Interpret Answer Engine Insights

Answer Engine Insights (AEI) breaks down your brand’s performance across several analytical dimensions. Each dimension has its own tab in the top navigation: Visibility, Sentiment, FactCheck, Citations, and Prompts.

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Filters

Filters are available throughout Answer Engine Insights. They allow you to adjust the analytical time frame, narrow the data view, and save views you return to often. Filters appear as dropdowns beneath the top navigation bar.

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Date range and comparison period

Use the date range filter to select the time window of the answer engine response collection. Choose a preset window (such as Last 7 Days) or define a custom range using the calendar selector. After you select a time frame, only answer engine responses generated during that period appear in the charts. Charts show change by comparing the selected time frame to a comparison period. Open the Prev. Period dropdown to choose how the comparison period is calculated:

• Prev. Period: the window immediately before the selected date range, of the same length.
• Prev. Period Last Month: the same window one month earlier.
• Custom range: any date range you define.

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Attribute filters

Attribute filters narrow the data shown on every chart in the current tab. To apply one, open the dropdown for the attribute (Topics, Platforms, Tags, Regions, Competitors, or Languages) and select the values to include. If your configuration uses Personas, a Personas filter is also available. Use the Competitors filter on the Visibility tab to choose which of the brands you track appear in its charts and rank lists. The Citations tab adds two filters of its own: Prompt Type and Citation Categories. Select + to add more filters to the bar.

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Save view

Select Save view to store the current combination of date range, comparison period, and filters. Saved views let you return to a specific analysis without rebuilding it each time.

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Export

Select Export in the top right of the tab to download the underlying data for the current filters. The Visibility, Sentiment, FactCheck, and Prompts tabs export answers. The Citations tab exports citations.

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Settings

Select the gear icon in the top right to open Answer Engine Insights settings. See the Answer Engine Insights settings for details.

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The Compare dropdown

Most charts in Answer Engine Insights include a Compare dropdown in their top right corner. Use it to change how the chart breaks down data. The options are:

• Competitors: your brand and the brands you track, one line or row per brand. This is the default for the main Visibility chart.
• Platforms: one line or row per answer engine, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews.
• Topics: one line or row per topic.
• Tags: one line or row per prompt tag.
• Regions: one line or row per region you track.
• Personas: one line or row per Persona, if your configuration uses Personas.

For example, to see how your Visibility Score differs by platform, open the Visibility tab and set the Compare dropdown on the Visibility Score chart to Platforms. The rank list beside the chart then ranks platforms instead of brands. In the Sentiment and FactCheck tabs, the Compare dropdown has additional options: Themes and previous period comparison. Each chart has a chart settings icon next to the Compare dropdown. Use it to change how the chart visualizes data.

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Visibility

The Visibility tab breaks down your brand’s presence in answer engine responses.

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Visibility Score, Share of Voice, and Average Position

The top chart has three sub-tabs that switch the metric: Visibility Score, Share of Voice, and Avg Position. Each metric appears as a line chart and a rank list.

• The line chart shows the metric over the selected date range. Select Current Period or Previous Period at the bottom of the chart to show or hide either line, and toggle the Show … option to overlay the brands you track.
• The rank list shows your brand’s rank by the selected metric relative to competitors, with the change versus the comparison period. Select Expand to see the full list. When the chart compares topics or tags, select a row to open that topic or tag’s subpage.

Use the Compare dropdown to pivot the chart and rank list by platforms, topics, tags, regions, or Personas.

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Visibility Trends

Visibility Trends shows the largest movements in Visibility Score during the selected period, split into Biggest Spikes and Biggest Drops. Each item shows a sparkline, the current score, and the change versus the comparison period. By default the trends compare topics. Use the Compare dropdown to see the biggest movers across competitors, platforms, tags, regions, or Personas instead.

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Visibility Ranking

Visibility Ranking is a customizable heat map that shows how two dimensions intersect, for example how each platform performs in each topic. Configure it with the controls above the table:

• Value: show the Visibility Score as a percentage, or show rank instead.
• Rows: the dimension shown as rows, such as topics, tags, regions, or platforms.
• Columns: the dimension shown as columns, such as competitors or platforms.

Darker cells indicate higher values. Select Table to view the same data in a standard rank table. Expand the topics to see the ranking of their prompts. Select a prompt to open it’s Prompt Analysis view with visibility metrics, executions and citations.

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Topic Prioritization

Topic Prioritization plots each topic by its Visibility Score and Citation Share so you can decide where to focus. The matrix splits topics into four groups: Select Table above the plot to view the same data as a ranked list.

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Citations

The Citations tab assesses how often answer engine responses cite your domains, and which other sources they rely on.

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Citation Share and Citation Coverage

The top chart has two sub-tabs that switch the metric: Citation Share and Citation Coverage. Each metric is displayed as a line chart and a rank list.

• The line chart shows the metric over the selected date range. Select Current Period or Previous Period at the bottom of the chart to show or hide either line, and toggle the Show … option to overlay other domains.
• The Citation Share Rank list ranks the most cited domains, with your owned domains marked Owned. Select Expand below the table to see the full list.

