What AI Says About Your Brand: 15-Minute Check
What AI says about your brand is now part of your sales funnel, and you can check it for free in 15 minutes. On November 5, 2026, [Writesonic announced](https://prnewswire.com/news-releases/writesonic-traces-what-ai-says-about-a-brand-to-its-source-and-launches-outreach-agent-to-fix-it-302930984.html) a tool that traces what AI says about a brand back to its source and launches an outreach agent to fix it. That is a vendor claim, so read it as a sign that paid monitoring is arriving, not as independent proof of results. You do not need a subscription to start. Here is a manual audit using four assistants and a spreadsheet, plus how to fix what you find.
Why check what AI says about your brand
Buyers now ask an assistant for a shortlist before they ever open your website. If the answer leaves you out, or gets your pricing, location or services wrong, you lose the lead without ever seeing it in your analytics. The check below tells you where you stand today. It does not promise a ranking, because no assistant publishes how it picks brands.
The 15-minute audit, step by step
Step 1: Write five buyer questions (3 minutes)
Write the questions a real customer would type, not your brand name alone. Use one of each kind: a category question ("best [your category] in [your city]"), a comparison ("[your brand] vs [competitor]"), a problem question ("how do I fix [problem you solve]"), a trust question ("is [your brand] legit?"), and a price question ("how much does [your service] cost?").
Step 2: Ask four assistants (7 minutes)
Paste each question into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Use a fresh chat each time so earlier answers do not colour the next. Where an assistant shows sources, copy them. Answers vary from run to run, so treat one result as a snapshot, not a verdict.
Step 3: Record what each says (5 minutes)
Log every answer in a simple grid, then mark what you see.
| Question | Named? | Facts right? | Sources shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best in my category and city | Yes / No / Position | Location, services, price | Which pages or listings |
| My brand vs competitor | Yes / No | Differences stated fairly? | Which pages or listings |
| Is my brand legit? | Yes / No | Reviews, history, claims | Which pages or listings |
Score three things only: are you named, are the facts correct, and is the tone fair. Wrong or missing facts are the highest priority, because they are fixable.
How to trace an answer to its likely source
Assistants do not reveal their full reasoning, so tracing is detective work, not certainty. Start with the sources Perplexity and Gemini display. Then search the wrong claim as a quoted phrase. Old directory listings, outdated About pages, third-party review sites and stale social profiles are the usual suspects. If a wrong fact appears on a page you control, you have found your fix. If it appears on a page you do not, note it for outreach.
Fix your own properties first
Fix what you own before chasing anyone else. Make your homepage and About page state, in plain sentences, who you are, what you sell, where you operate and what it costs or how pricing works. Align your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn page and main directory listings to the same facts. Add Organization schema and keep it consistent, as covered in our entity building guide and guide to AI visibility for small businesses.
Where paid monitoring tools fit
Tools such as Writesonic automate the same loop: they run many prompts on a schedule and flag changes. That helps once you have more questions than you can check by hand. Writesonic describes its own outreach agent as a way to fix issues, but the November 5 release is a vendor announcement with no independent performance data, so test any tool against your own manual results before paying. For a fuller view of what these tools measure, see our AI answer engine visibility audit.
Make it a monthly habit
Repeat the audit monthly with the same five questions and keep the grid. Changes you make today may take weeks to show up, and answers move for reasons outside your control, so look for direction over time rather than a single result. Support from AI Search and Analytics work is useful once you want the tracking set up properly.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
How do I check what ChatGPT says about my business?
Open a fresh chat and ask the questions a buyer would ask, such as the best provider in your category and city, a comparison with a competitor, and whether your brand is trustworthy. Record whether you are named and whether the facts are correct, then repeat in Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
Can I control what AI assistants say about my brand?
Not directly. You can improve the pages and profiles assistants are likely to draw from by making facts clear, consistent and current, but no assistant guarantees a mention or a specific wording.
Do I need a paid AI brand monitoring tool?
Not to start. A manual audit with five questions and four assistants takes about 15 minutes and costs nothing. Paid tools become useful when you need to track many prompts on a schedule. Vendor claims, including Writesonic's November 5, 2026 release, should be tested against your own results.
How often should I run the check?
Monthly is enough for most small businesses. Use the same questions each time so you can compare, and log the date of any change you make to your site or listings.
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