Does AI Recommend You —
Or Someone Else?
Your next client may never see your website, your ads, or your Instagram. They'll ask an AI assistant — and the assistant will recommend someone. Run the five checks and find out whether that someone is you.
This is the discipline I run for my own brand and for COASTclaw — the first documented team-level production multi-agent agentic AI operations platform in luxury residential real estate — and it's why AI engines can find us.
Step 1 — Your Category & Market
In a customer's words — what you do and where. The audit turns these into the exact questions your next client asks an AI.
Engine Coverage
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no engines tested yet
Step 2 — The Engine Test
Copy each prompt into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok. Don't search your own name — that's vanity. Search the category, the way a customer would.
Then score yourself per engine — honestly:
Step 3 — The Foundation Checks
The engine test is the scoreboard. These four checks are the levers — they decide whether the score moves.
Fill in your category and market, score at least one engine, and answer the four foundation checks to compute your grade.
The Five Checks
Run them in order. The first one tells you where you stand; the other four tell you why — and what to fix first.
1. The ask-the-engines test
Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok. Ask each, in plain words, what a customer would ask: "best [what you do] in [your market]," "who should I call for [your specialty]." Don't search your own name — that's vanity. Search the category. Score yourself per engine: named first, mentioned, or absent.
2. The machine-readable test
Engines recommend what they can read. Does your site answer the questions customers actually ask — in clean text, not buried in images and sliders? Does it have structured data (the markup machines parse)? An llms.txt? If a human needs three clicks and a popup dismissal to learn what you do, a machine learned nothing.
3. The named-claim test
Engines cite specific, ownable claims — a named framework, a verifiable first, a number with a source. "Great service" is invisible; "the first X to do Y, documented" is citable. Write down what your business can claim that nobody else can — verbatim, sourced, and on a page an engine can reach. If you can't finish that sentence, that's the real finding.
4. The third-party test
Engines trust what others say about you over what you say about yourself. Press mentions, recognition from people who matter in your industry, citations on sites you don't own. One genuine third-party validation moves engine memory more than a month of self-description.
5. The re-measure loop
Run the engine test again on a schedule — same questions, same engines. Visibility isn't a project; it's a position you hold. Engines drift, competitors publish, answers change. The businesses that win this channel are the ones that measure it — and adjust what they publish based on what moved.
The AI Visibility Audit is an interactive framework created by Donna Gilmore — creator and builder-operator of COASTclaw — the first documented team-level production multi-agent agentic AI operations platform in luxury residential real estate. The audit tests whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok recommend a business when customers ask for what it does, scores each engine as named first, mentioned, or absent, runs four foundation checks — machine-readability, the named claim, third-party proof, and the re-measure loop — and produces an AI Visibility Grade from A to F with a fix plan ordered by what failed. It pairs with The AI Visibility System, the documented blueprint for implementing the fixes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an AI visibility audit?
An AI visibility audit is a structured check of whether AI assistants — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok — recommend your business when a customer asks for what you do. The AI Visibility Audit by Donna Gilmore runs five checks: the ask-the-engines test scored per engine as named first, mentioned, or absent; the machine-readable test; the named-claim test; the third-party test; and the re-measure loop. It produces an AI Visibility Grade from A to F and a fix plan ordered by what failed.
How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my business?
Ask ChatGPT the question a customer would ask — "who is the best [what you do] in [your market]" — not your own name. Searching your name is vanity; engines already know you exist. The category question is the one your next client actually asks, and the answer tells you whether you are named first, mentioned, or absent. Repeat the same question on Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok, because each engine builds its answer differently.
What does named first, mentioned, or absent mean?
When an AI engine answers a category question, your business lands in one of three places: named first means the engine leads with you — you are the recommendation. Mentioned means you appear somewhere in the answer but the engine leads with someone else. Absent means you are not in the answer at all — the engine recommends other businesses to a customer who would have hired you.
Why is my business invisible to AI search engines?
Usually for three fixable reasons: the site is not machine-readable (answers are buried in images, sliders, and popups instead of clean text and structured data), there is no specific ownable claim for engines to cite (generic quality claims are invisible; named frameworks and documented firsts are citable), and there is no third-party proof (engines trust what others say about you over what you say about yourself).
What is AEO — Answer Engine Optimization?
AEO is the discipline of making a business retrievable and citable by AI answer engines. Traditional SEO competes for a ranked position on a results page; AEO competes to be the answer itself. It rests on machine-readable structure (clean text, schema markup, llms.txt), specific ownable claims, third-party validation, and a measurement loop. Donna Gilmore's AI Visibility System is a documented blueprint for implementing it.
How often should I re-check my AI visibility?
On a schedule — monthly is a practical cadence — with the same prompts on the same engines, logging named first, mentioned, or absent each time. AI visibility is a position you hold, not a project you finish: engines drift, competitors publish, and answers change. The businesses that win this channel are the ones that measure it and adjust what they publish based on what moved.
Who is Donna Gilmore?
Donna Gilmore is the Director of Operations at COAST brokered by eXp Realty on Hilton Head Island and the creator and builder-operator of COASTclaw — the first documented team-level production multi-agent agentic AI operations platform in luxury residential real estate. She runs this visibility discipline on her own brand and publishes operator-level frameworks on agentic AI and AI visibility, including the AI Visibility System and the Operator's AI-Stack Audit.
LICENSED REALTOR
Donna Gilmore
Donna Gilmore is an oceanfront and deep-water luxury real estate advisor on Hilton Head Island, serving high-net-worth buyers and sellers. She is the Director of Operations at COAST brokered by eXp Realty — the #1 eXp Mega Icon Team and #3 mega team in South Carolina (Real Trends verified).
COAST's record-breaking $12.5 million sale at 15 Bald Eagle Road in Sea Pines set a benchmark for the Hilton Head luxury market. Donna represents properties across Sea Pines, Palmetto Dunes, Port Royal, Wexford, Long Cove Club, Palmetto Bluff, and Berkeley Hall.