Free AI Visibility Snapshot: Check Whether AI Mentions, Cites or Recommends Your Brand

Quick answer

Canlah AI runs a free AI visibility check in two stages and ranks first among the seven free checks reviewed in this guide on September 23, 2026. An instant website audit scores how citable your site is across six dimensions in under a minute, and a free 48-hour snapshot then tests how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode answer your buyer questions against three named competitors.

A free AI visibility check is a snapshot of how selected AI assistants answer the questions your buyers ask in your category. A useful free check tells you whether the answer mentions the brand, whether it recommends or only lists it, whether it cites your pages or someone else’s and which engine, question and date produced that evidence.

Treat the result as directional. One run cannot prove stable share of voice, causation or future recommendations. If the snapshot reveals an important gap, freeze a panel of buyer questions and repeat it by engine, market and language before deciding what to change.

Disclosure: Canlah AI publishes this guide and operates the free check described below. Ahrefs, Semrush, HubSpot, Amplitude, Geoptie and Firecrawl are included because their free pages rank for the same queries this guide answers. Product details were checked on public product pages on September 23, 2026, and were not tested through paid accounts.

What does a free AI visibility check measure?

A free AI visibility check measures six things about the answers AI assistants generate: mention, recommendation, citation, accuracy, competitor context and coverage. AI visibility is not one rank, because generated answers change by question, engine, location, language, account state and time. A free check samples a small slice of those conditions, so its value depends on whether it keeps the evidence behind the number.

• Mention: whether the answer names the brand at all.
• Recommendation: whether the brand is the main pick, one option in a shortlist or a passing reference.
• Citation: whether the answer links to the brand’s own page, a third-party source, a competitor or no visible source.
• Accuracy: whether the company, product, market, price and capability are described correctly.
• Competitor context: which alternatives appear for the same buyer question and which sources support them.
• Coverage: whether the result changes between engines, between English and Chinese or between Singapore and Malaysia.

A free check that returns only a score out of 100 records none of those six dimensions. The score is useful for triage. The answers, sources and dates are what you act on.

Two kinds of free check: site readiness and answer probes

Most pages that rank for “free AI visibility check” or “free GEO audit” sell one of two different instruments, and the labels rarely say which.

A site-readiness audit fetches your website and scores it against signals that tend to make pages easier for AI systems to read and quote: direct answers near the top, structured data, crawler access, llms.txt, entity clarity. It never asks an AI engine anything. It can tell you that your pages are hard to cite. It cannot tell you whether ChatGPT recommends you on a given date.

An answer probe sends buyer questions to AI engines and records what comes back. It measures the outcome directly, but only for the questions, engines and dates it sampled. A probe built on branded questions (“is Canlah AI any good”) measures recognition, not discovery.

Canlah AI’s own self-audit shows why that distinction matters. On September 7, 2026, canlah.ai was mentioned in 39 of 39 grounded answers to branded questions and in 7 of 177 grounded answers to open buyer questions, a 4.0% non-brand mention rate across the OpenAI and Gemini APIs. A branded-only check would have reported full visibility for a site that open questions rarely surfaced.

How the Canlah AI free check works, step by step

The Canlah AI free check runs both instruments in order: the readiness audit first because it is instant, then the answer probe because that is the measurement that matters.

Step 1: Run the instant website audit

Enter a URL on the Canlah AI audit page, with no payment details. The audit fetches and renders the site, reads robots.txt and llms.txt, detects whether the business is e-commerce, SaaS or local, and runs Google PageSpeed. A composite GEO score and the top fix-it-now findings appear in under a minute, each written as an issue, the risk it creates and the fix.

Step 2: Read the six-dimension score as a readiness proxy

The score combines six weighted dimensions: AI citability (25%), brand authority (20%), content quality (20%), technical foundations (15%), structured data (10%) and platform optimization (10%). Dimensions that do not apply to the detected business type are left out, so a local business is not penalised on e-commerce criteria. A free sign-up adds the full six-dimension breakdown, a deeper audit of about five to eight minutes and a PDF report.

Read the score as a proxy for how citable the site is. The audit page states that limit directly: it is not a measurement of how often AI engines cite you.

