- Owner
- Analyst
- Cadence
- Once at kickoff, then as the monthly re-test
- Time box
- Three to five hours for 20 questions
- Output
- Audit capture sheet and summary
What the audit answers
An AI visibility audit is the starting photograph. Bay Area AEO describes its own version simply: it asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude the questions a business's customers ask, then shows who gets named, how the business is described and why. This SOP is the same method written as a procedure, so an in-house team can run it and so an agency's audit can be checked against it.
The audit answers four questions. Is the business named at all? When it is named, is the description right? Which competitors appear in its place? Which sources does each assistant point to? The fourth question is the one that drives the work, because the cited sources are where the fixes go.
Before you start
The capture sheet
One row per question per platform. With 20 questions and five platforms that is 100 rows, which is a long afternoon and a reliable record.
| Column | What to write |
|---|---|
| Question and platform | The exact panel wording and the assistant used |
| Date and session | Date, logged in or out, location setting |
| Named? | Yes or no for the business |
| Position | First, second, third or later in the answer |
| Description | The words the assistant used about the business, copied exactly |
| Accuracy | Correct, partly correct or wrong, judged against the fact sheet |
| Others named | Every other business in the answer |
| Sources cited | Every linked or named source: listing, review site, article, directory |
Procedure
- Start clean
Open a new chat or a private window for each question so earlier questions do not shape the answer. Note whether the platform's web search was on.
- Ask exactly
Paste the panel wording without edits. Customers do not say "please list five options," so neither does the audit.
- Capture everything
Save a screenshot or the shared-chat link, then fill the row. Copy descriptions word for word.
- Follow the sources
Open each cited source and note what it says about the business, if anything. A citation of a Yelp list or a local guide tells you where the assistant looks.
- Repeat the platform set
Run the same question on every platform before moving to the next question, so all answers for one question share a date.
- Summarize
Count the rows where the business is named, list the competitors named most often and rank the sources by how often they appear.
Reading the results
Three patterns show up in most first audits, and each points at a different procedure. When the business is named but described wrongly, the fix is in the facts: start with the fact sheet and the listings. When competitors are named and the cited sources are review sites and local roundups, the fix is outside proof: the review language and press and guides procedures. When the assistant answers from competitors' websites, the fix is on the business's own pages: the service page and FAQ procedures.
Differences between platforms are normal. Gemini and AI Overviews lean on Google's index and Business Profile data; Copilot draws heavily on Bing; Perplexity shows numbered sources for every answer, which makes it the easiest platform to trace. A business named on one platform and absent on another usually has a listing or source gap specific to the second platform.
Done when
Session settings to record
Assistants personalize. A logged-in account with a long history may answer differently from a fresh session, and an assistant may infer location from the device. Record the settings for every row so the monthly re-test can match them: logged in or out, the account used, whether web search was on, and the location the platform believed the user was in. When a platform lets you set a location, set it to the city in the question. When it does not, put the city in the question itself, which the prompt panel SOP already requires.
The one-page summary
The summary that goes to the owner fits on one page: the share of panel questions where the business was named, platform by platform; the three competitors named most often; the five sources cited most often; and three example answers quoted word for word, at least one where the business was missing. Owners understand a quoted answer faster than any score, which is why Bay Area AEO shows clients the real answers before and after.
Time and schedule
Run the audit in one sitting where possible, or over two consecutive days at most. Answers change as platforms update, so spreading the audit across weeks mixes the effect of time with the effect of the work. Book the slot on the calendar before the panel freezes.
File the capture sheet, the screenshots and the summary together in the audit folder, dated, before any listing work begins.