What is a buyer question?
A buyer question is a question about your category that does not name your brand, written the way someone choosing a product would ask it. "Which electric SUV is best for a family road trip?" is a buyer question. It names no brand, so the engine has to choose who to name, and that choice is what AI visibility measures.
Why are buyer questions the real test of AI visibility?
Because only an unbranded question shows whether an engine reaches for you on its own. A question that names you will mention you whether or not the engine would ever recommend you.
The gap is large. In one benchmark of 220 answers, the category leader was named in 59% overall, but on the 16 questions that named no tool at all its rate was 40%, with a 95% range of 33% to 49% (the post). Questions naming a tool, as comparisons or requests for alternatives, had inflated it.
How do you write buyer questions?
Write them as a buyer would, before they know your name:
- Start from a decision: what to buy, for whom, under which constraint.
- Use the shapes buyers use: "what is the best X for Y", "X with a free plan", "alternatives to [a competitor]", "how much does X cost".
- Leave your name out, and keep head-to-head questions about two competitors in their own group.
- Ask every question on every engine in the same words.
- Group the questions into five or six topics you want to be known for.
What does a buyer question look like in a real example?
In the public Tesla example (Oct 4, 2026), 25 buyer questions in six topics produced 100 answers on four engines, and 53 named Tesla: 53%, with a 95% range of about 43% to 62%.
Asked "What is the best home battery for whole-house backup power during outages?", ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude named the Powerwall 3 and Google AI Overviews did not name Tesla. On the five solar panel installation questions, Google AI Overviews named Tesla in 4 and Claude in none. Buyer questions show where a famous brand is still left out.
How is a buyer question different from a brand question?
They answer different questions, so they are counted apart:
| Buyer question | Brand question | |
|---|---|---|
| Names your brand | No | Yes |
| Tests | Whether engines choose you | How engines describe you |
| Typical rate of answers naming you | Varies widely | Close to 100% |
| Counts toward mention rate | Yes | No |
| Read for | Visibility, competitors, sources | Accuracy, tone, identity |
Where do buyer questions sit in Proofsource?
Proofsource proposes buyer questions from your site, grouped by topic, and you confirm each one. Only buyer questions count toward the headline share of answers that name you; questions that name you are read for accuracy. See find the buyer questions where AI recommends you and the Prompts feature page.
Common questions about Buyer question
Should a buyer question name competitors?
Some can, such as "alternatives to [a competitor]", but report them apart. Head-to-head questions about two competitors rarely name a third brand: 2.9% of answers in our sample.
How many buyer questions do I need?
Five or six topics with up to three questions each is enough to see the pattern. Repeat them across runs rather than adding hundreds.
What is the difference between a buyer question and a prompt?
A prompt is any tracked question. A buyer question is the kind of prompt that does not name your brand and is counted for visibility.
Why does my brand appear in brand questions but not buyer questions?
Because the engine knows you but does not choose you. Read the buyer answers that name competitors and the pages they cite: that is where the shortlist is decided.
Related terms
- Brand question
A brand question is a question that names your brand, such as "What is Tesla?" or "Is Tesla worth it?", used to check how AI describes you rather than whether it names you.
- Prompt
In AI visibility, a prompt is a question tracked across AI engines, written the way a buyer would ask it.
- Mention rate
Mention rate is the share of AI answers to a question that name your brand.
- Prompt coverage
Prompt coverage is how much of your set of tracked buyer questions AI engines answer with your brand named, broken down by question, topic and engine.
Worked example: Tesla, public AI answers, Oct 4, 2026: Proofsource's first scan of Tesla, 25 buyer questions and 5 brand questions, one answer per question on each of four engines. A small sample from one brand, shown as an example, not a benchmark.
See where AI leaves you out, and what to fix.
See which buyer questions name your brand, who gets named instead, and what to fix. 200 answers. 25 Prompts/Question. Top AI engines. 2 days. Free. No card.
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