Skip to main content
Share of Voice (SoV) is the most important metric to optimize for. It measures your market share in AI conversations — how much of the conversation you own when users ask AI about your industry.

​
How Share of Voice is calculated

In each AI response, multiple domains get cited as sources. Share of Voice measures how many of those citations belong to you:
Example: An AI response cites 5 sources:
  • yoursite.com ← yours
  • g2.com
  • techcrunch.com
  • competitor.com
  • wikipedia.org
Your Share of Voice for this response = 1/5 = 20%

​
How we report Share of Voice

In traditional SEO, competitors are other businesses in your market. In AI search, competitors are any domain that AI cites instead of yours. If you’re Pipedrive (a CRM), domains competing for your share of voice include:
  • Direct competitors — hubspot.com, salesforce.com, zoho.com
  • Review sites — g2.com, capterra.com (if AI cites them instead of you)
  • Wikipedia — wikipedia.org (if AI pulls generic info instead of citing your site)
  • Comparison blogs — techradar.com, pcmag.com
When AI cites Wikipedia or G2 instead of your domain, you’re losing share of voice. You’re not controlling the narrative — someone else’s content is.
Share of Voice is calculated based on citations, not brand mentions. You can be mentioned by name but still lose SoV if AI cites competitor domains as sources.

​
Why you can’t always achieve 100% SoV

For high-value, commercial searches, AI models are designed to provide balanced, helpful answers — not to promote a single brand. This means:
  • AI cites third-party sources for credibility — Review sites, comparison articles, and industry publications add objectivity
  • Multiple options help users — AI aims to be helpful, which often means presenting choices
  • Bias detection — AI models are trained to avoid appearing to endorse any single brand too heavily
Realistic SoV targets:
If you’re seeing 80%+ SoV, you may not have enough competitors tracked, or your prompts may be too brand-specific. Broaden your tracking for accurate measurement.

​
What sources each AI model prefers

Different AI platforms have different preferences for where they pull information. Understanding this helps you prioritize your efforts:

​
What drives Share of Voice

Well-known brands with consistent web presence tend to be mentioned more. AI aggregates information from across the web — the more you’re mentioned everywhere, the more AI mentions you.
Brands with more content covering more topics get mentioned in more conversations. Content breadth expands your SoV. If you don’t have a page about a topic, you won’t be mentioned for queries about it.
When industry publications, review sites, and comparison articles mention you positively, AI picks up on these references. Third-party validation is often weighted more heavily than your own content.
Your SoV is higher for queries that closely match your positioning and lower for queries outside your sweet spot. A CRM focused on agencies will have higher SoV for “best CRM for agencies” than “best enterprise CRM.”
Fresh content and recent mentions can boost SoV, especially on platforms like Perplexity that prioritize recency. Stale content leads to declining share.
This helps you identify where to focus efforts. You might dominate SMB queries but lose enterprise queries — that tells you exactly where to invest.

​
Improving Share of Voice

​
Growing your SoV

1

Identify low-SoV categories

Filter prompts by category and find where your SoV is below your target. These are your growth opportunities.
2

Analyze what competitors do

For categories where competitors lead, understand what content and positioning they have. Check their cited sources.
3

Create targeted content

Build content specifically designed to capture share in weak categories. Match the depth and format of winning competitors.
4

Pursue third-party coverage

Get mentioned by publications and review sites that AI references. This often has more impact than your own content.
5

Track improvement

Monitor SoV changes by category over 4-8 weeks. AI models update their knowledge at different rates.

​
Defending your SoV

If your SoV is declining:
  • Check competitor activity — Did they launch new content or get new coverage?
  • Verify content freshness — Is your content still current and accurate?
  • Look for new sources — Are new publications or sites citing competitors?
  • Review query shifts — Have the queries in your market changed?

​
SoV benchmarks

SoV: 35-50%You dominate AI conversations in your category. Focus on:
  • Defending position against challengers
  • Expanding into adjacent categories
  • Maintaining content freshness
  • Monitoring for emerging competitors

​
Common SoV mistakes

If you only track 2-3 direct competitors, your SoV will look artificially high. Add review sites, comparison blogs, and indirect competitors for accurate measurement.
Your own content alone won’t maximize SoV. AI models trust third-party validation. Invest in getting coverage on sites AI cites.
Tracking “What is [Your Brand]?” will give you 100% SoV but tells you nothing useful. Focus on category queries where users haven’t decided yet.
SoV changes slowly. AI models update at different rates — some use training data, others search live. Give improvements 4-8 weeks to show impact.

​
Next steps

Citations

See which pages AI references

Avg Position

Understand competitive ranking

Sources

Find sources that influence AI

Page Optimization

Take action on your SoV