How do you benchmark your brand against competitors in AI search? Finally found a method that works

This is literally what I do for a living now. Competitive intelligence for AI visibility is the fastest-growing part of my consulting practice.

The discovery problem you mentioned is real and important.

Most brands only track the competitors they already know about. But AI recommendation engines surface brands based on different criteria than traditional search. I’ve seen cases where:

• A DTC brand was losing to a Walmart private label they’d never considered a competitor
• A B2B software company was competing against open-source alternatives they ignored
• An outdoor brand was being beaten by ultralight specialists they’d never heard of

What actually works:

I use Am I Cited for my clients. Their competitor suggestions feature is exactly what you need - it analyzes all AI responses for your prompts and identifies brands that frequently appear. These are your “AI competitors” even if they’re not your traditional market competitors.

You can then add them to your tracking and see share of voice comparisons over time.

Let me share our framework. We’ve been doing AI competitive analysis for about 8 months now.

The metrics that matter:

1. Share of Voice - What % of AI responses mention you vs competitors
2. Position - When you are mentioned, where do you appear in the list (first recommendation vs. “also consider”)
3. Sentiment - Are you mentioned positively, neutrally, or with caveats
4. Context - Which types of prompts trigger your mention vs. competitors

Our process:

We set up tracking for 8 direct competitors plus discovered 4 more through AI response analysis. Every week we get a report showing:

• Overall share of voice trends
• Position changes (who’s moving up/down)
• New competitor appearances

The insight that changed everything:

Our main competitor had 3x our share of voice. When we dug into WHY, we found they had comprehensive FAQ pages structured as Q&A, strong Reddit presence in r/CampingGear, and were mentioned in several “best of” articles that AI was citing.

We had better products but worse “AI visibility infrastructure.”

Coming from traditional SEO competitive analysis, this is a whole different game.

What’s similar:

• You still need to track rankings (positions in AI responses)
• Keyword/prompt research still matters
• Content quality is still king

What’s different:

• “Rankings” fluctuate way more (AI responses aren’t deterministic)
• The competitive set is often completely different from Google SERP competitors
• Authority signals come from different places (Reddit » backlinks for AI)

Tactical advice for the OP:

For outdoor gear specifically, I’d focus on:

1. Track your top 10 product category prompts (e.g., “best hiking backpack under $200”)
2. Map out who AI recommends for each prompt type
3. Look for patterns - are certain competitors dominating specific categories?
4. Focus your content optimization on categories where you’re closest to winning

Don’t try to beat everyone everywhere. Find the prompts where you’re position 2 or 3 and push to become #1.

We had a similar problem in the SaaS space. Competitors we’d never heard of kept showing up in AI recommendations.

The hidden competitor problem is real.

When we ran analysis, we found:

• 40% of brands AI recommended were NOT on our competitive radar
• Many were smaller companies with very focused positioning
• Some were from adjacent categories (AI was recommending project management tools when people asked about our workflow software)

What helped us:

We started treating AI competitor discovery as an ongoing process, not a one-time project. Every month we check:

• Who new is appearing in our prompt space
• Who’s gaining/losing share of voice
• What content changes might be causing shifts

It’s like a radar system for competitive threats. Honestly wish we’d started this a year ago.

Quick tactical wins we’ve seen for improving competitive position:

1. Comparison content Create genuine “Brand X vs Brand Y vs Your Brand” content. AI loves to cite comparison articles. Make sure you’re in the comparison.

2. Reddit strategy Not just your own posts - get genuine customers discussing you. Offer incentives for detailed Reddit reviews. AI heavily cites Reddit for product recommendations.

3. FAQ optimization Look at what questions trigger competitor mentions. Make sure your content directly answers those same questions. Use the exact phrasing people use.

4. Position tracking You mentioned you can’t track changes over time. This is critical. We use automated tracking that shows us bump charts of position changes. When a competitor suddenly jumps up, we can investigate what they did.

Without tracking, you’re flying blind.

We run competitive analysis for about 30 clients across different industries. Here’s what we’ve learned:

Share of voice benchmarks by industry:

• Ecommerce (your space): Top 3 brands typically capture 60-70% of mentions
• SaaS: More fragmented, top 5 usually capture 50-60%
• Professional services: Very concentrated, often 1-2 dominant players
• Consumer goods: Highly variable, depends on category maturity

For outdoor gear specifically:

The category is dominated by a few big players in AI recommendations, BUT niche specialists are gaining ground fast. Brands that focus on specific use cases (ultralight, budget, extreme conditions) are winning those specific prompts.

My advice:

Don’t try to compete across all prompts. Identify 5-10 prompts where you should realistically win, and focus your efforts there. It’s better to dominate a niche than be invisible everywhere.

This thread is gold. Thanks everyone!

Key takeaways I’m implementing:

1. Set up proper tracking - Going to try Am I Cited to get baseline competitive data and discover hidden competitors

2. Map the competitive landscape - Not just who we think our competitors are, but who AI is actually recommending

3. Focus on winnable prompts - Love the advice about picking 5-10 specific prompts to dominate rather than trying to compete everywhere

4. Track position changes over time - Need that visibility into trends, not just snapshots

5. Reddit strategy - Had no idea this was so influential. Going to get active in r/CampingandHiking and r/Ultralight

The discovery insight was the biggest unlock. I was so focused on competitors I knew about that I wasn’t seeing the actual competitive landscape in AI.

Will report back with results. Appreciate all the expertise here!