Ask ChatGPT who the best plumber, salon, or pet sitter is in your city right now, out loud, before you read another word of this. If your name doesn’t come back, somebody in your market already has a higher AI visibility score than you do, and they didn’t have to pay a dime to get it.
The short version
What is an AI visibility score? It’s a plain percentage that tells you how often ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI actually name your business when someone asks the exact question your next customer is about to ask. My free check runs that question against your business and hands you back a real number, not a guess, along with the actual sentence AI is saying about you today. A low score means AI barely knows you exist. A high score means AI already treats you as the default answer in your city. Either way, you cannot fix a number you have never seen.
Here’s what that score actually measures, what moves it, and how to see yours this week.
What Is an AI Visibility Score?
This score has no official body or industry standard behind it. I built it as a straightforward way to check your business the same way a real customer would: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI the exact question a customer would type, then count how often you show up, how often you get named first, and how often the details are actually right when you do. The result comes back as a percentage, built from real checks run against your actual business, not a formula borrowed from anyone else.
That number doesn’t exist anywhere until somebody runs the check. It shows up the moment you ask, and it changes the moment you publish something new that AI can find and repeat.
This is different from a Google ranking. A ranking tells you where a page sits inside a list of ten blue links. This kind of score tells you whether your business gets named at all inside a single generated answer, which is a completely different game with a completely different scoreboard.
What the Score Actually Means
Here is the range I use on my own client calls, built from real checks I’ve run, not an industry chart handed to me by anyone.
| Score Range (My Check) | What It Means | What to Do Next |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 20 percent | AI rarely or never names you at all | Start with the basics: one clear service page, consistent hours and address everywhere |
| 21 to 40 percent | AI names you sometimes, but inconsistently or with wrong details | Fix conflicting facts across your website and Google Business Profile first |
| 41 to 70 percent | AI names you in most relevant answers for your city | Add depth: specific reviews, city-level pages, real FAQ content |
| 71 to 100 percent | AI treats you as the default answer in your market | Maintain what’s working and expand into new service areas |
A jump of even ten or fifteen points on that scale is a real, visible tier change, not a rounding error. The next section shows exactly what a jump like that looked like for one real business.
What Moves This Score Up or Down
Four things move this number, and none of them cost anything to fix. Structured answers move it: content written in plain question-and-answer form, because that is the exact shape AI is built to lift and repeat. Google’s own documentation on how it builds AI-powered answers backs this up from its side of the fence too… clear, well-organized content is what a model can actually use.
Reviews AI can read move it, but only the ones that name a specific service instead of just saying “great job.” Consistent NAP, your name, address, and phone number matching everywhere your business is listed, moves it, because a model that finds three different addresses for you tends to just say nothing instead of guessing. And being named on pages AI already trusts and cites moves it too, which is why getting the facts right matters as much as getting found at all.
Miss all four and you land in the bottom band on the table above. The full breakdown of why AI skips a business entirely covers the mechanics in more depth than this post needs to.
What Does a Good Score Look Like?
Good looks like this. A Mastermind member of mine runs a dog walking business, and after she published one new page dedicated to a single service area, her AI visibility score climbed from 20 percent to 33 percent in a single month. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude all started naming her business first for that city, and citations began showing up in nearby towns where she hadn’t written a single new word yet.
She paid nobody for placement. One page, built to answer the actual question a customer types, moved her number more than any amount of ad spend could have. That’s what a good trend looks like: not a perfect starting score, but a real climb after real, specific publishing.
See What ChatGPT Says About Your Business
Right now, someone in your city is asking ChatGPT who’s the best at what you do. I’ll go ask that exact question myself… and hand you back the real answer, word for word, with live screenshots. Not a guess. Not a summary. The actual sentence AI is already saying about you, or about someone else instead of you. Before your next customer reads it first. Custom to your business. Free.
No cost. Zero credit card. No pushy sequence.
Why Your Competitor Might Already Have a Higher Score
Pew Research’s own tracking of how Americans use AI shows adoption climbing year over year, so the number of customers asking AI before they ever open Google keeps growing whether you have checked your score or not. Somebody in your market is publishing right now while you are reading this sentence.
I’ve seen this play out directly. A prospect once asked ChatGPT who to call, ChatGPT said my name, and she booked a Jump intensive without comparing a single other quote. She didn’t compare. She didn’t Google me. She booked. That stopped me cold, because it meant the score was already decided before she ever picked up the phone. Your competitor’s score is climbing whether or not you know your own.
This is the part that should light a fire under you. Your competitor does not need to outspend you, out-hire you, or run a single ad to pull ahead here. All they need is one clear page published before you get around to yours. The businesses winning this right now are not the biggest ones in their city. They are the ones who checked their number first and actually did something with what they found.
How to Get Your Own Score
Run the free check above and I’ll hand you back your real number along with the actual sentence AI is saying about your business today, screenshots included. If you’d rather do the first pass yourself before you hand it to me, How to Check What AI Says About Your Business in 5 Minutes walks through the manual version step by step.
Either way, check it before your competitor publishes the page that pushes their score past yours. A number you have not looked at yet cannot help you, and it does not stay still while you wait. It moves every time somebody in your market publishes something new, for better or for worse, so the only real mistake here is treating this as a someday task instead of a this-week one.
Frequently Asked Questions About Your AI Visibility Score
What is a good AI visibility score?
Anything in the 41 to 70 percent range means AI names you in most relevant answers for your city, and that’s a solid working score for most small service businesses. Above 70 percent means AI treats you as the default answer, which is the goal worth building toward.
How is this score calculated?
I ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI the exact question a real customer would type for your service and city, then count how often you’re named, how often you’re named first, and how often the details AI gives are actually correct. The result comes back as a percentage.
Is this the same as a Google ranking?
No. A Google ranking tells you where a page sits inside a list of results. This kind of score tells you whether your business gets named at all inside a single generated answer. A business can rank well on Google and still score low here, or the reverse.
How often should I check my score?
Monthly, at minimum, and again after any big change: a new service, a new city page, a review push, or a rebrand. AI answers shift as the web shifts underneath them, so a score from six months ago tells you very little about today.
Can my score go down over time?
Yes. If a competitor publishes clearer, more specific content than you have, or your listed details start conflicting across platforms, your score can slide even if you haven’t changed anything yourself, which is exactly why checking it once and forgetting about it fails you over time.
How do I get my own score?
Fill out the free check on this page with your business name, website, and city, and I’ll send back your real score along with live screenshots of what AI is actually saying about you. No cost, no credit card, no pushy sequence.
Check Your Score This Week
Your competitor is not waiting to find out their number, and neither should you. Run the free check above, get your real score, and you’ll know in writing exactly where you stand before your next customer asks AI the question that decides who gets the call.
One real number, and one clear page published in response to it, is the whole action item here. Everything else in this post exists to get you to that first check.
Always keep jumping.
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About the Author
Bella Vasta built and sold a service company before becoming an AI implementation specialist, keynote speaker, and host of the Bella In Your Business and AI For The Busy Human podcasts. She’s the founder of Jump Consulting and Marketing With Bella, where she teaches small business owners nationwide how to use AI without the overwhelm. Free AI visibility check: bellavasta.com/audit. Speaking inquiries: bellavasta.com/speak.