Share of voice (AI answers)
Updated 2026-09-15
Share of voice in AI answers is the proportion of brand mentions among all tracked brands — yours plus the competitors you named — across the sampled answers. It answers "when this category comes up, how much of the airtime is ours?" rather than "how often are we mentioned?".
How it is calculated
Counting happens at the answer level, not the word level: within one answer, your brand counts once no matter how many times it is named, and each competitor counts once as well. Share of voice is then your answer-level mentions divided by the sum of yours and every tracked competitor's. The competitor list is therefore part of the metric definition — adding or removing a competitor changes the number without anything changing in the answers.
Worked example (illustrative numbers)
Across nine sampled answers, your brand is mentioned in 5. Competitor A appears in 3 answers, competitor B in 2. Share of voice = 5 / (5 + 3 + 2) = 0.5. If competitor B is dropped from the tracked list, the same answers now give 5 / 8 ≈ 0.625 — which is why the competitor set must be stated next to the number.
Common mistakes
- Counting every occurrence of a name inside one answer, which rewards verbose answers instead of visibility.
- Changing the competitor list mid-quarter and reading the jump as progress.
- Comparing your share of voice to another tool's: unless the competitor set and prompt set match exactly, the two numbers are not the same measurement.
Frequently asked questions
- Should share of voice include every competitor in the market?
- No — it should include the competitors you are actually compared against in buying decisions. A long list dilutes the metric and makes movement hard to read; a short, stable list makes the trend meaningful.
- Can share of voice rise while mention rate falls?
- Yes, and it is a useful signal. It means the category is being answered with fewer brands named overall, and you survived the cut more often than the competitors did.
