Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how marketers operate, including tracking their share of voice (SOV). If you aren't tracking your share of voice on AI platforms like ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini, you may be giving your competitors an unfair advantage. In this article, we examine how AI Share of Voice (AI SOV) is transforming how brands track their mentions on generative AI platforms.

What is AI Share of Voice?

AI SOV is a metric that tracks how often your brand is mentioned on AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, GROK, and Google’s Germini, compared to your competitors regarding a particular keyword. This works in the same way as the market share metric or share of voice on social media. However, instead of tracking customer social media reach or revenue, it tracks how often your brand is mentioned on the AI platform Answers. When you have a higher AI SOV, it shows your brand is an authoritative source.

AI SOV is a departure from the traditional share of voice, which focuses on traditional marketing channels such as paid advertising, SEO, and social media. With generative AI platforms providing instant answers to users, they have become essential search tools. Your AI SOV shows you how well your brand stands out in the AI answers, which is important as AI mentions also affect SEO.

Why AI Share of Voice Matters

As noted earlier, buyers’ decisions are now influenced by AI searches. When your brand appears on the AI platform, it can impact your brand’s level of success. Having a strong AI SOV can result in:

• Higher traffic to your site. When you get higher visibility on AI search platforms, it leads to more organic traffic.
• Better quality leads. When AI platforms recommend your brand to a searcher, they put you in front of your relevant audiences who are searching for solutions.
• Increased conversion. When customers get answers from AI tools, they tend to trust the answer, increasing the chances of conversion.
• Higher brand authority. When your brand is consistently mentioned on AI, it is perceived as a reputable brand.
• Stay ahead of trends. When you track your AI SOV, you can remain ahead of your competition in the emerging AI search trends.

How AI Can Help Track Share of Voice

In addition to mentioning your brand in relevant search queries, AI can help you track your SOV more precisely because AI tools can scan various data points across different channels, tracking the use of keywords, performing sentiment analysis, and conducting competitive analysis. The tools can make work easier and provide actionable insights that surpass those of traditional analytics tools.

AI can be especially useful in tracking the SOV in a fast-changing environment, whether in search engine algorithms or social media trends. If there are any changes in your brand performance, AI can track those changes instantly. 

Why Use Weighted AI Share of Voice

When calculating mentions in traditional SEO, you calculate each mention with equal weight. However, things are different when it comes to AI share of voice, as this needs a weighted approach for several reasons, such as:

• Mention of different brands on different platforms. Your brand may be mentioned in ChatGPT's answer for a particular keyword, while Gemini may say a different answer. So, which answer should you go with? The solution lies in a weighted average.
• Ranking order factor. The first brand mentioned in an AI answer gets more exposure than the one listed last. 
• No standardized method available. A simple and scalable system can provide a fair comparison, no matter the number of listed brands.

To address the above challenges, a solution would be to utilize a reciprocal weighted system to calculate the AI SOV. Such a method aims to provide a fair representation of each brand.

Factors Affecting Visibility in AI searches

 Whether your brand appears in the AI answer will depend on different factors, such as:

• Content relevance. If the AI search engines consider your content to be from a trustworthy and relevant source, it's likely to be mentioned in the AI answer. Therefore, to increase AI SOV, you need to consistently create authoritative content that could be featured in the AI responses.
• Availability of data. The AI tools, such as ChatGPT, utilize extensive datasets. If your brand is not represented in the relevant industry data, the chances of appearing in the AI results are lower.
• AI systems engagement. The use of APIs, AI troll integration, and forming partnerships can increase the chances of your brand appearing in AI search results.
• Optimizing for SEO. When you ensure that your site has been optimized for search engines, you can increase the chances of AI crawlers understanding your site's content and indexing it. This improves your visibility in AI-driven searches.
• User interaction metrics. AI algorithms consider various metrics, such as the time spent on a page, to determine its relevance. If your brand is achieving high engagement, you can increase its prominence in AI searches.

How to Calculate the Weighted AI SOV

Here is an example of calculating the weighted AI SOV. First, let's assume you ask ChatGPT: “What are the best online stock brokers for international investors?” The tool gives you the following answers:

1. Interactive Brokers Limited.
2. Saxo Brokers.
3. Mexem.
4. Capital.

Let's assume your brand is Saxo Brokers. To obtain the weighted AI SOV, assign the value 1 to the first place, 2 to the second place, 3 to the third place, and so on. You can then assign a weight to each position. For instance:

• 1st position: 1
• 2nd position: 0.5
• 3rd position: 0.33
• 4th position: 0.25

In this case, your brand, Sexo, has a weight of 0.5, as it's in second place. You can add the different weighted scores, i.e., (1+0.5+0.33+0.25)=2.08. To calculate the weighted score, you will need to divide the weighted average of your range by the total weighted score and multiply the number by 100, i.e, (05/2.08x100)=24%. That means your AI SOV is 24%.

Conclusion

The AI SOV is a critical metric to show you the mentions and visibility of your brand in the generative AI answers. This can be a crucial metric to track in the current AI era. If you are wondering how to track or even improve your AI SOV, our helpful guide can prove beneficial.