Frequently Asked Questions
What AI engines does Gauge track?
Gauge tracks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot on the Growth plan. The Enterprise plan adds Claude (Anthropic) and xAI Grok. The Starter plan tracks ChatGPT only. Claude tracking is Enterprise-tier because collecting data from Anthropic requires API requests (Claude has no logged-out web interface), which is significantly more expensive than Gauge’s standard scraping approach.How often does Gauge update my data?
Gauge runs every prompt through every configured AI engine every day. Runs begin after midnight and complete through the morning. A status indicator in the platform shows data freshness in real time: green means today’s prompts are complete, yellow means they’re still processing.How is Gauge different from just manually testing AI responses?
Three reasons manual testing doesn’t work at scale:- Personalization — AI responses are heavily influenced by user identity, chat history, and account context. Manually testing from your own account gives you personalized results, not ground truth. Gauge uses anonymous, logged-out sessions specifically to get unbiased data.
- Scale — you can’t manually test hundreds of prompts across six AI engines every day.
- Trend data — manual testing gives you a snapshot. Gauge gives you daily trend data so you can see changes over time and correlate them with actions you’ve taken.
Which model, version, reasoning effort, and training cutoff does Gauge use?
For front-end runs, Gauge uses the default model and reasoning behavior served to a logged-out user. Gauge does not pin a hidden version or effort level, and it does not control the provider’s training cutoff. Those defaults can change as the provider updates its product. Gauge follows the live consumer experience so the result reflects what a prospective customer would see. See Prompt Runs for the complete methodology.Is every question a new session, and does it use web search?
Yes. Every question runs in a fresh session without history or memory from another prompt. Gauge uses the engine’s search-enabled experience for every run, while the engine itself controls the underlying search provider. This is why repeated runs measure changes in current sources and answers rather than only resampling pretrained knowledge.Does being mentioned first improve my visibility score?
No. Visibility measures whether your brand appears in the answer. A first mention and a later mention count equally; mention order is not currently a separate Gauge metric. Sentiment is measured separately, and the full response remains available for qualitative review.Does good SEO mean good AEO?
Not automatically. Ranking #1 on Google does not guarantee your brand will appear in AI-generated answers. AI search results can differ entirely from Google rankings for the same topic because the queries are longer, AI engines scan deeper in results (50-60 vs the top 3), and the synthesis logic is different. Gauge is designed to complement your existing SEO stack, not replace it.How many prompts should I track?
Start with at least 200 prompts. User questions vary widely, and a broader prompt set gives you more uniform coverage of the search space and a more reliable visibility baseline. Include a mix of:- Industry and problem-focused queries (“best tools for tracking AI search visibility”)
- Comparison queries (“[Your Brand] vs [Competitor]”)
- Use-case queries (“how to improve AI search visibility for SaaS”)
- Branded queries (“What is [Your Brand]?”)
How quickly do AEO improvements show results?
Much faster than traditional SEO. Gauge customers typically see results in 2-8 weeks after taking action. Case studies include 2x visibility growth in 2 weeks, 5x growth in 4 weeks, and 416% improvement in under 30 days. Content briefs from the Action Center have driven 10%+ month-over-month visibility increases on an ongoing basis.What is the difference between citation rate and mention rate?
Citation rate is how often an AI engine pulls one of your URLs as a source. Mention rate is how often your brand name is actually said in the generated answer when your content is cited. AI models frequently use your content to inform an answer without crediting your brand by name. High citation rate + low mention rate means your content is shaping AI answers but your brand is invisible to the reader. Refreshing cited content with brand-linked examples and proprietary data closes this gap.What integrations does Gauge support?
- Google Analytics 4 — AI referral traffic at the page level
- Google Search Console — organic search data in Ask Gauge
- Slack — automated alerts and weekly digests
- Webflow — publish AI-generated content directly to your CMS
- API + CSV exports — programmatic data access and stakeholder reports
- S3/BI integration — push data into existing data lakes and BI tooling
What is Agency Mode?
Agency Mode provides pitch workspaces that run 100 prompts across all AI models one time. It allows agencies to assess the current AI visibility landscape for a prospective client and demonstrate Gauge’s value before committing to a subscription. It’s designed as a client acquisition tool for agencies serving mid-market brands.What does Gauge cost?
Growth also includes 18 publish-ready articles per month and 10 seats. Enterprise includes custom locations, articles, and seats, plus recurring implementation and strategy sessions with the Gauge team. Claude and Grok can be enabled with your own provider keys; the provider bills those runs separately.
Gauge Agents uses monthly plans with a fixed credit allowance shared between evals and Agent Preference runs. Plans start at $100 per month for 1,500 credits. A typical Agent Preference run uses about 10 credits, while a typical eval costs about $3–$4. Credits cover the runs and their AI usage. Runs stop when the credit balance is exhausted, so there are no automatic overages.
See the current Gauge Chat pricing and Gauge Agents pricing, or contact [email protected] for help.