Share of Voice in AI Search

The percentage of total brand mentions in AI engine responses (across a defined prompt set and competitor set) that go to your brand vs competitors.

Updated 2026-04-17 · AEO glossary

Definition

Share of voice (SOV) in AI search is the percentage of cited mentions your brand captures across a tracked set of prompts, compared to a defined competitor set. If you and 3 competitors are tracked and your brand appears in 40% of cited responses across 100 prompts, your share of voice is 40%. SOV is the most common headline metric in AEO dashboards (Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch all surface SOV prominently).

Why it matters

SOV is a meaningful signal of brand visibility but isn't the same as pipeline impact. Two brands with the same SOV might convert differently into pipeline because of (a) how prominently they're cited, (b) what intent the citing prompt has, and (c) how well their landing experience converts AI-referred sessions. SOV is necessary but not sufficient.

Example

Lantern tracks 50 prompts about CRM software. Across all 50 × 4 engines × 25 daily samples, HubSpot is cited in 38% of responses, Salesforce in 22%, Pipedrive in 12%, and Lantern's customer (a smaller CRM) in 8%. The 8% share-of-voice is the headline number, but Lantern then ties those mentions to actual HubSpot opportunities that came in via AI-referred sessions.

FAQ

Common questions about share of voice in ai search.

Is share of voice the same as ranking?
Not quite. Ranking implies a specific position in a list. SOV is the cumulative percentage of mentions across many prompts. A brand might have low SOV but high ranking (always cited #1 when cited) or high SOV but low ranking (cited often but always last).
What's a good SOV?
Depends on your category. In crowded categories (CRM, project management), 5–10% SOV is meaningful for a mid-market brand. In specialized categories (vertical SaaS), 30–50% SOV is achievable. The most useful framing is trend: SOV rising over time is the signal that matters most.

Lantern measures this in production.

The terms in this glossary aren't theoretical — they're what Lantern's product calculates and reports every month for B2B SaaS teams. See yours in 7 days. 14-day free trial.

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