AI rank in category
A simple ordered list rendered as a side cell next to the AI Presence Score. Number one is the brand AI mentions most often in your category. You’re somewhere on the list. Your tracked competitors are too.
How the ranking is built
AnswerTrace runs a competitive ranking probe across the engines you have on your plan. Across multiple runs per engine, each engine ranks the brands in your category on five universal attributes (Overall reputation, Ease of use, Pricing / value, Trustworthiness, Feature breadth).
We aggregate the results per brand as an appearance rate, the share of those runs where the brand showed up in the consensus brand list at all. Ties break on average position. The list is then sorted from highest appearance rate down.
The number next to your brand on the report is your position. The brand at the top is whoever the engines mention most across those attribute probes.
Why this is different from the AI Presence Score
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| AI Presence Score | Your absolute performance, 0 to 100 |
| AI rank in category | Your relative position, #1 to #N |
You can have a strong score and a poor rank if your category has very strong incumbents. You can have a moderate score and a great rank in a small or new category.
Buyers care about rank. If your score went up but you dropped from #3 to #5, a stronger competitor moved past you. Both are true at the same time.
Tracking movement over time
There’s no 30-day rank-history chart on this view. Movement shows up in two other places:
- What improved or dropped, the in-app change feed that captures rank shifts week over week
- Competitor gains, the dedicated competitor-movement view that flags when a rival overtook your #1 spot
When you re-scan, the next report shows the new rank. The history lives in your scan archive (1 year on Starter and Growth, 2 years on Pro), not as a chart on the Scorecard.
What this means for you
Score answers “are we improving”. Rank answers “are we improving faster than the others”. Use both. If rank stays flat while score climbs, the whole category is rising and you haven’t pulled ahead. If rank climbs while score stays flat, competitors are slipping and you’re relatively stronger.