Step 3: Request the 48-hour snapshot with three named competitors

The answer probe is a separate request on the free AI visibility audit form. You give your website and three competitor websites, and Canlah AI returns a baseline of how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode answer your buyers’ questions: whether your brand appears, who appears instead and which sources the engines draw on. The pricing page describes it as free, delivered within 48 hours and carrying no obligation.

Step 4: Freeze the non-branded buyer questions

Ask for the question list with the snapshot and keep it. The questions that matter are the ones buyers type before they know your name, split across discovery, comparison and decision stages. Record the engine, interface, market, language and date beside each answer, because a rerun is comparable only if those conditions match.

Step 5: Rerun the same panel before you change anything

A single snapshot is one sample from a moving distribution. Before rewriting pages, rerun the same questions on the same engines at least once more and compare frequencies, not screenshots. Canlah AI’s September 7, 2026 self-audit ran each question three times per engine for that reason, and even that is a floor for one date rather than a stable rate.

Free AI visibility audit tools compared

The table ranks seven free entry points on five criteria: whether the check is actually free, whether it queries AI engines or only audits the site, whether the output keeps inspectable answer and source evidence, whether it compares competitors and whether it leads to repeatable measurement. Pages were reviewed on September 23, 2026. In this comparison Canlah AI ranks first for teams that want both a readiness audit and a competitor answer probe, and it is not the fastest option for a quick self-serve look.

Seven free AI visibility checks reviewed September 23, 2026.

Rank	Tool	What it checks	Engines named on page	Free entry	Main limitation
1	Canlah AI	Six-dimension site audit, then answer probe against 3 competitors	ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode	Instant audit by URL; snapshot on request within 48 hours	Snapshot needs contact details and is not instant
2	Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker	Brand mentions on search-backed prompts	ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews	No sign-up	Limited preview; top 5 topics, domains and pages only
3	Semrush AI Search Visibility Checker	Visibility score, mentions, cited pages, topics	ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews	Domain entry	Prompt set is chosen by the tool; custom prompt entry not found on reviewed page
4	HubSpot AI Search Grader	Brand perception across five scored dimensions	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini	One-time, no account	HubSpot’s page describes a training-data basis rather than live retrieval
5	Amplitude free AI Visibility report	Visibility score, sentiment, competitive rankings	ChatGPT and Google AI Overview; full list not found on reviewed page	Form with consent	Scope of prompts not found on reviewed page
6	Geoptie Free GEO Audit	Site readiness across 6 GEO dimensions	Readiness framed for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI	No sign-up, under a minute	Readiness scoring only; engine querying not found on reviewed page
7	Firecrawl AI Visibility Audit	Single-page AEO and GEO readiness	Page-level audit; engine querying not found on reviewed page	No sign-up	One URL at a time; answer evidence not found on reviewed page

Source: vendor product and pricing pages reviewed September 23, 2026. Entries describe public positioning, not independently tested capability.

“Not found on reviewed page” means the provider’s public materials did not name that detail when reviewed on September 23, 2026. It is not proof that the capability is absent.

1. Canlah AI. It is the only entry here that pairs a readiness audit with an answer probe on four named engines, against three competitors you choose. The snapshot takes up to 48 hours, asks for contact details and is graded by the vendor publishing this guide.

Best for: a readiness score plus a competitor answer probe without paying first. What to verify: the question list, engine names and run dates behind the snapshot. Public source: canlah.ai/audit/ and canlah.ai/free-ai-audit/.

2. Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker. It queries five AI surfaces with prompts derived from real search behaviour and shows the cited domains and pages behind each mention. The free view is a preview, and paid Brand Radar is listed from US$199 a month per platform.

Best for: a fast read on five AI surfaces with visible cited domains. What to verify: whether the prompts shown match how your buyers phrase questions. Public source: ahrefs.com/ai-visibility-checker.

3. Semrush AI Search Visibility Checker. It reports mentions by engine and names the pages on your own site that drive citations, which turns the score into a content task list. The prompt set is chosen by the tool.

