzing the Ahrefs brand itself. Displays steady growth on a trend chart, with AI Mode highlighted across 6,952 prompts.

Most AI tools only handle the first mode, but Ahrefs’ Brand Radar can help you with both.

It lets you keep tabs on business-critical prompts while also surfacing the unknown unknowns.

And soon it’ll support custom prompts, so you can get even more granular with your tracking.

Looking at both levels helps you answer two questions: are you present where it counts, and are you strong enough to dominate the market?

Final thoughts

No, you’ll never track AI interactions in the same way you track traditional searches.

But that’s not the point.

AI search tracking is a compass—it will show if you’re headed in the right direction.

The real risk is ignoring your AI visibility while competitors build presence in the space.

Start now, treat the data as directional, and use it to shape your content, PR, and positioning.

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