Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is about measuring and improving how brands show up in AI search. There are many ways to analyze performance but there is one metric that is the foundation: presence.
Presence is the most fundamental performance indicator in AEO. It measures whether your brand or your sources appear in the AI’s response at all. Without presence, there is nothing to optimize.
What Presence Means
Presence applies to both brand mentions and source mentions:
Brand mentions — Is your company, product, or service named in the response?
Source mentions — Does your domain appear as an inline link or a cited source?
Both are signals that the AI considered you relevant enough to include. If you’re not present, you’re invisible to the user.
Why Presence Comes First
Presence is binary. You’re either in the answer, or you’re not. That makes it the baseline KPI:
No presence = no performance. Position, placement, and perception all depend on first being there.
Competitor presence = lost ground. If you’re absent while competitors are present, they own the narrative.
Presence creates opportunity. Once you appear, you can measure how you’re positioned, where you’re placed, and how you’re perceived.
How Is Presence Calculated?
Presence is measured by checking whether your brand or source is included in an AI response across a set of prompts. It’s usually expressed as a percentage:
100% brand presence = your brand appears in every response for the prompts you tested.
50% brand presence = your brand shows up in half of them.
0% brand presence = your brand did not appear at all.
Example:
Imagine testing the prompt “best project management tools” across multiple runs. If the AI names Asana in 8 out of 10 responses, Asana’s brand presence for that prompt is 80%. If Basecamp appears in only 2 out of 10, its brand presence is 20%.
This simple calculation makes presence a clear, trackable KPI. One you can compare across brands and over time.
Presence as the Baseline KPI
Presence is the entry point for AEO. It answers the first question: Did we appear in the AI’s answer?
If the answer is yes, then you can move on to evaluating position, placement, and perception. If the answer is no, the priority is clear: find out why you’re absent, especially if competitors are not.
Everything else in AEO builds on presence. That’s why it’s the most fundamental performance indicator in AI search.