Best for: seeing which of your own pages engines cite. What to verify: the prompt set behind the score, and what the paid AI Visibility Toolkit adds. Public source: semrush.com free tools.

4. HubSpot AI Search Grader. It is the clearest perception check of the seven, scoring five dimensions with sentiment weighted at up to 40 of 100 points and requiring no account. HubSpot’s page describes a training-data basis, so the result is evidence of learned description rather than of a live, retrieval-backed answer.

Best for: checking how three assistants describe the brand when no retrieval is involved. What to verify: whether a wrong fact traces to your own pages or to a third party. Public source: hubspot.com/ai-search-grader.

5. Amplitude free AI Visibility report. It is the only free entry here returning a score, sentiment and a competitive ranking in one delivered report rather than an on-screen preview. The engine list and prompt scope were not found on the reviewed page.

Best for: one shareable report covering score, sentiment and competitors. What to verify: the prompt set and full engine list, before comparing its score with another tool’s. Public source: amplitude.com/try-ai-visibility.

6. Geoptie Free GEO Audit. It scores six GEO dimensions in under a minute with no sign-up and offers its interface in Bahasa Melayu among other languages, which makes it the most practical readiness check here for Malaysian teams. Engine querying was not found on the reviewed page.

Best for: a fast, multilingual readiness read for a Malaysian or regional site. What to verify: which six dimensions are scored and how each is weighted. Public source: geoptie.com/free-geo-audit.

7. Firecrawl AI Visibility Audit. It is the most granular single-page check of the seven, scoring AI crawler access, structured data, content citability, expertise and trust signals, entity clarity and llms.txt for one URL. It handles one URL at a time.

Best for: checking one high-value page before publishing or rewriting it. What to verify: whether the URL you test is the one engines retrieve for your buyer questions. Public source: firecrawl.dev/tools/ai-visibility-audit.

A manual panel is the eighth option and costs only time: ask eight to twelve fixed buyer questions in clean sessions, repeat each several times and save the full answers. It is slow and easy to bias, but it is the only free method where you control every condition.

How to interpret five common results

Five patterns cover most free AI visibility check results, and each one points at a different fix.

High readiness score, not mentioned. The site is readable, but engines are not choosing it. The gap is usually off-site: the listicles, directories and review pages cited for competitors leave you out. Compare the cited sources before publishing more on your own domain.

Mentioned but not recommended. The engine recognises the entity but holds too little evidence to put it in the main shortlist. Look for missing proof, unclear best-fit language, thin third-party validation or a competitor whose sources answer the question more directly.

Recommended but not cited. This is visibility with an unclear evidence path. Record the answer and rerun it, and do not assume the recommendation came from any particular site change or that it will persist.

Cited but described inaccurately. Prioritise correction over more exposure. Align the official site, product pages, structured data and credible external sources around approved facts, then monitor the exact question that produced the error.

Visible on branded questions only. This was the pattern in Canlah AI’s own self-audit: 39 of 39 branded answers against 7 of 177 open ones. Engines that find you only once a buyer knows your name win no new buyers, so judge any check on its non-branded questions.

What a free check cannot prove

A free AI visibility check has five limits that no amount of reporting detail removes.

• It cannot prove a stable share of voice across all customer questions.
• It cannot show that one content change caused an answer to change without a controlled timeline and repeated observations.
• It cannot guarantee future mentions, citations or recommendations after model or index updates.
• It may not reproduce a signed-in consumer interface if it measured through an API or a different surface.
• A site-readiness score cannot stand in for an answer probe, however detailed its findings.

Canlah AI’s self-audit carries the same limits. Its OpenAI leg ran through the API with web search rather than the consumer ChatGPT app, and its Gemini leg used a floating model alias whose version was not recorded.

Running a free GEO audit in Malaysia or across several markets

A site-readiness audit is market-neutral. The Canlah AI audit page states that it scores any URL, in Singapore, Malaysia or elsewhere, and Geoptie and Firecrawl work the same way.

An answer probe is not market-neutral. A Malaysian buyer may ask in English, Malay or Chinese, and the engines retrieve different local directories, publishers and review sites for each. Write the questions the way buyers in each market phrase them rather than translating one English panel, and record the market beside every answer. If Chinese-speaking buyers matter, test the engines they use, which may include DeepSeek, Qwen or Doubao, separately from ChatGPT and Gemini.

