Why we built Mentioned
Your next customer asked ChatGPT first. Were you in the answer?
For twenty years, being found meant ranking on Google, and there were plenty of tools to tell you where you stood. Then buyers started asking AI assistants instead. Those answers don't come with a rankings report, and most businesses have no idea whether they're in them.
By the Lowtide team · · 5 min read
The problem we kept seeing
A buyer types "what's the best invoicing app for a small agency?" into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity. They get three or four names, a short reason for each, and often never visit a search results page at all.
This isn't a fringe habit any more. G2's April 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers found 51% now start research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% a year earlier. Gartner predicted back in 2024 that traditional search volume would fall 25% by 2026 as people switch to chatbots and agents.
If you're in those answers, you're on the shortlist before the buyer has spoken to anyone. If you're not, you've lost them without ever knowing they were looking.
What goes wrong today
Most teams check this the obvious way: someone types a few questions into ChatGPT now and then and screenshots the result. That breaks down quickly:
- Answers change week to week, and differ between engines, so a one-off check tells you very little.
- You only ever ask the questions you think of, not the ones customers actually ask.
- You see that a competitor was recommended, but not why. The reason is usually which review sites, forums and articles the AI read.
- Nobody owns it, so it stops after the first month.
How Mentioned approaches it
Mentioned asks the questions your customers ask, every week, across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity with live web search switched on, so you see what a buyer would see that day.
It records whether you were mentioned, where you appeared in the answer, which competitors were named instead, and every source each engine cited. A short weekly email gives you your visibility score by engine and how it moved since last week, and the dashboard shows the detail behind it.
The sources view is usually where the useful work starts. It shows you which comparison articles, directories and review sites the engines trust, which tells you where to be listed and who to talk to.
Example · B2B software
An accountancy software firm
A small firm selling practice software to accountants tracks 12 prompts such as "best practice management software for UK accountants". In week one, it's named in 3 of the 12 answers on Perplexity and none on ChatGPT. Two competitors appear in almost every answer.
The sources view shows both competitors are listed in the same two UK comparison articles and a popular accounting forum thread; the firm is in neither. They contact the article authors and answer questions in the forum. Mentioned then tracks, week by week, whether that changes the answers.
This is an illustrative example, not a customer story.
What you get in the first month
- A baseline of where you appear across four AI engines for the questions that matter to you
- A list of the competitors recommended instead, and how often
- The specific pages each engine cites, so you know where to be present
- A short weekly email with your score and how it moved
Who it's for, and who it isn't
A good fit
- Software and online services where buyers compare options
- Professional services firms that are often asked about by name or category
- Marketing teams who already track search rankings
Probably not for
- Businesses that sell almost entirely through referrals or tenders
- Anyone expecting a tool to change AI answers directly. Mentioned measures and explains.
Sources
- G2, The Answer Economy (April 2026), reported by TechIntelPro (opens in a new tab)
- Gartner: search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026 (February 2024) (opens in a new tab)
Examples in this article are illustrative, not customer stories. Nothing here is legal advice.