It is the AI-era version of search rankings. Instead of asking “where do we rank for this keyword,” you ask “when a buyer asks AI about our category, do we get mentioned, and how favorably.” High AI search visibility means the engines reliably name you for the prompts your customers actually use.
Visibility is not a single number. It varies by engine (you can be strong in Perplexity and absent in Gemini), by prompt, and by buyer intent. Measuring it means running a representative set of prompts across all the engines and recording whether you appear, in what position, and with what sentiment.
Example: you might be mentioned in three of four engines for “best CRM for startups” but missing entirely for “affordable CRM with good support.” That gap is exactly what an AI visibility program is built to find and close.