By default the chart compares websites. Use the Compare dropdown to pivot by platforms, topics, tags, regions, or Personas.

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Citation Categories

Citation Categories classify the sources AI platforms cite, helping you understand where your visibility comes from and identify opportunities. The Citation Share by Category chart shows the share of citations for each category. Use the chart settings on the top right of the chart to switch to a line chart and see how each category trends over time. Owned, Competition, and Custom categories are defined in Answer Engine Insights settings. All other categories are assigned automatically but can be overridden in settings.

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All Citations

All Citations is a ranked table of every cited source in the selected period. Use the search box above the table to find a domain or page, the settings icon to adjust the table, and the download icon to export it. Switch between three views:

• Domains: the most frequently cited domains. Each row shows the domain, its category, its citation share, and any citation tags. Domains with several cited subdomains show the subdomain count.
• Pages: the most referenced individual URLs. Multiple pages from the same domain can appear in this list.
• Watchlist: specific URLs you choose to track for citation performance. While Pages lists the most cited pages overall, the Watchlist lets you define and monitor a custom set of URLs.

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Citation Decay

Citation Decay shows how long sources keep getting cited after they first appear. Switch between Domains and Pages. The summary at the top shows the Average Rise (days from first citation to peak citation count) and Average Half-life (days for citations to fall to half of their peak and stay there) across all sources. Each row shows the share trend, the date the source was first cited, its rise in days, peak share, peak date, half-life in days, and the date it was last cited. Use this table to spot content that is losing traction and content that answer engines have recently picked up.

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Citation Ranking

Citation Ranking is a customizable heat map of citation share across two dimensions, for example how much each domain is cited within each topic. Configure it with the Value, Rows, and Columns controls, the same way as Visibility Ranking. Select Table to switch to a standard rank table.

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Citation Relationships

The Citation Relationships chart visualizes how citations are connected across answer engines and topics. Select 3D or 2D, then select Show Graph to render it. Clusters represent groups of cited sources that share mentions for a particular topic and platform. For example, if your brand is mentioned in two different publications that are both cited by AI answer engine platforms, those publications appear in the same cluster.

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Prompts

The Prompts tab shows performance for every prompt you track, and the queries answer engines generate from them.

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Tracked prompts

The Tracked prompts table groups prompts by topic. Expand a topic to see the prompts within it. Each row shows Visibility Score, Visibility Rank, Share of Voice, Share of Voice Rank, Average Position, Citation Share, Citation Rank, Executions, and Prompt Volume, each with its change versus the comparison period. Sort the table by a metric’s current value or by its change versus the comparison period. Controls above the table:

• Prompt type: filter to prompts with a given analysis type, such as Visibility, Sentiment, or FactCheck.
• Search topics: find a topic or prompt by name.
• Download icon: export the table.
• Modify prompts: open the Prompt Designer to add, edit, or tag prompts.
• Settings icon: change Group by (for example, topic) and Customize columns.

Learn more about managing prompts in Create, manage and tag prompts.

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Query fanouts

Answer engines often turn a single prompt into several search queries before they answer. The Query fanouts view shows those queries for each prompt you track. Each row is a prompt, with its Query Count (the number of distinct queries generated in the period) and Average Queries Per Execution. Expand a prompt to see the individual queries. Select View all to view all queries for a prompt. Use this view to understand how answer engines interpret your prompts and which underlying searches your content needs to rank for. To see the more detailed analysis of a prompt, hover over it and select Analyze. This opens the Query Fanout Analysis view for the prompt. Select Show Prompt Diffs to compare how queries changed across executions. Select View Executions for a more detailed prompt executions analysis. The metrics you see depend on your prompt type. For example, for a FactCheck prompt, it’s the accuracy-related views and claim analysis, and for a Visibility prompt it’s Visibility Score and visibility and citations breakdown.

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Sentiment

The Sentiment tab tracks how answer engines describe your brand. Learn more in About Sentiment and ​the Getting started with Sentiment guide.

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FactCheck

The FactCheck tab tracks the accuracy of what answer engines say about your brand. Learn more in About FactCheck and the Getting started with FactCheck guide.

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Investigate charts with AI Marketer

To ask AI Marketer to interpret a chart, select a point or a date range on it, then select Investigate:

• To investigate a single date, click a point on a line chart to pin that date.
• To investigate a period, click and drag across points on a line chart to select a date range.

Profound opens AI Marketer in the side panel and sends a prompt that includes the chart and the date or date range you selected, so you can ask what drove the change. Investigate is available in most charts, including the Visibility, Sentiment, FactCheck, Citations, and Query fanouts charts. Select View citations (or View executions in Visibility tab) to view the underlying data for that point in the chart. Filter and group the data in the All data view using the options above the table.

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Annotate charts

Chart annotations are notes pinned to dates on time-series line charts. They show what happened, such as a launch, a model change on an AI platform, or a prompt update, next to the trend it may have affected. Learn more in Chart annotations in AEI.