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AI Tracking is Linkstonic’s continuous monitoring layer. Rather than running a one-time audit, AI Tracking queries each AI platform on a rolling schedule using your target keywords and records whether your brand appears in the generated answer, where it appears relative to competitors, and how that pattern changes over time. The result is a live pulse on your brand’s presence in AI-generated answers — the same answers your potential customers are reading right now when they ask an AI which product to buy, which vendor to trust, or which solution to consider.

What AI Tracking measures

For each keyword you track, Linkstonic sends the query to each selected AI platform and captures:
  • Whether your brand was mentioned in the generated answer
  • Position band — Top, Middle, or Bottom — indicating where in the answer your brand appeared
  • Which competitor brands appeared in the same answer and at what position
  • AI mention probability score — a rolling estimate of how reliably your brand surfaces for that keyword across repeated queries
This data is collected periodically and aggregated into trend charts, keyword tables, and platform breakdowns on your AI Tracking dashboard.

Dashboard views

Platform breakdown charts show your mention rate and average position band on each AI platform side by side. If your brand is well-cited on Perplexity but absent from Gemini, this is where you’ll see it clearly. Top keywords surfaces the queries where your brand has the highest and lowest mention rates, helping you prioritize both what’s working and what needs attention. Mention trend charts plot your brand’s mention rate over time for any keyword or keyword group, so you can correlate content changes or PR events with spikes or drops in AI visibility. AI mention probability scores give you a single number per keyword representing how reliably your brand appears across multiple AI queries for that term. A score of 85 means your brand showed up in roughly 85% of sampled queries for that keyword. A score of 12 means you’re an occasional, unreliable presence that users can’t count on seeing.

Position bands explained

AI-generated answers don’t have numbered positions the way search results do, but position within the prose of an answer has real consequences for how users perceive brand relevance.
BandWhat it meansHow to interpret it
TopYour brand appears in the first sentence or opening paragraphThe AI treats your brand as a primary, go-to answer
MiddleYour brand appears after one or more other brands are introducedYou’re part of the consideration set, but not the default recommendation
BottomYour brand appears late — in comparison lists, caveats, or closing notesYou’re present, but users who skim — which is most users — may never reach you
A move from Bottom to Middle, or Middle to Top, is a meaningful improvement even if your raw mention rate doesn’t change. Track position band trends alongside mention rate to get an accurate picture of progress.

Competitor intelligence

Every time Linkstonic samples a query, it records all brands that appear in the answer — not just yours. The competitor intelligence view lets you see which brands consistently appear alongside your brand, which brands dominate the Top position for your key queries, and which competitors have grown their mention rate recently. This is the data you need to understand why a competitor might be outperforming you in AI answers and to identify which of their content strategies are driving that result.

Trend analytics

Mention frequency and visibility score trends are available for any date range within your plan’s data retention window. Use trends to:
  • Confirm that a content improvement raised your mention rate after you published it
  • Detect drops that correlate with algorithm changes or competitor content launches
  • Report AI visibility progress to stakeholders with a clear before-and-after chart

How to add your first tracked keyword

1

Open AI Tracking

Select AI Tracking from the left sidebar.
2

Click Add Keywords

Click the Add Keywords button in the upper right of the dashboard.
3

Enter your keywords

Type one keyword per line in the input field. Keywords should match the queries your target customers are likely to ask an AI — full questions or descriptive phrases work better than short head terms. For example, prefer “best project management software for remote teams” over “project management.”If you’ve already mapped your target queries in a spreadsheet, click Import from Google Sheets and paste your sheet URL. Linkstonic will pull the first column of the first sheet as your keyword list.
4

Select platforms to track

Choose which AI platforms to include in your tracking. Starter plan accounts can select ChatGPT and Gemini. Pro and Agency plan accounts can select all four platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Track all platforms available on your plan for the most complete picture.
5

Save and start collecting

Click Save. Linkstonic immediately queues your keywords for the next collection cycle. Initial data for new keywords typically appears within a few hours. You’ll receive a notification when your first results are ready.

Alert integration

Connect AI Tracking to Linkstonic’s Smart Alerts to get notified when your mention rate for any keyword crosses a threshold you define — up or down. For example, set an alert if your mention rate on a high-priority keyword drops below 30%, or if a competitor’s mention rate surpasses yours. Configure alerts from the Smart Alerts section in your account settings.
AI Tracking data updates periodically, not in real time. Individual AI platforms impose rate and access constraints that prevent continuous polling. Data history retention depends on your plan:
  • Starter: 7 days of history
  • Pro: 90 days of history
  • Agency: 1 year of history
If you need to analyze a trend that predates your current plan’s retention window, contact support — data from before a plan upgrade may be available on request.