AI visibility audit: what it checks, what it costs.
An AI visibility audit checks what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview actually tell customers who ask about a business, and compares it with what Google search itself shows. ColabContent runs this as part of the $499 AI-Ready Audit: the real questions your customers type, built from your services and towns, asked of ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, plus Google's AI Overview where it appears, every answer recorded word for word including which competitors get named, folded into a ranked list of fixes with the dollar impact of each. The report arrives within 3 business days.
ColabContent LLC publishes this page: a Boston AI consulting firm that builds custom AI systems businesses own outright, one time, with no per-seat fees. The AI-Ready Audit is the low-barrier first step; custom systems start at $10,000 once the audit has shown where the money is.
A new channel, checked the same rigorous way as the old ones.
For years, "being found online" meant one thing: where a business landed in Google search results and on the map. That is still true, but it is no longer the whole picture. A growing share of the people looking for a plumber, a CPA, a personal-injury lawyer or a manufacturer's parts supplier now start that search by asking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or the AI Overview Google itself shows above search results. Those assistants read the web and compose a short, spoken-style answer that names one or a few businesses by name, and the business a customer ends up calling is often decided right there, before a traditional search results page ever loads.
AI visibility is the measure of whether a business shows up, accurately and favorably, in that layer. It is a distinct thing from search ranking, even though the two are related and often improved by the same underlying fixes. A business can rank reasonably well in Google search and still be invisible to AI assistants, because the assistant is reading and quoting from different signals than a ranking algorithm counts, and it is making a more selective decision: not "which ten links to list" but "which one or two businesses to say out loud."
An AI visibility audit exists to answer a concrete question an owner cannot answer by guessing: when a real customer asks a real question, who gets named, and why. Answering that question requires actually asking the assistants the questions, in the exact phrasing a customer would use, across every service and town that matters to the business, and writing down the answers exactly as given. That is a research task, not an opinion, and it is the part of the ColabContent AI-Ready Audit this page describes in depth.
Key Terms
AI visibility: whether a business is named accurately by AI assistants answering real customer questions. AI Overview: the AI-generated summary Google shows above search results for many queries. Money Leak Report: the part of the AI-Ready Audit that converts every finding, AI-visibility included, into a dollar figure built from the business's own numbers. 90-day plan: the week-by-week ranked sequence of fixes the report ends with.
Real questions, every assistant, every word recorded.
The audit builds its question list from the business's own top three or four services and the towns it actually serves, not a generic template, because a generic question list would miss the exact phrasing real customers use. Those real questions, built from the business's own services and towns (eight on the September 2026 audit described below; more for a business with a long list of towns and services), are asked of ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, with Google's AI Overview read from the search results in each town where Google shows one, and every answer is recorded word for word: not a summary of whether the business was mentioned, but the actual text, including the names of any competitors named instead and the order they were named in.
That word-for-word record matters because it is the only way to see the specific reason a business was skipped rather than guessing at one. An answer that names three competitors and lists their towns and specialties in plain sentences, next to a business's own thin or inconsistent web presence, shows exactly what the fix needs to close.
This sits inside the audit's wider seven-area review, alongside Google's own map results and search rankings checked from each town served, and what happens after a customer clicks through: site speed on a phone, whether the call and quote buttons actually work, and whether the business's details agree everywhere they appear. AI-assistant visibility does not stand alone; it is cross-checked against the same underlying facts that determine traditional search ranking, and the fixes for one usually help the other. The reasons a business gets skipped in the first place are laid out in why ChatGPT does not recommend a business.
$499, one payment, real deliverables.
The AI-Ready Audit from ColabContent, the $499 audit that contains this AI-visibility section, is paid once through Stripe with no subscription. About 215 checks run in total across the business's own website, its listings, its Google presence in each town it serves, and the real customer questions put to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview. The report arrives within 3 business days as a private link and a PDF, with a 5-minute video walkthrough and a 20-minute call with Brandon to go through the findings in plain language.
The AI-visibility findings feed directly into the Money Leak Report, the opening section of the audit, which converts findings across all seven business areas into a dollar figure built from the business's own numbers: missed and after-hours calls, slow follow-up, web leads never answered, customers AI assistants send to named competitors instead, and past customers never re-contacted. Every fix in the report, AI-visibility fixes included, comes with step-by-step instructions written so the owner's own tech person can carry them out, whether or not they ever hire ColabContent for anything else.
There is a full money-back guarantee: if the audit did not feel worth it, the $499 is refunded, no questions asked. And every audit includes a free re-check of AI answers, rankings and money leak every quarter, for as long as the business is in business, so a fix made today can be verified as actually having moved the needle.
What happens with the findings.
The report belongs to the business either way. An owner can hand it to their own web person and be done, and many will. For AI-visibility fixes specifically, that usually means correcting inconsistent listings, rewriting pages to state services and towns in plain language, and building out any missing service-area pages the audit flags.
