How we count
Every number in a bisica report comes from counting AI answers. This page says what we ask, how we ask it and what counts.
What we ask
We ask the questions your buyers type into an AI tool before they choose a company. Software drafts them from what you sell and who buys it. Here is one a buyer might ask.
- Which accounting firm should a 40-person construction company in Ohio use?
No question mentions your company, because a question with your name in it steers the answer toward you.
The quick check asks 10 questions and the free snapshot asks 50.
How we ask
Each question is asked by itself with web search on. The AI tool has no memory of the questions before it.
We ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity through each company’s developer service. For ChatGPT and Claude we use the model their free plans use. The app on your phone can answer differently because it remembers your earlier chats.
Every tool is given your country. It is given your city and state too if you serve one area. The quick check always asks as a buyer in the United States.
Google AI Overviews are collected from Google’s results pages through a data provider. Google shows no AI Overview for some questions. We leave those out of the Google AI Overviews numbers.
| Quick check | Free snapshot | |
|---|---|---|
| Questions | 10 | 50 |
| AI tools | ChatGPT | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews |
| Times each question is asked | 1 | 3 on each tool |
| Answers asked for | 10 | 600 |
| When you see it | In about a minute | By email within 48 hours |
Why the snapshot asks three times
AI answers change from one ask to the next. The same question can get an answer that mentions you now and one that leaves you out an hour later.
So the snapshot asks each of the 50 questions three times on each of the four tools. That is 600 asks. Every answer that comes back is counted.
The quick check asks each of its 10 questions once on ChatGPT. It shows you in about a minute who ChatGPT mentions. The snapshot is the count to plan from.
What we count
The snapshot counts four things. The quick check counts the first.
- Mentioned. The answer mentions your company by name. A name that is also a common word counts only when it is written as a brand. “Fleet” counts. “Your device fleet” does not.
- Recommended. The answer calls your company the best, the top or its recommended pick. Being listed first does not count, because the order of an AI list changes from one ask to the next.
- Cited. The answer lists your site as a source. ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Overviews mark the pages an answer cites. Perplexity lists every page its search returned. It does not mark which ones the answer used.
- Wrong. The answer says something false about your company. Software compares each sentence that names you with what you told us you sell. When we have confirmed facts on your own site, it compares the sentence with those too. It flags only clear contradictions and can miss a false sentence. A person at bisica reads every flagged sentence before your report is sent.
If you sell under more than one name, we count them as one company. We count the competitors you name the same way. We also add up to five companies that AI mentions often in your answers. Your report says which ones we added.
An answer that failed or came back empty is left out of every count. Your report says how many were left out.
What a count cannot tell you
- A count describes the answers on the day we asked. Your report states that day, the model each tool used and how many answers were read.
- A count is a number of answers. We do not turn it into a score.
- A count cannot say what one person sees in their own app.
- Nobody can guarantee what AI says. We can ask the same questions again and count.
How we count again
A Sprint is our six-week project. You approve the 50 questions at its start. The same 50 are asked again on the same four tools after six weeks and a third time at 90 days. You see the counts side by side.
Your report also gives each count as a share of the answers, rounded to a whole percent. When two shares are less than 10 points apart, read them as the same.
The site check
Can AI read your site asks no AI tool. It reads your robots.txt file and your homepage and shows what each of 9 AI crawlers is told. It gives no score.
Check our count yourself
The quick check shows every answer in full. Each one reads as ChatGPT wrote it. The snapshot lists all 50 questions and who each tool mentioned for each one.
You can ask any of them yourself. Your answer can differ from ours for the reasons above.