AI brand mentions: what ChatGPT and Gemini say about your brand
A shopper asks ChatGPT "What are the best coffee brands?" and gets a short list of names. Nobody is notified, nothing is published, and next month the list may be different. We ask that question, and two more, every month for 171 categories and subcategories, and publish the answers.
Which brands the assistants named, by category
What is an AI brand mention?
A brand named in an assistant's answer. The usual trigger is a shopping question about a category, and the answer is a ranked handful of brands with a sentence on each. With web search on, the assistant builds that list from what it reads at the time: reviews, best-of lists, news and forum threads.
It is a mention with no post behind it. There is nothing to search, nothing tagged and no notification, so the only way to know what was said is to ask.
Why tracking AI brand mentions is different from social
On Instagram a mention is a post that exists until someone deletes it, so you search for it. An AI answer is generated fresh each time and can change between runs and between people. Tracking it means sampling: the same questions, asked the same way, on a schedule, and a record of every answer.
That also rules out the obvious shortcut. A question that names your brand tells you what an assistant knows about you. It does not tell you whether it recommends you to somebody who asked about the category, which is the question that sends a shopper somewhere.
How to track brand mentions in AI yourself
Write down the questions a buyer in your category would type, about the category rather than about you. Fix the wording and never change it, because a new wording starts a new series. Turn web search on, since that is how both assistants answer shopping questions in their own apps. Ask each assistant, record the brands it named in the order it named them, and date the row.
Repeat monthly. Daily mostly measures noise. Then count how many answers named you and how many named each competitor. Resist turning the order into a score: a #2 in one answer is one answer.
What Monitor Mentions asks, and how often
ChatGPT and Gemini, both with web search on, each get three questions per subject, worded the way a shopper types them. For coffee they are:
- “What are the best coffee brands?”
- “Which coffee brand would you recommend for a first-time buyer?”
- “What are some popular coffee brands people love right now?”
That runs for every category and subcategory with at least three brands in our catalogue, 171 subjects in all, once a month. No account history and no location are attached. Every answer is kept with its date.
A brand page then says, in a sentence, where the brand was named: which assistant, which position, for which question, on which day. A brand that was not named is told so with the number of answers it missed. There is no score and no average; the only total is a count of answers. The AI recommendations pages show the full lists by category.
What this does not cover
Two assistants, ChatGPT and Gemini. Category questions only: you cannot add a prompt of your own, and we do not ask about a single brand by name. If you need a custom prompt set tracked across more assistants, that is a different tool from this one.
The most reliable way to be named is to be written about, which is why this sits next to the brand mentions work rather than apart from it. The posts and coverage that mention you are what an assistant reads.
Get your brand into the questions
Every brand in the catalogue is matched against these answers, and its page says where it was named and where it was not. A brand outside the catalogue can be added from the home page. The paid plan adds daily Instagram monitoring and mention alerts for as many brands as you pick.
Questions people ask
What is an AI brand mention?
A brand named in an AI assistant's answer, usually to a question like "What are the best coffee brands?". Nobody is notified when it happens and the answer is not published anywhere, so the only way to see it is to ask the question yourself.
How do you track brand mentions in AI assistants?
Ask the same questions, worded the same way, on a schedule, with web search on, and record which brands each answer names and in what order. Keep every answer with its date. One answer is a reading; a run of them is a record.
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?
An assistant with web search names the brands that show up most in what it reads: reviews, lists, news and forums. A brand that is rarely written about is rarely named. Answers also vary between runs, so check several before drawing a conclusion.
Which assistants does Monitor Mentions ask?
ChatGPT and Gemini, both with web search on. Each is asked three shopper questions per category and subcategory once a month, with the same wording every month.
Can I see whether my brand is named without paying?
Yes. The answers are public. Every category page lists the brands each assistant named, and a brand page in the catalogue says where it was named and in how many answers it was not.