Answer Share
The number Intrica uses to say whether AI engines name your company when buyers ask.
This free AI citation checker asks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode your buyers’ questions. Your Answer Share is how many of them name you, per engine. What is Answer Share?
Updated
Definition
Answer Share is how many of a fixed set of buyer questions an AI engine names your company in, reported per engine as X of N. "Named in 3 of 25 questions on ChatGPT" is an Answer Share.
How Answer Share works
The free check in three steps, then the method behind every Answer Share.
Up to 3 questions your buyers ask.
ChatGPT with search on, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Cited and named counted apart, and who gets cited instead.
How it is calculated
- Agree a fixed set of buyer questions, such as "best crypto exchange for low fees". The set stays the same from week to week, so results compare.
- Ask each AI engine every question with web search on.
- Record whether each answer names the company. A run that fails, or where the engine skips web search, is dropped. It never counts as a miss.
- Count per engine: the questions where the answer named you, out of the questions the engine answered.
- Repeat the runs. A question named in most runs counts as named. One run is a snapshot.
A worked example
Northwind is a fictional crypto exchange tracking 25 buyer questions.
Perplexity names Northwind most often. Gemini names it least. A single blended score would hide that gap, and the gap shows where to work first.
| Engine | Answer Share |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 3 of 25 |
| Perplexity | 7 of 25 |
| Gemini | 2 of 25 |
| Claude | 4 of 25 |
| Google AI Overviews | 5 of 22 |
| Google AI Mode | 6 of 25 |
Google showed an AI Overview for 22 of the 25 questions, so that engine is out of 22.
What it checks
The full rubric. No black box.
Your site appears as a source link.
Your brand appears in the answer text a reader sees.
Cited but never named. The engine used your page without naming you.
The sites that own the answer when you don’t.
Failed runs and answers with no web search never count against you.
How to read it
"Named in 3 of 25 questions on ChatGPT" means ChatGPT's answer named you for 3 of your 25 agreed questions. Each engine gets its own line. Named and cited are counted apart. Named means the company appears in the answer text. Cited means the engine linked to your site as a source. An engine can cite your page and still recommend someone else.
Below 5 runs per question, Answer Share stays a raw count. Over repeated runs, each question also gets a bucket: always, usually, sometimes or never named.
Why it is reported per engine
Each engine draws on different sources. In Intrica's study of 13 crypto exchanges, Aug. 11 to 21, 2026, 52.1% of ChatGPT's sources on exchange safety were the exchange's own site, against 8.2% to 10.2% on Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. A fix that moves one engine can leave another unchanged. Read the study.
Why it uses repeated runs
AI answers change from one run to the next. SparkToro ran 12 prompts 2,961 times across ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI and found under a 1 in 100 chance of the same brand list twice, per its study published Jan. 28, 2026. One run can show a company named or missing by chance. Repeated runs show which questions name it reliably.
How to raise it
- Get mentioned on the sites AI engines already cite for your questions. Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands, May 26, 2025, found branded web mentions correlated 0.664 with AI Overview mentions, against 0.218 for backlinks.
- Publish a page that answers each question directly, in the first lines of the page.
- Put your company name in the sentence that carries the answer, so an engine that cites the page also names you.
- Trace any wrong answer to the page it came from and get that page corrected.
Intrica tracks Answer Share weekly for customers: 25 agreed buyer questions on Growth, 50 on Scale. How we measure AI answers.
Sources
- Who AI engines cite when buyers ask if a crypto exchange is safe · Intrica Research, Oct. 16, 2026
- AIs are highly inconsistent when recommending brands or products · SparkToro, Jan. 28, 2026
- An Analysis of AI Overview Brand Visibility Factors (75K Brands Studied) · Ahrefs, May 26, 2025
Answer Share questions
What does Answer Share measure?
How many of a fixed set of buyer questions an AI engine names your company in, per engine, written as X of N.
Is Answer Share a percentage?
It is a count, such as 3 of 25. Below 5 runs per question it stays a raw count, because one run can name you or miss you by chance.
What is the difference between named and cited?
Named means your company appears in the answer text. Cited means the engine linked to your site as a source. Answer Share counts named. Cited is reported next to it. They behave differently. ChatGPT cites often and names rarely. Gemini does the opposite. One blended number hides both.
Why is there one Answer Share per engine?
Each engine draws on different sources, so the same company can be named often on one and rarely on another. Separate lines show where to work.
Which engines does the free check cover?
ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, one run per question. Customer tracking covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode with repeated runs.
Why not Perplexity, Gemini or Claude?
We started with ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers. More engines are planned.
Why only one run per question?
Each run costs money. Answers change run to run, so read this as a snapshot, not a rate.
How often is Answer Share measured for customers?
Weekly, on 25 agreed buyer questions on Growth and 50 on Scale, with a written report monthly.
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