[IN THE NEWS]
People of Seer
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JULY 20, 2026 — In a new article about how to measure AI search visibility, Search Engine Journal cites insights from two members of Seer Interactive's leadership team: CEO Wil Reynolds and Chief AI Officer Alisa Scharf. Our team is passionate about evolving marketing strategies to meet the new demands of AI and GEO, and we love seeing such perspectives included in industry think pieces.
What Wil and Alisa Said
Alisa: When it comes to measuring your brand's AI search visibility, Alisa cautions putting too much weight on citations when AI responses are constantly changing. She also suggests running a brand accuracy audit to monitor what narratives and facts AI models are sharing about your brand, as these can often be incorrect and have a downstream impact on how potential customers perceive your brand.
Wil: Wil discusses how AI visibility only matters if it's tied to an outcome, and how it's important to track what actions result from that visibility. He also highlights the tracking detail most brands miss: not just tracking whether your brand appears in AI responses, but tracking response variations by model and prompt over time.
What the Data Shows
One of our recent studies revealed the frequency of ghost citations in AI, or instances where your content is sourced but your brand isn't mentioned. When we compared two clients in the Hospitality & Travel industry, one had a competitive ghost citation rate of nearly 30% (meaning AI cited their content but only mentioned competitors nearly a third of the time), while the other was below 10%.
Our GEO Olympics study also proved that performance does not necessarily translate to AI visibility, that campaign surges don't compound, and that AI presence doesn't mean accurate brand representation.
Our Take: What This Means for Marketers
Wil has been saying this for a while now: on its own, AI visibility is a vanity metric. Instead of getting too caught up in AI citation metrics, the best strategy your brand can focus on for long-term success is building trust with your audience.
Seer uses this framework: you want to be seen (by winning the algorithm), you want to be believed (winning the audience), and then — the most important step — you want to be chosen (convincing the audience to visit your site or sign up for a newsletter).
AI brand visibility is certainly a part of that, but it's only one piece of the equation. And the best way to measure the impact of your AI visibility is to measure it alongside other metrics like traffic to your site, engagement with your content, and conversion rates. Wil shares his thoughts on which KPIs to track in this blog about AI Search and SEO KPIs.
Resources
Check out the Search Engine Journal article: How to Measure AI Search Visibility
Listen to the No Hacks podcast episode with Wil: AI Visibility Is a Vanity Metric With Wil Reynolds
Listen to the No Hacks podcast episode with Alisa: Most Brands Are Chasing AI Visibility Backwards With Alisa Scharf
Read our ghost citation analysis: LLM Ghost Citations: Why Your Content Is Working and Your Brand Isn't
Check out our GEO Olympics study: The GEO Olympics Study: What 231,347 LLM Responses Reveal About AI Brand Visibility