Step-by-step guide
How GeoSonar works
From setup to operational report: discover how GeoSonar analyzes your brand's AI visibility in five steps and turns data into concrete actions.
Why the GeoSonar process works
Built on the signals AI engines reward
Every step in GeoSonar maps to a measurable aspect of AI visibility, grounded in academic research and the real behaviour of generative models.
5
AI engines analysed in parallel
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot: each scan covers every model your potential customers use.
16
GEO metrics across 3 pillars
Infrastructure, Narrative and Authority: the three dimensions that determine whether a brand gets cited or ignored by AI.
+132%
Citability with authoritative sources
The single highest-impact GEO optimisation, measured by Aggarwal et al., KDD '24. Source: Aggarwal et al., KDD '24
How is a brand's AI visibility measured?
GeoSonar sends discovery prompts, modelled on real customer questions, to the 5 main generative AI engines. For each response it detects whether the brand is mentioned, its position, sentiment and which URLs are cited as sources. The result is the GEO Score: an aggregate across 16 metrics that makes AI visibility comparable over time and against competitors.
What is the best process to improve the GEO Score?
The GeoSonar 5-step workflow is: (1) create the project with brand, domain and category, (2) refine discovery prompts before the scan, (3) analyse GEO Score, Share of Voice and sources per engine, (4) read the GEO Audit across 3 pillars to understand the root causes of visibility gaps, (5) act with the Action Center, which turns every finding into a prioritised task with step-by-step instructions. Every step is automated but fully customisable.
Do I need technical expertise to use GeoSonar?
No. GeoSonar is designed for brand managers, marketing consultants and agencies without prior technical knowledge. The AI automatically detects the brand context, generates discovery prompts and calculates the GEO Score. Your team receives readable findings and operational tasks, not raw data to interpret. The Action Center ranks priorities so it is always clear where to start.
The GeoSonar process
Five steps from scan to operational plan
Step 01
Create your project
Start by entering your brand and its domain: this becomes the entity GeoSonar tracks across AI-generated answers. The domain anchors the analysis, connecting prompts, sources and technical signals back to the right brand. The product category gives GeoSonar the market context it needs before generating discovery prompts, so the scan starts from the right positioning.
- Brand and domain become the tracked entity across all AI engines
- GeoSonar uses the category to understand the market before building prompts
- Before scanning, confirm the AI-detected context for your brand
Step 02
Run the GEO scan
Before running the scan, GeoSonar shows the AI-detected brand context so you can confirm the positioning is correct. Discovery prompts model real customer questions — you can edit them to capture the buying moments and category searches that matter most. The scan then queries the selected AI engines and records whether the brand is mentioned, cited, ranked or absent.
- Review and refine discovery prompts before the scan starts
- GeoSonar tests ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot in parallel
- Records mentions, citations, rank and sentiment per engine and per prompt
Step 03
Analyze your AI visibility
The overview turns the scan into a GEO Score and breaks down visibility by engine, prompt and source. The prompt view shows which customer questions surface the brand and which ones leave space for competitors. You can drill into the evidence behind each prompt, compare how different models handle the same market question and see which domains get cited when your brand is missing from the answer.
- Aggregated GEO Score + breakdown by engine, prompt and source
- Prompt-level evidence: mention, rank, sentiment and cited URLs
- Competitor intelligence: where others appear when your brand is absent
Step 04
Identify gaps with the GEO Audit
The technical audit verifies whether AI crawlers can access and understand your site's most important pages. GeoSonar goes beyond classic SEO: it checks the technical and content signals that affect AI citability. Narrative clarity matters because AI systems need clear entities, positioning and language to correctly summarize a brand. Every finding explains what is wrong, why it affects visibility and what correction to apply.
- AI crawler access check: bot permissions and blocking rules
- Narrative clarity: entities, positioning and language readable by AI
- Every issue with explanation, GEO Score impact and fix to apply
Step 05
Act with the Action Center
The Action Center turns audit findings into a prioritized backlog, ranked by expected impact on visibility and score. Priority filters help you focus on the issues most likely to improve results instead of treating every finding the same. Engine filters narrow the action list when a visibility gap affects one specific AI platform. The Download Center generates shareable PDF reports for clients, stakeholders or internal teams.
