How do I show a prospect which competitors are winning in AI search?
Run an AI-visibility audit on the prospect's domain and pull up the competitor leaderboard. Here's how to surface "you're not there, these three are" in a sales call.
By Josiah Jirgens, Technical Director of ComKey Consulting
The most direct way to show a prospect which competitors are winning in AI search is an AI-visibility audit that ranks the brands AI engines cite for the prospect's category — and surfaces the prospect's own position next to them. ConvertHook produces this competitor leaderboard automatically on any domain in about a minute, with the prospect's brand highlighted and the gap to the leaders visible at a glance.
This is the single most useful finding to bring into a sales call. "Here are the three brands AI is recommending in your category, and you're not in the answer" is the conversation. It's specific, factual, and almost impossible for the prospect to brush off.
Why the competitor read is the killer finding
A generic "you have an AI visibility problem" finding lands soft. A specific "Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C are showing up for your category and you're not" lands hard. Three reasons:
- It names winners. The prospect can't argue with brands they already recognise.
- It implies a deadline. Every month those competitors stay in AI answers is a month of consideration you're losing.
- It points to fixable causes. The citation sources behind the competitor mentions show what an engagement would change.
The competitor leaderboard takes the audit from "interesting data" to "this is what's costing you."
How to surface it in a pitch
Five minutes' prep, done the morning of the call:
- Run the audit on the prospect's domain. ConvertHook returns the report in about a minute.
- Pull up the competitor leaderboard. Look for the top three brands AI cites for the prospect's category.
- Note the prospect's position — absent, or ranked far below.
- Pick one citation — a specific page the AI is pulling from for a competitor. This is your "and here's why" example.
- Open the call with the leaderboard. Don't bury it in slide ten. It's the first thing they should see.
The structure that works: "I ran a quick AI-visibility audit on your domain this morning. Here are the three brands AI is recommending in your category. You're not in the answer. Want to walk through why?"
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What the data actually shows
A competitor leaderboard from an AI-visibility audit typically includes:
- Rank — which brands show up most often across the queries tested.
- Share of voice — what percentage of AI mentions in the category are each brand.
- Citation sources — the pages AI pulls from when it cites each brand.
- Engine breakdown — whether a brand wins on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or AI Overviews, or across all of them.
The citation data is the actionable part. Once you see which pages the AI is using to build its answer about a competitor, you can show the prospect what would need to change for them to be in that answer instead.
For the wider audit picture, see what is an AI-visibility audit. For running this as a service, how to offer AI-visibility audits.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find out which competitors AI is recommending for a prospect's category?
Run an AI-visibility audit on the prospect's domain — a purpose-built tool will return a competitor leaderboard showing the brands AI engines cite most often for the prospect's category, ranked by share of voice. ConvertHook produces this in about a minute; you don't need access to the prospect's analytics. The leaderboard is the most useful finding to bring into a sales call, because it names the brands winning the consideration the prospect isn't.
- Can I see why competitors are showing up in ChatGPT and the prospect isn't?
Yes — a good AI-visibility audit returns not just the competitor rankings but the citation sources behind each mention. Those citations are the pages AI is pulling from to build its answer. Once you see which pages the AI uses for a competitor, you can show the prospect what content, structured data, or brand-mention pattern would need to change for them to be in the answer instead. The citation data is what turns the audit from "you have a problem" into "here's what to fix."
- Will the AI-visibility audit show me my prospect's competitors across all AI engines?
A good tool covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews — and reports the competitor set both aggregated and broken down per engine. The breakdown matters because a competitor can dominate one engine and be weak on another. Surfacing that per-engine pattern in a pitch makes the finding more specific and more credible than "you're missing in AI search" as a single number.
More in Education (GEO/AI)
- How do I check a prospect's AI search visibility before a sales call?
Run their domain through an AI-visibility audit and walk into the call with their competitive gap, share of voice, and citations already in hand. Here's the workflow.
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