Competitors

When someone asks ChatGPT or another AI platform for a recommendation, they often get a fairly short list of companies.

That makes it useful to know more than just how often your own brand appears. You also want to understand which competitors AI mentions instead and which questions they're showing up for.

That's what you'll find under "Competitors".

"Share of voice" – how you compare with competitors

At the top of "Competitors", the "Share of voice" section gives you an overview of how your brand performs compared with the companies you're tracking.

You can switch between 7, 14, 30, and 90 days and see four key metrics:

Klarvu calculates mention rates for your brand and all your competitors using exactly the same answers. That makes the numbers directly comparable.

Just like on "Home", these metrics use unbranded prompts only – questions that don't mention your brand by name. This gives you a more useful comparison of which companies AI brings up without being asked about them directly.

"Mention rate over time"

This chart shows how your mention rate changes alongside your competitors throughout the selected period.

For example, your company might appear more often than Competitor A at the beginning of the month but less frequently toward the end.

That's worth looking into, particularly when the pattern continues over several days.

"By platform"

Here, you can compare mention rates for each company across individual AI platforms.

You might have a higher mention rate than a competitor in ChatGPT, while that same competitor appears much more frequently in Gemini.

These differences are easy to miss when you're only looking at the overall numbers.

"Who's named first"

This section shows which company AI mentions first when at least two tracked companies appear in the same answer.

You can also see their average positions and how many relevant answers each company appears in.

The calculations are explained in more detail on the Mention rate and position page.

"Gaps by prompt" – where competitors appear without you

This is one of the most useful parts of the "Competitors" page.

"Gaps by prompt" highlights questions where AI mentions one or more of your competitors but doesn't mention your own brand.

Imagine you sell accounting software.

You notice that Competitor A regularly appears when people ask about accounting tools for freelancers. Your company, however, rarely appears in those same answers.

That's a fairly specific problem to investigate.

The table has four columns:

You can click a platform to open and read the actual AI responses.

And that's where things get interesting.

Why is the competitor being mentioned?

Is it because of pricing, a particular feature, customer reviews, or information from a comparison website?

Maybe the competitor is being recommended for a particular customer type that your own website doesn't describe very clearly.

You can't necessarily conclude why AI selected that competitor. But you have a useful starting point for investigating the difference.

This is the same kind of opportunity Klarvu highlights as "Prompt to win" on "Home".

Sources that favour competitors

"Competitors" also highlights sources cited by AI that either belong to a competitor or mention competitors without mentioning your brand.

This is similar to "Sources that favour competitors" on the Sources page, but here the results are limited to your selected time period.

These sources might include a large review website, a comparison article, or a page belonging to Competitor A.

They can help you identify where competitors are being discussed and which websites might be worth examining more closely.

A citation doesn't, however, prove that the page caused the competitor to be recommended.

The "Sources" documentation explains how to investigate these websites in more detail.

"Manage competitors" – choose who you want to track

Your competitors aren't necessarily limited to the companies you already consider your biggest rivals.

Sometimes AI recommends businesses you wouldn't have expected to compete with.

That's why Klarvu lets you add competitors manually and review suggestions based on the companies appearing in your AI answers.

Review suggested competitors

When Klarvu identifies companies appearing in your AI answers, it may suggest adding them as competitors.

Under "Manage competitors", you'll see "N suggestions to review", indicating how many suggestions are waiting.

Click "Review" to explore them.

For each suggestion, Klarvu shows the company name and "Mentioned in N responses", telling you how many answers mention that company.

You can then choose:

• "Approve": Add the company to your tracked competitors.
• "Dismiss": Reject the suggestion if the company isn't relevant to your comparisons.

This can be a useful way to discover competitors that actually appear in the answers your customers receive.

Add or edit a competitor

You can also create a competitor using "Add competitor" or update an existing one using "Edit competitor".

The following fields are available:

It's worth paying particular attention to names and websites.

If a competitor uses both its full name and an abbreviation, include both. Otherwise, some mentions may not be recognized.

"Website" and "Alternative Websites" also help Klarvu identify pages belonging to that company as sources in the "Competitor" category.

When a competitor is also a tracked brand

If a competitor already exists as a brand you're tracking in Klarvu, you can connect it using "Tracked brand".

In that case, the name, website, and alternative names are managed through the linked brand rather than edited directly on the competitor.

Important: New competitors don't change historical answers

There's one thing worth understanding before changing your competitor list.

Klarvu detects mentions when AI answers are analyzed.

If you add Competitor A today, Klarvu will start detecting mentions of that company in answers analyzed from that point onward.

Older answers aren't analyzed again.

The same applies when you add new entries under "Alternative Names". Those names are used for future answers, but previously recorded mentions don't change.

Tips for choosing competitors

You don't need to track every company in your industry.

A focused list is often easier to work with, especially when you're trying to understand differences between AI answers.

• Choose companies AI actually mentions. Use Klarvu's suggestions to find businesses appearing in your customer questions, even if they're not your traditional competitors.
• Keep the list relevant. Every tracked company is included in your comparisons and "Rank vs competitors". Irrelevant brands can make the results harder to interpret.
• Add alternative names and websites. This helps Klarvu recognize mentions and identify sources belonging to competitors.
• Review suggestions regularly. New competitors may emerge as AI platforms change their answers over time.

How to use "Competitors"

Once you've selected the companies you want to track, you can use the page to identify where your visibility differs from theirs.

"Competitors" isn't just about seeing who's ahead of you.

The more interesting part is understanding which questions competitors appear for, where the biggest differences are, and what information AI references in those answers.

That gives you something more useful to work with than a single ranking.