Highest leverage first, from the latest measurement across all seven answer engines. Work down the list; the next weekly measure shows whether each one moved the number.
Earn third-party citations, get listed and mentioned where AI looks for proof: industry directories, association registers, local press, Reddit threads and genuine review platforms (Trustpilot, or ProductReview.com.au in Australia). Across the businesses we measure, the large majority of brand mentions in AI answers sit on third-party pages rather than the business’s own site.
Publish honest comparison pages for the rivals AI names against you, in our analysis of 1,001 high-intent searches, two-thirds of "you vs rival" results and five of six "alternatives" results are won by a page the brand didn't write, and those pages are what AI reads when a buyer asks it to choose. An honest head-to-head page (including who should pick them) takes that moment back.
Build your machine-readable identity, Organization JSON-LD with sameAs links to your verified profiles, identical name/address/phone everywhere you're listed, and your name paired with your category in every public mention. Do this consistently and the entity graph (Google Knowledge Graph, eventually Wikidata via independent coverage) follows, that's the cross-engine 'truth anchor' AI uses to know who you are.
Show that your content is current, add visible 'last updated' dates and dateModified in your schema, and refresh key pages. AI assistants measurably favour recent content over stale pages.
You measure with Plausible and PostHog and Cloudflare Web Analytics and Found by AI beacon, which records visits. Add GA4 alongside it only if you want attribution inside Google's own tools; it is optional, and your current analytics already sees AI-sent visitors.