TL;DR — Position tells you whether AI treats your brand as the top recommendation or an afterthought at the bottom of the list. Go to Overview > Performance and check the Average Position card (position 1 is best), then scan the Performance by Provider table to spot platforms where you rank significantly worse. Open Visibility > Prompts, sort by position descending, and read the full AI responses for your worst-ranking queries to see what attributes the first-ranked brand leads with. Pro tip: if your main competitor averages position 1.4 while you average 4.1, read what AI says about them — they likely have specific certifications, customer data, or analyst citations that your content is missing.
The Question
“What position does my brand typically appear in within AI responses?”When AI models answer a question like “what are the best CRM tools for small businesses?”, they typically list multiple brands in a specific order. That order matters: brands listed first are perceived as the primary recommendation; brands listed third or fourth are afterthoughts; brands not listed at all are invisible. Tracking your average position across providers and topics tells you not just whether you appear — but how authoritatively you appear. You might also be wondering:
- “I appear in AI responses, but always at the bottom of the list — how do I move up?”
- “Does my position vary by AI provider, or is it consistent across platforms?”
- “How does my average position compare to my main competitors?”
Where to Go in Qwairy
Start here: Overview > Performance
Navigate to Overview > Performance and locate the Average Position card in the top KPI row.
This card shows your brand’s average rank when it appears alongside other brands in an AI-generated list. Position 1 is best.
Scan the Performance by Provider table below it: the Average Position column shows whether you rank better on some AI platforms than others.
Go deeper: Visibility > Prompts
Navigate to Visibility > Prompts (Tracking Queries).
The prompts table includes a position column for each provider. This shows the specific rank your brand received for each individual prompt.
Sort by position descending to find the prompts where you rank last — these are your priority optimization targets.
Click any prompt row to open the full AI-generated response and read exactly what was said, in what order, and which competitors appeared ahead of you.
Add competitive context: Overview > Compare
Navigate to Overview > Compare.
The comparison view includes average position data for each brand you monitor. This lets you answer: “On the prompts where we both appear, does my competitor rank above or below me?”
Use the By Provider tab to see whether a competitor’s position advantage is platform-specific or universal.
Complete the picture: Looker Studio (prompt-performance)
Connect the Looker Studio prompt-performance data source for:
- A ranked list of prompts sorted by your average position — identify your best and worst-performing queries
- Time-series position charts per prompt, showing whether optimization work is moving your rank up over time
- Cross-competitor position comparison in a live shareable executive dashboard
What to Look For
Average Position Card — Performance Dashboard
The headline position metric. A lower number is better (position 1 = first mentioned). Read it alongside the Brand Mention Visibility metric: high visibility at a low (poor) position is better than no visibility at all, but it signals you are an afterthought in a crowded list rather than a primary recommendation.| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Average Position overall | Your typical rank when AI lists multiple brands — the quality-of-visibility signal |
| Provider breakdown (position column) | Whether you rank better on some platforms — often reflects how different providers weigh sources |
| Topic/keyword rows | Which topics put you first vs which bury you at the bottom |
| Evolution trend | Whether content and optimization work is moving your position up or down over time |
Prompts Page — Prompt-Level Position Detail
The Prompts page is where position data becomes actionable. Aggregate averages smooth over the fact that you might rank first on half your prompts and fifth on the other half. At the prompt level, you can read the actual AI response to understand why your brand was placed where it was.| Column | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Position (per provider) | The exact rank for that prompt on that platform |
| Brand Mention Visibility | Confirms whether you appeared at all — position is only meaningful when this is > 0% |
| Provider name | Sort by provider to find which platform systematically ranks you lower |
| Full response (click to open) | Read the actual text to see what attributes or context AI used to order brands |
Pro Tip: Open three to five prompts where you rank last and read the full AI responses. Look for the pattern in how the AI describes the first-ranked brand — what attributes, data points, or source references does it lead with? Those attributes are what your content needs to establish more clearly and authoritatively.
Compare Page — Competitive Position Benchmarking
Average Position in isolation only tells you where you land; Compare tells you whether you land ahead of or behind specific competitors. A brand at average position 2.3 sounds strong — but if your main competitor averages 1.4, you are consistently being placed after them in the responses that matter most.Filters That Help
| Filter | How to use it for this question |
|---|---|
| Provider | Position behavior varies by platform — some AI models consistently rank by market share, others by source authority |
| Topic / Tag | Find topics where you rank well (core strengths) vs topics where you rank poorly (content opportunities) |
| Period | Compare position before and after a content campaign to measure whether rank improved |
How to Interpret the Results
Good result
Average Position between 1.0 and 2.5 across your monitored prompts. On your core product category topics, you frequently appear at position 1 or 2. Position is improving or holding steady over the trailing 60 days. In Compare, you hold an equal or better average position than your primary competitor on the majority of topics.Needs attention
Average Position above 3.5, or a position that is worsening (moving to higher numbers) over 60 days. Any topic where your average position is 5+ and your primary competitor is 1-2 represents not just a visibility gap but a narrative gap: AI is treating the other brand as the authority and you as a secondary option.Example
Scenario: A cloud security company has 44% Brand Mention Visibility but an average position of 4.1. The product team wants to understand why they keep appearing at the bottom of AI-generated lists.
- Open Overview > Performance — confirm average position 4.1 overall. The provider table shows: Perplexity average position 2.3, GPT-4o average position 5.8, AI Overview average position 4.0.
- Navigate to Visibility > Prompts, sort by position descending, and filter to GPT-4o. The 10 prompts where the brand ranks worst on GPT-4o are all in the “cloud security compliance” and “zero trust architecture” topic tags.
- Click the prompt “what are the best cloud security platforms for SOC 2 compliance?” Open the full GPT-4o response. The brand appears 6th in a list of 6, described as “also offers compliance features.” The first three brands each have a paragraph describing specific certifications, customer counts, and analyst recognition. The monitoring brand has one generic sentence.
- Navigate to Overview > Compare > By Topic, filter to “cloud security compliance.” The main competitor averages position 1.2 on this topic. Open their prompts to read what GPT-4o says about them — they are cited alongside a Gartner report and two customer case studies that GPT-4o sources.
- Action: Publish a detailed SOC 2 compliance page with specific certification details, customer quotes, and analyst citations. Apply for inclusion in the Gartner report. Request a customer case study from a recognizable SOC 2 customer.
Go Further
Track position by prompt
Build a position tracking dashboard in Looker Studio using the prompt-performance data source
Query position data via API
Use the prompts endpoint to programmatically query your brand’s average position across prompts
Master AI positioning strategy
Read the complete GEO Guide to understand how AI models decide brand positioning in responses
Related Questions
How visible is my brand in AI overall?
Understand overall visibility before focusing on position quality
What is my share of voice vs competitors?
Share of voice and position together give the complete competitive picture
Topics competitors own without me?
Find the topics where competitors rank first while you are absent or last
Losing to competitors by funnel stage?
Check whether position gaps are concentrated at a specific buying stage