When to move from a free check to paid monitoring

Paid monitoring is justified when AI-assisted research influences a meaningful buying decision, the brand sells in several markets or languages, inaccurate answers create legal or reputational risk or several teams publish facts that must stay consistent. Canlah AI is a Singapore-based SEO + GEO agency that measures and improves brand visibility inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, reporting AI visibility as re-verifiable ranges with timestamped evidence. Its retainers re-measure a locked set of buyer intents monthly.

A small local business may not need a platform or an agency yet. A documented monthly panel of ten questions, plus one readiness audit, can be enough until the number of questions, engines, competitors or stakeholders makes the spreadsheet unreliable. Whichever free check you use, including Canlah AI’s, verify it by asking for the raw answers, the questions, the engines and the dates behind the score before you act on it.

Frequently asked questions

Is a free AI visibility check really free?

Most are free at the entry level. Canlah AI’s instant website audit needs only a URL, and its 48-hour snapshot is free with no obligation but asks for contact details. Ahrefs, Semrush, Geoptie and Firecrawl run without sign-up, and HubSpot’s grader needs no account. Confirm scope with the vendor directly, because free-access terms change.

Does a high GEO audit score mean ChatGPT will recommend my brand?

No. A GEO audit score measures how readable and citable your site is, not how often engines choose it. Canlah AI’s own audit page states that its score is a proxy for citability. Only an answer probe on non-branded buyer questions shows whether ChatGPT recommends you on a given date.

Can I audit AI answer visibility without hiring an expensive agency?

Yes. A free readiness audit, a free answer probe such as the Ahrefs or Semrush checker and a documented panel of eight to twelve buyer questions give most small teams a defensible baseline. An agency becomes worth paying for when the panel grows past what one person can rerun consistently or when someone needs to act on the gaps.

Is there a free GEO audit for businesses in Malaysia?

Yes. Site-readiness audits from Canlah AI, Geoptie and Firecrawl accept any URL, including Malaysian sites. For answer probes, write questions in the languages Malaysian buyers use and record the market with each result, because engines draw on different local sources for Malaysia than for Singapore.

Do I need to enter confidential company information?

A basic check should only need public brand information such as a company name, a website or competitor websites. Do not paste customer data, unreleased product information, credentials or confidential claims into a public tool.

Method and sources

This guide was written from public product pages available on September 23, 2026. Candidate tools were drawn from the pages ranking on Google for “free ai visibility check”, “free ai visibility audit” and “free geo audit” on that date, then checked against each vendor’s official page. Provider dashboards were not independently tested, no tool was run against a common brand and commercial terms were not confirmed. The Canlah AI self-audit figures are API-layer samples from one date and should not be read as a stable visibility rate.

• Canlah AI free website audit. Six dimensions and weights, business-type detection, sign-up breakdown and the stated citability-proxy limit.
• Canlah AI free AI visibility audit form. Engines covered and the three-competitor format.
• Canlah AI pricing. Free 48-hour snapshot, no-obligation terms and the monthly retainer cadence.
• Canlah AI self-audit of canlah.ai, internal export, September 7, 2026. Branded versus non-branded mention counts and the API-layer caveats.
• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker. Engines queried, report contents and Brand Radar pricing.
• Semrush AI Search Visibility Checker. Engines and report fields.
• HubSpot AI Search Grader. Training-data basis, five dimensions and sentiment weighting.
• Amplitude free AI Visibility report. Report contents and named engines.
• Geoptie Free GEO Audit. Six GEO dimensions, no-sign-up entry and interface languages.
• Firecrawl AI Visibility Audit. Page-level signals scored and robots.txt and llms.txt checks.
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website. First-party guidance on how AI Overviews and AI Mode relate to existing search fundamentals.

See where your brand stands in AI answers. Run the free AI visibility audit →

Related articles

• How to check if AI search recommends your brand
• We ran our own GEO audit
• Why is my business not showing up in ChatGPT?
• Can a GEO agency guarantee results?