You can map a competitor's AI search footprint without paying for a single tool. By querying ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview with buyer-intent prompts, recording which brands surface and in which sources, you build a clear picture of who owns AI mindshare in your category, which platforms feed that visibility, and where the gaps are that you can exploit. This protocol gives B2B teams a repeatable, free process for doing exactly that.

TL;DR

• AI search competitors are often different from your Google SEO competitors, so you need to test both separately [brandcampdigital.com]

• Five free tools cover the major LLMs: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview

• Track brand mentions, cited sources, and prompt types in a simple spreadsheet

• The goal is to find which third-party platforms (LinkedIn, Reddit, industry publications) your competitors are being cited from, then outrank them there

• Consistency of querying matters more than volume. Run the same prompts weekly to spot trends

About the Author: Simaia is an agentic marketing team specialising in AI search visibility for B2B companies across APAC. Simaia has helped clients grow AI search visibility from 0% to 45% within 2.5 months and increase inbound leads tenfold by mapping and closing exactly the competitive gaps this protocol uncovers.

Why Are AI Search Competitors Different From Your Google Competitors?

Your Google ranking and your AI search ranking are determined by fundamentally different signals. Google weights links, on-page keywords, and technical site health. LLMs weight the sources they were trained on and the third-party platforms they trust at inference time, such as LinkedIn, Reddit, and authoritative trade publications [brandcampdigital.com].

This means a competitor who ranks on page two of Google might dominate ChatGPT answers in your category, because they have built a strong presence on the platforms LLMs prefer to cite. If you only track Google rankings, you are watching the wrong scoreboard.

The practical implication: treat your AI search competitor analysis as a separate exercise from your SEO audit, using different queries, different tools, and different success metrics [frase.io].

What Prompts Should You Use to Surface Competitors in AI Search?

The prompts that reveal your competitors are buyer-intent prompts, not informational ones. Think of how a decision-maker, not a researcher, would phrase a question to an AI.

Use three prompt categories:

Category prompts (who exists in the space):
- "What are the best [your service category] companies for [your buyer type]?"
- "Which [your category] vendors do B2B companies in [your region] use?"

Problem prompts (who solves this):
- "How do I solve [specific pain point your product addresses]?"
- "What should I look for in a [your category] partner?"

Comparison prompts (who stands out):
- "Compare the top [your category] providers"
- "What's the difference between [Competitor A] and [Competitor B]?"

Run each prompt in a fresh incognito session across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview [optimizegeo.ai]. Incognito removes personalisation and gives you a neutral result that more closely reflects what a new buyer would see [impulsecreative.com].

How Do You Record and Structure What You Find?

Recording this systematically is where most teams fail. They run a few queries, note a competitor name, and move on. What you actually need is a structured log that captures four things per query:

Run at minimum 10 prompts across each of the five platforms. That gives you 50 data points per analysis cycle, which is enough to spot patterns [pierview.ai]. A free Google Sheet works perfectly as your tracking layer.

After the first week of data, sort by "Brands mentioned" to find which competitors appear most frequently. Then sort by "Sources cited" to find which platforms are feeding that visibility. These two columns are the heart of the analysis.

How Do You Identify the Sources Feeding a Competitor's AI Visibility?

Building on the citation data you have collected, the next question is why those competitors are being cited, not just that they are. LLMs do not invent brand recommendations. They pull from content they index from trusted third-party sources [pierview.ai].

Look at the "Sources cited" column in your tracker and group citations by platform. You will typically find a pattern like:

• ChatGPT citing LinkedIn articles and press coverage

• Google AI Overview citing Reddit threads and review platforms like G2 or Capterra

• Perplexity citing specialist publications and forums

Now go to those platforms and search for your competitor's name directly. On LinkedIn, look for their articles, executive posts, and company page content. On Reddit, search their brand name in relevant subreddits. On G2 or Capterra, read their reviews.

This tells you the specific content types and channels feeding their AI citations. It is not enough to know a competitor ranks in ChatGPT. You need to know it is because they publish weekly LinkedIn articles that a specific industry subreddit links to, for example. That level of specificity shows you exactly what to replicate and where.

How Do You Turn a Competitor Gap Analysis Into Action?

A gap analysis is only useful if it produces a prioritised action list. Once you know which platforms are feeding competitor citations, assess your own presence on each of those platforms honestly.

A simple gap matrix:

Close the highest-priority gaps first. For LinkedIn, that means publishing long-form articles addressing the buyer questions from your prompt library, formatted so an LLM can extract and cite specific answers. For Reddit, it means participating genuinely in threads where buyers ask the exact questions you queried above. For press, it means pitching stories to publications that your LLM citation audit showed appearing most frequently [optimizegeo.ai].

The reason to prioritise by platform rather than by content type is that different LLMs weight different sources. Fixing the right platform moves the needle on the right model for your buyer [brandcampdigital.com].

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to run this protocol once?
A focused team can complete one full cycle (50 prompts across five LLMs, recorded and analysed) in three to four hours.

How often should you repeat this analysis?
Weekly tracking of a core set of 10 prompts is more valuable than a monthly deep dive, because AI search results shift faster than Google rankings [frase.io].

What if your brand never appears at all in AI results?
That is useful data. It means you have no current AI search footprint, which tells you the gap to close is at the foundation level: building cited content on the platforms LLMs trust before worrying about competitive position.

Do these free tools give the same results as paid AI search platforms?
Free tools give you directional signal, not statistical precision. Paid platforms offer automated prompt tracking, historical trend data, and share-of-voice calculations [trustmary.com]. For most B2B teams starting out, the free protocol is sufficient to find actionable gaps.

Can you track competitor AI rankings over time with a spreadsheet?
Yes. Add a "date" column to your tracker and run the same prompts each week. Over four to six weeks, you will see which competitors are growing their citation share and which are losing it.

About Simaia

Simaia is an agentic marketing team built for B2B companies that want to be found by buyers using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview. Simaia handles strategy, AI search audits across 50 prompts, content writing formatted for LLM extraction, and placement on the exact platforms each LLM cites, all delivered as a done-for-you service. For a global textile manufacturer, Simaia grew inbound leads from one every two months to five per month and increased AI bot visits 3.5x year-over-year. For a healthcare SaaS company in Australia, Simaia took AI search visibility from 0% to 45% in 2.5 months. B2B founders and sales leaders who want the full AI visibility playbook run without building it themselves will find Simaia is the practical alternative to hiring, learning, and operating it in-house.

Ready to see exactly where your competitors are winning in AI search, and where you can take that ground back? Visit Simaia to learn how the team runs this analysis for you end-to-end.

References

1. AI Search Analytics: The Complete Guide | Pierview (pierview.ai)

2. Master AI Search Tracking for Brand Visibility Across AI Engines | Frase.io (frase.io)

3. Best AI Search Visibility Tools for Businesses in 2026: The Complete List - Trustmary (trustmary.com)

4. How To Rank With AI Search & Track Competitor Rankings In AI Search Results (brandcampdigital.com)

5. How to Optimize for AI Search: A Step-by-Step 2026 Guide (optimizegeo.ai)

6. Looking ahead in 2026: Your Marketing Plays for the New AI-Powered Search Era (impulsecreative.com)