- Impact-ranked backlog: fix what matters most first
- Engine filters: isolate gaps specific to Perplexity, ChatGPT or Gemini
- Download Center: PDF reports ready to share with clients and teams
Expert advice
Pro tips for each step
Step 1 — Create your project
- Use the brand name exactly as it appears in customer questions, not the legal entity name
- Category precision matters: GEO software for agencies beats software every time
- Review GeoSonar's generated discovery prompts and refine any that do not reflect your real market
Step 2 — Run the GEO scan
- Refining prompts before the scan is the single highest-impact improvement you can make
- Add comparative prompts (GeoSonar vs alternatives) to measure your competitive positioning
- Always run a baseline scan before optimising: you need a reference point to compare against
Step 3 — Analyse AI visibility
- Analyse by engine: Perplexity cites far more than ChatGPT, different behaviours need different strategies
- Look at prompts where competitors appear and you do not: those are your most immediate opportunities
- Domains cited in AI responses are worth more than traditional backlinks for generative citability
Step 4 — GEO Audit
- Start with Infrastructure: AI crawler blocks and robots.txt errors are fixed in minutes
- Narrative clarity carries the greatest weight in the GEO Score: invest in entity definitions
- Prioritise High-impact findings before Medium ones: the order matters more than the speed
Step 5 — Action Center
- Always start with High-impact tasks regardless of execution difficulty
- Use engine filters to isolate tasks that only matter for Perplexity or only for ChatGPT
- After resolving 5-10 tasks, re-run the scan to measure the actual GEO Score improvement
Compared with other GEO tools
How GeoSonar compares to other GEO tools
| Tool | Pricing | Engines | Best for | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeoSonar✦ | Free plan at €0 | 5 engines | Deterministic GEO Score + prioritized action plan | Less focused on custom enterprise procurement |
| Oltre AI | From €0 | 6 surfaces | Automated analysis, content, publishing, and indexing | Token-based model and less granular diagnostic control |
| Omnia | From €79/month | 7 engines | Weekly action plans and MCP-native workflows | No single deterministic 0-100 GEO Score |
| OtterlyAI | From $29/month | 6 engines/add-ons | Low-cost monitoring with content audits | Add-ons for some engines and no deterministic GEO Score |
| Peec AI | Check pricing page | 6 engines | Visibility, position, and sentiment analytics | More focused on monitoring than action planning |
| Profound | From $99/month | 10 engines | Enterprise AEO, agent analytics, and prompt intelligence | Broader and more complex than a focused GEO workflow |
| Rankscale | From $20/month | 17+ engines | Broad coverage, credits, API, and agency white-label | Credit usage can be harder to forecast |
| RiffAnalytics | Free report/trial | 6 engines | Fast reports and first AI visibility snapshots | Less depth on audit and action planning |
| Semrush | Check pricing page | 4 engines | Global SEO suite with integrated AI visibility | AI visibility is a toolkit, not a dedicated GEO product |
| SEOZoom | Pricing + GEO/AEO credits | 4 engines | Italian SEO suite with GEO and AEO features | GEO/AEO are credit-based features inside an SEO suite |
GeoSonar combines deterministic scoring, source analysis, and a prioritized action plan in one GEO workflow. The other tools in this table cover adjacent jobs such as monitoring, SEO suites, automation, analytics, and enterprise AEO.
Interactive demo
See GeoSonar in action
Click through the full workflow: project creation, AI-detected context, discovery prompts, GEO scan, reports, cited sources, technical audit and Action Center.
Ready to optimize your AI visibility?
Run your first GEO scan in minutes. Deterministic algorithm, concrete actions, zero vanity metrics.
Questions about how GeoSonar works
A standard scan typically takes 10-20 minutes, depending on the number of prompts tested and the response time of the AI engines. GeoSonar queries ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot in parallel to minimize the total time.
The standard scan uses 10 prompts: 8 discovery prompts to test brand citability in a competitive context, and 2 brand-specific prompts to evaluate how the brand is perceived and described by AI engines.
Yes. Before running the scan you can review and edit the prompts automatically generated by GeoSonar. This lets you calibrate the analysis to sector-specific questions and your target audience.
After the first scan you immediately receive the GEO Score, the AI Visibility analysis, the Citation Network, the GEO Audit with all issues detected, and the Action Center with prioritized tasks. You can re-run the scan at any time to track progress over time.
Yes. GeoSonar supports multiple projects in the same dashboard. Each project has its own GEO Score, reports and independent Action Center. It is the ideal solution for digital marketing agencies and SEO consultants managing multiple clients.