How to Run a Competitor Analysis for AI Search

Identifying AI Competitors

Your AI search competitors may differ from your traditional search competitors. In AI search, you compete against any brand that an AI might recommend when users ask questions related to your industry.

To identify your AI competitors:

• Ask major AI platforms to recommend solutions in your category
• Note which brands consistently appear across multiple platforms
• Look for brands that appear in related but adjacent categories
• Track new entrants that are gaining AI visibility quickly

You may discover competitors you did not know existed, or find that some traditional competitors are nearly invisible in AI search.

Analysis Framework

Evaluate each competitor across these dimensions:

Visibility Score: How frequently are they mentioned in AI responses? Track this across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and other platforms.

Citation Context: Are they recommended as a top choice, mentioned as an alternative, or referenced for a specific feature?

Content Strategy: What type of content are they publishing? How comprehensive is their schema markup?

Authority Signals: Where are they mentioned across the web? What third-party signals do they have?

Technical Implementation: Do they have llms.txt? How thorough is their structured data?

Tools and Methods

Running a thorough competitor analysis requires systematic data collection:

1. Manual query testing: Run 20-50 industry-relevant queries across all major AI platforms and record which competitors appear
2. Schema analysis: Use schema validators to compare your structured data against competitors
3. Content audit: Evaluate competitor content depth, format, and update frequency
4. Authority mapping: Track competitor mentions across review sites, directories, and publications
5. Automated monitoring: Use tools like GetCited to continuously track competitor AI visibility

Building Your Action Plan

Once you have competitive data, create a prioritized action plan:

1. Quick wins: Identify areas where competitors are strong and you are weak that can be fixed quickly (e.g., missing schema markup)
2. Content gaps: Find topics where competitors are cited but you have no content
3. Authority building: Identify third-party platforms where competitors are present but you are not
4. Differentiation: Discover areas where no competitor has strong coverage and establish first-mover advantage
5. Ongoing monitoring: Set up weekly tracking to measure your progress against competitors