AI Visibility Index — Cross-Vertical Benchmark Table From 4 Real Client Brands Inside Truffle

The full benchmark table (all 4 brands, one glance)

Extracted directly from the Competitors view (30-day filter) and Dashboard headline of each brand on 2026-06-30:

Methodology note. Visibility Index is a composite 0–100 metric Truffle computes from mention rate + link rate + average position + share of voice across all 6 tracked engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, Google AI Overview). Mention rate / Avg position / Link rate come from the Competitors view's "Brand vs. Competitors" KPI strip on the 30-day filter — we standardize to that window across all 4 brands for consistency. Dashboard headline scores can differ slightly (different aggregation window); we use Competitors 30d throughout.

What patterns emerge from the numbers?

Three shape observations from the numbers alone (no verbatim SITUATION ANALYSIS quotes in this piece — for that read the linked deep-dives):

Two clusters, one gap. Brand A and Brand D land within +0.3 Index points of each other despite being different verticals (hospitality vs travel/ski) — both are category leaders in a sector where AI referral density is high. Brand B and Brand C land ~28 Index points below the top cluster, again despite being different verticals (footwear vs gift e-commerce) — both are non-leader positions in verticals where AI referral density is meaningful but the brand's own share of voice is mid-band.

Same Index, different KPI mix. Brand A hits Index 57 with mention 63.0% + link 56.1% + position #3.5. Brand D hits Index 57.3 with mention 63.3% + link 62.1% + position #3.1. Brand D's link rate is meaningfully higher than Brand A's despite similar mention rates — meaning when Brand D gets mentioned, it gets clicked-through-to more often. Two brands with matching composite scores can have materially different traffic-conversion economics.

Position matters at a different scale than mention rate. Brand C's avg position of #5.8 is markedly worse than the others — a 2+ position gap versus Brand D's #3.1. In AI answer surfaces, position #3-4 vs #5-6 is the difference between "in the citation panel by default" vs "only in the expanded panel most users don't open." That's a bigger practical drag than the ~5-point mention-rate difference between Brand B and Brand C would suggest.

The Competitors view above (Brand A) shows the per-KPI competitive frame we use to extract these numbers. Each brand's 4-KPI strip looks structurally similar in the platform — the numbers differ, the layout is the reference.

Compact per-brand profiles

Each profile is deliberately short. For the SITUATION ANALYSIS + finding-text-level detail, use the linked companion pieces.

Brand A · Hospitality EU

• Dashboard headline: Visibility Index 57/100.
• 4 KPIs (Competitors view · 30d): mention 63.0% · link 56.1% · position #3.5.
• Vertical shape: category leader with mature Wikipedia + tier-1 publication footprint. AI engines converge on the brand for head-term hospitality prompts; adjacent-segment gaps exist.
• Deep-dive on this brand's per-engine profile (specifically Perplexity vs ChatGPT): engine divergence piece. For the underlying off-site anchoring pattern that drives this shape, see AI brand mentions.

Brand B · DTC Footwear EU

• Dashboard headline: Visibility Index 28.8/100.
• 4 KPIs: mention 30.1% · link 29.2% · position #4.1.
• Vertical shape: design-forward niche authority. Strong on conversational-AI engines (Claude, ChatGPT); explicit Perplexity + Gemini weaknesses surfaced by the AI Intelligence view.
• Deep-dive: engine divergence piece. To baseline your own brand against similar patterns, start with the free visibility audit.

Brand C · Gift e-com DE

• Dashboard headline: Visibility Index 21.9/100.
• 4 KPIs: mention 27.4% · link 27.3% · position #5.8.
• Vertical shape: language-and-vertical-locked authority in German B2C DIY/workshop categories. Composite Index caps at ~22 because B2B and productivity-focused segments haven't been built out yet — editorial gap, not off-site authority gap.
• Deep-dive on this brand's segment-level citation gaps: segment citation gaps piece. The Truffle AI Brand Tracking view surfaces the specific missing off-site anchors identified for this brand's B2B segment.

Brand D · Travel / Ski EU

• Dashboard headline: Visibility Index 57.3/100.
• 4 KPIs: mention 63.3% · link 62.1% · position #3.1.
• Vertical shape: extreme sub-segment ownership in one specific vertical (last-minute ski trips in EU languages) that also generalizes to solid all-around performance on the composite Index. Adjacent-segment gaps (families-with-children) drag ceiling.
• Deep-dive: segment citation gaps piece.

How do you read your own Visibility Index against this table?

The Index scores here are individual data points, not vertical benchmarks. But the shape of the KPI mix is generalizable. When reading your own Index:

1. Anchor to the KPI mix, not just the composite. Two brands with matching Index can have very different traffic economics — check mention-vs-link ratio, and check average position.
2. Compare Index to vertical maturity, not to absolute scales. A 21.9 in a tight-authority B2C DE vertical is a different signal than a 21.9 in hospitality or travel — the "top of the reachable Index" varies materially by vertical AI-referral density.
3. Segment-level 0s cap composite ceilings. If your AI Intelligence view flags any "critical invisibility" segments, your composite Index has a mechanical ceiling equal to (weighted average across all covered segments) — closing zeros lifts more than optimizing near-median segments.
4. Position #3.5 → #5+ is a bigger practical gap than mention rate ±5pp. Prioritize position lift when it's the drag.
5. Re-benchmark monthly on rolling averages. Daily deltas exist in the Dashboard but noise; the 30-day rolling filter in the Competitors view is the reliable read.

Try this on your own brand

1. Create your free Truffle account — set up brand + category + 5–10 competitors across all 6 engines.
2. Dashboard view for headline Index. Read alongside the 30-day rolling KPI trend.
3. Competitors view (30d filter) for the 4-KPI comparative table. This is the same view we extracted the numbers above from.
4. Read the AI Intelligence view for the "why." Composite Index is the outcome; per-segment findings are the causal chain.
5. Re-measure at 30 / 60 / 90 days.

External validation (cross-reference)

Two datapoints from macro AI-referral tracking help frame the numbers above:

• Similarweb · TechCrunch (July 2025) — 1.13B AI referrals across tracked web in June 2025; ChatGPT accounts for >80% of AI referrals to top-1,000 sites. (source)
• Opollo 2026 AI Search Benchmark — 312 B2B tech firms tracked: AI-referred visitors converted at 14.2% vs Google organic 2.8% (~5× conversion advantage). (source)

These external framings say AI referrals are big and high-quality — this piece shows what the intra-brand distribution looks like when 4 real client brands are measured on the same platform, same day. Want your own number? Check where your brand stands with our ChatGPT Visibility Checker. Related pieces: engine divergence deep-dive · segment citation gaps deep-dive.