Share of Voice
Share of voice (in the context of AI search) is the percentage of AI-generated answers about a category that mention a given brand, measured against named competitors over the same prompt set.
Why it matters
Share of voice translates AEO into a single comparable number — the closest thing to a market-share metric for AI search. It's the number marketing leaders use to benchmark progress and report up to executives or boards.
How it's calculated
Pick a prompt set that maps to your category (e.g. 'best CRM for small business', '[city] insurance brokers', 'cheapest electric SUV 2026'). Run each prompt across multiple AI engines. For every response, record which named brands appear. Share of voice is the percentage of those responses that mention each brand.
What to track
- Per-prompt SoV — your share for a single high-intent query.
- Aggregate SoV — your share across the whole category prompt set.
- Per-engine SoV — your share split by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, etc. Different engines often give very different shares for the same brand.
- Competitive SoV — the share gap between you and your top three named competitors.
Common pitfalls
Single-prompt comparisons are noisy. AI responses vary across prompts and over time, so robust SoV requires a stable prompt set and a consistent measurement cadence (at least weekly). Reporting a number from a one-off check is a recipe for wild swings that don't reflect underlying movement.
Related terms
