How do I audit and improve how AI tools represent my brand?
Pick the questions your customers ask, ask every engine each one several times, and sort the answers into five groups: absent, wrong, unstable, displaced by a competitor, or unanswered. Trace each problem to a page you can fix, fix it, and run the same audit again.
What is the audit?
A fixed set of questions, asked the same way, on a schedule, with every answer recorded. The fixed part matters: if the questions change each time, you cannot tell whether the engines changed or you did.
Step 1: Which questions go in?
Choose 15 to 30 questions in three groups. Questions about you by name. Questions about your category and city without your name. And questions that compare you with competitors. Use customers' words from emails, reviews and calls.
Step 2: How do I ask?
Ask every question on every engine your customers use, at least three times each, and save the full answer and any sources shown. Use fresh sessions.
Step 3: How do I sort the answers?
Each answer falls into one of five groups, and each group needs a different fix.
- Absent: the engine answered and did not mention you.
- Misrepresented: it said something wrong about you.
- Unstable: you appear in some runs and not others.
- Displaced: it named a competitor in your place.
- Unanswered: nobody was recommended.
Step 4: What is behind each one?
Open the sources the engines cited. Absent usually means the crawlers cannot read you or no page answers the question. Misrepresented usually traces to one wrong page. Displaced means a competitor has a clearer page for that question. Check crawler access against each provider's documentation: OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic.
Step 5: What do I fix first?
Fix access first, then wrong facts, then missing pages. Google recommends content that is people-first and reliable, with accurate authorship (Google). Then repeat the audit unchanged and compare.
What does a finished audit give me?
A finished audit is a short list, not a report. For each question you tracked, it says which of the five groups the answers fall into, which engines disagree, and which source is behind the problem. From that you can write three or four fixes in order of impact: usually access first, then wrong facts, then missing pages. Keep the raw answers with their dates. When you repeat the audit next month, the comparison with the earlier answers is what shows whether the fixes worked, and it is also your evidence if you ever need to show a colleague or a vendor what changed.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions are enough?
Fifteen to thirty gives a pattern without becoming a chore. Sightline's plans cover 20 to 40 questions per brand.
Do I audit competitors too?
Yes, indirectly. Record who is named when you are not. That is your displacement list.
How often should I repeat it?
Weekly is a reasonable cadence for a paid plan, and monthly if you are doing it by hand.
Can I audit without paying?
Yes. A free scan gives you a baseline on four engines.