AEO Audit: How to Check Your Brand’s Visibility in AI Answers (Checklist)
What an AEO audit covers, how to run one across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini, and a 20-point checklist for AI visibility.
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Last updated: 26 October 2026
Quick answer: An AEO audit (AI visibility audit) tests the questions your buyers ask in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, and records whether your brand is named, how it is described, whether your site is cited and which competitors appear instead. It then checks your content, schema, brand facts, third-party mentions and crawler access to explain the gaps, and ends with a fix list ranked by impact.
You cannot improve what you have not measured. Rank trackers tell you where a page sits in Google, but they cannot tell you whether ChatGPT recommends you to a buyer comparing three vendors. An AEO audit is how you find out, and it is the first step of every engagement we run.
Key takeaways
- An AEO audit starts from real buyer prompts, not keywords.
- Each prompt is scored per engine: named and cited, named without a link, or not mentioned.
- The audit explains why, by checking answers, entities, sources and technical access.
- The output is a ranked fix list, so effort goes to prompts that affect revenue.
- Rerunning the same prompt set every month turns the audit into a tracking baseline.
What does an AEO audit cover?
An AEO audit covers five areas. Together they show both where you stand and what to change.
| Area | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Prompt visibility | Which AI engines name you for which buyer questions? |
| Brand description | Is what they say about you accurate and current? |
| Competitor share | Who is named instead of you, and how often? |
| Source analysis | Which websites do engines cite for your topics, and are you on them? |
| On-site readiness | Can crawlers reach your pages, and do they answer questions directly? |
How do you run an AEO audit?
You run an AEO audit in seven steps.
- Build the prompt set. Collect 20 to 50 questions from sales calls, support tickets, reviews and site search. Include “best X for Y”, “X vs Y”, “alternatives to X”, price questions and local questions.
- Choose engines and markets. Test the engines your buyers use, in the countries and languages you sell in.
- Run every prompt. Record the full answer, the brands named in order and the sources cited.
- Score each answer. Mark each one as named and cited, named without a link, or not mentioned, for you and each competitor.
- Analyse cited sources. List the domains that appear most often. These are your mention targets.
- Check your site. Review crawler access, indexing, answer-first structure, schema and consistency of brand facts.
- Prioritise fixes. Rank each fix by the number of prompts it can move and the effort it needs.
Tip: AI answers vary between runs. Run important prompts more than once, or use a tracking tool, and judge trends across the set instead of single answers. Our list of AI visibility tools compares the options.
AEO audit checklist: 20 points
Visibility and description
- Share of tracked prompts that name your brand, per engine
- Share of answers that cite your website with a link
- Your average position when named
- Accuracy of how engines describe your services, prices and locations
- Competitors named most often, and for which prompts
Technical access
- robots.txt allows Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot
- CDN or firewall rules do not block AI crawlers by accident
- Key pages are indexed and eligible for snippets
- Important content is in HTML text, not only in images or scripts
- An llms.txt file, if useful for your site type (see what llms.txt is)
Content
- Each key page answers its main question in the first two sentences
- Headings use the questions buyers actually ask
- Service, pricing, comparison and FAQ pages exist for core prompts
- Pages include specific facts, numbers and named sources
- Content is dated and kept current
Entity and off-site
- Organization, Service or Product, LocalBusiness and FAQ schema match visible text
- Brand name, description and contact details are identical across profiles
- Google Business Profile is complete with reviews (for local businesses)
- Your brand appears on the domains engines cite most for your topics
- Reviews and comparison listings are current
What should an AEO audit report include?
An AEO audit report should include a baseline score, a prompt-by-engine grid, a competitor comparison, a list of cited sources, on-site findings and a prioritised action plan. The grid is the most useful part: it shows at a glance where you are cited, where you are named without a link and where you are missing, which tells you what kind of fix each prompt needs. Missing everywhere usually means a content gap. Named but not cited usually means your pages are not clear or trusted enough to be the source.
How long does an AEO audit take?
An AEO audit for a focused prompt set usually takes two to three weeks, including prompt research, testing across engines, analysis and the action plan. Larger audits with many markets or product lines take longer.
Get your AEO audit. Digital Tatva builds your prompt set from real buyer questions, tests it across the major AI engines and gives you a fix list ranked by impact. Request an audit or see our case studies.
Frequently asked questions
How many prompts should an AEO audit include?
Most audits use 20 to 50 prompts. Fewer than 20 gives a noisy picture, and more than 100 is hard to act on. Group prompts by topic and buying stage so results are easy to read.
Can I run an AEO audit myself?
Yes. You can test prompts by hand in each engine and record results in a spreadsheet. It is slower and harder to repeat consistently, which is why most teams use a tracking tool or an agency for monthly reruns.
How often should an AEO audit be repeated?
Rerun the full prompt set monthly. AI answers change as engines update and as competitors publish, so a monthly view shows real trends.
What is the difference between an AEO audit and an SEO audit?
An SEO audit checks how well your site can rank. An AEO audit checks whether AI engines actually name and cite you, then looks at both on-site and off-site reasons. The technical part overlaps; the prompt testing does not. See AEO vs SEO.
Sources
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central, checked 26 October 2026
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers, OpenAI, checked 26 October 2026
- PerplexityBot, Perplexity documentation, checked 26 October 2026
Pricing and features are checked at the time of writing and can change. Some links may be affiliate links, which never affect our verdicts.
