The AI Visibility Playbook
ChatGPT recommends only 1.2% of brands. 62% of consumers now use AI assistants to research apps. Most apps are invisible.
The Problem
A SOCI.ai study analyzing 350,000+ locations across 2,751 brands found that ChatGPT recommends only 1.2% of brands. Compare that to Google’s local 3-pack, which shows 35.9%. AI is nearly 30 times more selective than traditional search.
The kicker: only 45% overlap exists between brands that rank well in traditional search and those that AI recommends. Your ASO, your Google rankings — they don’t translate.
GenAI platforms generated 1.1 billion referral visits in June 2025 — up 357% year-over-year. The discovery channel is shifting. But most apps aren’t visible in it.
What AI-Visible Apps Have in Common
External Content Footprint
Blog posts. YouTube videos. Reddit discussions. Review articles. The AI isn't reading your App Store listing — it's reading the internet's conversation about your app. If that conversation doesn't exist, neither do you.
Distinct Positioning Language
"The best productivity app" gets lost in noise. "Pomodoro timer with built-in focus music" is specific enough for AI to retrieve. Crisp, distinctive positioning wins.
Technical Documentation
Apps with developer docs, API references, or detailed feature explanations have higher AI visibility — even for consumer apps. AI treats documentation as a signal of legitimacy.
Consistent Naming Across Sources
Apps where the brand name appears consistently across mentions have better AI recall. Variations (App Name vs AppName vs "The App") confuse retrieval.
The Audit Framework
A three-layer audit system for measuring and improving AI visibility:
Layer 1
Trust Node Coverage
29 signals across 6 categories that LLMs use to decide who to recommend:
Layer 2
Citation Quality Scoring
5 dimensions scored 0-10:
Layer 3
LLM Response Testing
Query Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini with category-relevant prompts. Track: Are you cited? What position? What context?
Scoring Thresholds
0-30%: Invisible to AI (most apps)
31-50%: Partial visibility (specific queries only)
51-70%: Moderate visibility (category queries)
71-100%: Strong visibility (direct recommendations)
AI Visibility Audit
Find out if AI can see your app
Get your mobile app’s AI visibility score across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. See exactly where you stand — and what to fix. 50+ audits completed.
Get Your Audit →Starting at $19. Results in minutes.
The Window
AI-driven discovery is still early. Most competitors haven’t noticed. The teams that build AI visibility now will have a compounding advantage. The teams that wait will find themselves in another SEO race — but this time, they won’t know the rules.
The apps that will win the AI discovery era aren’t necessarily the best apps. They’re the apps that create the content ecosystem that AI systems can find and recommend.
Related Issues
Get the next framework first
Join 2,000+ mobile marketers getting one original framework every Saturday. No fluff, no repurposed threads — just sharp thinking you can use Monday morning.
Subscribe to Diversified UA