AI search visibility tools: what they do and what to check

AI search visibility tools exist to answer one question: when an AI assistant is asked something your business should be the answer to, are you named? Because there is no ranking to look up, the only way to find out is to ask the engines and record what comes back.

What these tools can actually tell you

• Whether you were named, engine by engine, rather than as a single blended score.
• Which sources the engine cited when it answered — often more actionable than the mention itself.
• Which phrasings of a question you show up for and which you never do.
• Whether the gap is universal or specific to one engine, which points at very different fixes.

What they cannot tell you

This is where claims tend to outrun the method, so it is worth being blunt. No tool can reproduce a personalised, signed-in consumer session — those carry a particular person context nobody else can replay. No tool can promise you a mention, because engines are not a ranked index you can climb. And no tool can honestly attribute customers to an AI assistant, because assistants are not a referral channel that reports back.

Answers also vary between runs. A tool that shows a smooth line going up, with no acknowledgement of that variance, is presenting more certainty than the underlying data supports.

Questions worth asking before you pay

• Is the check API-grounded, and does the tool say so plainly?
• Does it show per-engine results, or hide everything behind one number?
• Does it distinguish "asked and not named" from "not asked at all"?
• Does it state the limits of the method in its own interface, not just in a terms page?

How SHIJO.AI does it

We query each engine through its public API with web search enabled, ask the questions your customers actually ask, and report engine by engine whether your business was named, with the sources each engine cited. Questions an engine was not asked are marked as not checked and excluded from the score rather than counted against you.

The result is a directional signal at one moment. An API query is not the same as a signed-in consumer session, which is personalised and changes over time, and we do not guarantee rankings, mentions, or customer outcomes. We would rather you see that stated on the result than discover it later.

The check is free and needs no account, so the cheapest way to judge any of this is to run one on your own business.