For owners who want ColabContent to carry out the work, the fixes are quoted on the post-audit call, measured against that business's own audit numbers: SEO and AI-visibility fixes are $2,997 once, done in 14 days; ongoing care to keep it current is $997 a month, cancel any time with 30 days notice; and where the audit surfaces a bigger workflow problem AI can solve, a custom AI system starts at $10,000, with a working prototype on the business's own data built before any build fee changes hands. None of this is owed. The $499 audit stands on its own.
A countertop fabricator engaged ColabContent for a $10,000 implementation after reading their own audit findings; the case study for the kind of system ColabContent builds once an audit has shown where the leads are is Jim Glaser Law.
What the AI-visibility section looks like on a real report.
On a September 2026 audit of a Massachusetts countertop fabricator (not named here), the AI-visibility section ran to 18 recorded answers: eight questions each to ChatGPT and Claude, and two to Perplexity before its login wall stopped the browser check. Each row carries the exact question, the full answer word for word, whether the company was named, and which competitors were named instead. Gemini was not checked, and Google showed no AI Overview on any of the ten local searches pulled for the report; the section says so rather than hiding it. The totals: ChatGPT named the company on 2 of 8 and Claude on 2 of 8, both only on questions that contained the company's own name; Perplexity on 1 of 2. Ten competitors were tallied by how often they were named, and the top two appeared five and four times.
That level of detail is what turns "AI doesn't seem to know about us" into a specific, ranked list. On this report it read: town pages first, because Google's map results showed the company in the top three in only 2 of its 12 towns and the assistants named competitors from exactly those other towns; a repair page second, because the search pull showed repair demand the site never mentioned; a Yelp listing that put the company in the wrong town third; then a review ask worded to get the town and the job into the review text. The ranked fixes carry step-by-step instructions either way, whether the owner's own tech person does the work or ColabContent is asked to.
The first week after ordering.
The first week of the audit is intake, not waiting. After ordering, ColabContent confirms the services that make the most money, the towns served, and the numbers needed for the Money Leak Report: monthly calls, average job value, close rate, past customer count, software costs and team size. None of that requires account access to anything the business runs.
While the report is being built, an owner can usefully spend the same week gathering the facts the report will need anyway: a current list of every place the business is listed online, and a plain description of the three or four services that matter most, in the owner's own words. Having that ready shortens the intake conversation and means the report, when it arrives within 3 business days, lands on an owner who is already thinking in the same terms it uses.
Related pages.
This page is the deep dive on the AI-visibility part of the audit. The three links below cover why the underlying gaps happen, how to sample them yourself for free, and the full order page for the $499 audit itself.
See why ChatGPT skips a business for the mechanics behind the checks.
See how to check it yourself before ordering the full audit.
Start with the $499 audit.
The AI-Ready Audit is $499. The report arrives within 3 business days as a private link and a PDF, with a 5-minute video walkthrough and a 20-minute call. If it has no value you get the $499 back, and every quarter your AI answers, rankings and money leak are re-checked free.
FAQ
The questions below cover what the AI-visibility section specifically includes, how it differs from an SEO audit, how it fits inside the wider $499 AI-Ready Audit with its Money Leak Report and ranked fixes, what an owner needs to send before the check starts, and what happens after the report, the video walkthrough and the call arrive.
What exactly is the AI-visibility part of the audit?
It is the part of the AI-Ready Audit that asks ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, with Google's AI Overview read from the search results in each town where Google shows one, the real questions your customers type, built from your services and towns, and records the answers word for word, including which competitors get named.
Is this different from an SEO audit?
It is one part of the roughly 215 checks in the full AI-Ready Audit, alongside Google search rankings in each town served, listings, site speed and buttons that work. AI-assistant visibility is checked as its own section because it is a distinct, newer channel.
How much does it cost and what is included?
$499, one payment through Stripe, no subscription. It includes about 215 checks, the Money Leak Report, ranked fixes with step-by-step instructions, a report within 3 business days, a 5-minute video walkthrough, a 20-minute call, and a free quarterly re-check.
What do I get specifically for AI-assistant visibility?
The word-for-word answers from each assistant to every question asked, which competitors got named instead of you and how often, and ranked fixes for the specific gaps causing it.
Do I have to buy anything else after the audit?
No. The report and instructions are yours to act on yourself. If you want ColabContent to do the work, SEO and AI-visibility fixes are $2,997 once, ongoing care is $997 a month, and a custom AI system starts at $10,000 with a working prototype first. All optional and quoted on your call.
Is there a guarantee?
Yes. If you don't feel you got value from the audit, the full $499 is refunded, no questions asked, and every quarter after that your AI answers, rankings and money leak are re-checked free.
Next step
Order the $499 AI-Ready Audit to see exactly what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview say about your business, and what fixing it is worth.