Sentiment
Understand how AI describes your brand and how Klarvu measures positive, neutral, and negative sentiment. Spot negative trends and act on them.
Updated
Getting mentioned by AI is one thing. What AI actually says about your business is another.
Sentiment helps you understand whether AI describes your brand positively, neutrally, or negatively. It's particularly useful when your brand appears frequently, but you want to know how it's being presented to potential customers.
What does sentiment measure?
For every collected AI answer, Klarvu evaluates the tone specifically toward your brand.
That's an important distinction. An answer can be positive overall while describing your company negatively. Klarvu looks at what's being said about you, rather than the general tone of the response.
There are six possible values:
| Sentiment | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Positive" | AI describes your brand positively. |
| "Neutral" | AI mentions your brand without a clear positive or negative judgment. |
| "Mixed" | The answer includes both positive and negative views of your brand. |
| "Negative" | AI describes your brand negatively. |
| "Unclear" | Klarvu can't determine the sentiment of the mention. |
| "Not mentioned" | Your brand doesn't appear in the answer, so there's no sentiment to evaluate. |
An answer that doesn't mention your brand is not considered "Neutral". Neutral means the brand appears, but without a clear positive or negative judgment.
Where can you see sentiment?
You'll find sentiment in several places in Klarvu, depending on whether you want an overview or need to examine a particular answer.
On "Home"
The "How AI describes you" card gives you an overview of how AI talks about your brand.
It includes:
- "From N analysed answers": The number of analyzed answers behind the overview.
- "Sentiment": A bar showing the distribution of sentiment values.
- "Recommendation": A separate bar showing "Recommended", "Discussed", "Discouraged", and "Unclear".
- Quotes from answers: Recent examples of what AI has actually said about your brand. Click a quote to open the full answer.
Recommendation and sentiment measure different things. Sentiment describes the tone, while recommendation shows whether AI recommends, discusses, or advises against your brand.
At the top of "Home", you'll also find the "Positive sentiment" metric.
This shows the percentage of positive answers among those that mention your brand, labeled "Of answers mentioning you". It also shows the change compared with the previous period.
For example, if your brand appears in 20 answers and 12 are positive, your "Positive sentiment" is 60%.
On an individual AI answer
When you open a prompt and select an AI platform, you'll see a "Sentiment" metric for that specific answer.
You can read the complete answer under "Full Response" to understand the context behind the assessment.
This is covered in more detail on the Explore a prompt's results page.
In "Dashboards"
In "Dashboards", you'll find "Average Sentiment", a score from 0 to 100.
The starter dashboards show this metric broken down by topic. You can also filter by "Sentiment", choosing between "Positive", "Neutral", "Mixed", "Negative", and "Unclear".
The Dashboards page explains these options in more detail.
How is "Average Sentiment" calculated?
To show sentiment as a single metric, Klarvu assigns a score to each sentiment value.
| Sentiment | Score |
|---|---|
| "Positive" | 100 |
| "Neutral" | 50 |
| "Mixed" | 50 |
| "Negative" | 0 |
| "Unclear" | Excluded |
| "Not mentioned" | Excluded |
"Average Sentiment" is the average score across eligible answers.
This means a score of 50 doesn't necessarily mean the coverage is neutral.
It could reflect mixed sentiment, or a combination of positive and negative answers.
"Unclear" and "Not mentioned" are excluded from both the average and the number of answers used to calculate it.
That's why it's worth looking at the sentiment distribution alongside the average score.
Alerts about negative sentiment
You don't need to read every answer manually to notice potentially negative trends.
Klarvu can highlight changes and individual responses that deserve a closer look.
"Sentiment trending negative"
This insight appears when the share of negative and mixed answers over the past 14 days has increased significantly compared with the preceding 14 days.
There must be at least five answers in each period before the insight can be triggered.
It's a signal that how AI describes your brand may be changing, and that the relevant answers are worth reviewing.
Alerts under "Recommendations"
Klarvu can also create recommendations for specific prompts:
- "[Platform] describes [brand] negatively on: "[prompt]"" appears when at least two recent answers to the same prompt have negative or mixed sentiment.
- "[Platform] is steering buyers away from [brand] on: …" can appear after a single answer that explicitly advises against your brand.
Both recommendations include quotes from the answers and suggest investigating the underlying claim.
That could involve information on your own website or content published by the sources AI references.
What can you do about negative sentiment?
A negative assessment doesn't automatically mean something is wrong. But it can point to information worth checking.
Find the specific answer
Start with an alert under "Recommendations", which links to the answers behind it. You can also open the prompt's page and select the relevant AI platform.
Read the entire answer under "Full Response".
Understand what AI is actually saying
Look closely at the passage discussing your brand.
Is AI describing a genuine limitation, misunderstanding something, or relying on information that may no longer be accurate?
Consider the full context rather than relying on the sentiment label alone.
Check the sources
Look at the websites listed under "Citations".
See whether those pages contain information that might help explain the description. If an external source contains incorrect or outdated details, consider contacting its publisher.
Review your content and follow the trend
If an important product feature, condition, or limitation isn't clearly described on your website, consider updating or clarifying the information.
Then follow future answers to see whether the description changes. Updating your content doesn't guarantee a change in AI sentiment.
Frequently asked questions
Why does an answer show "Unclear"?
It means Klarvu can't determine the sentiment toward your brand with enough confidence.
Read the full answer to understand how your company is being discussed.
Why aren't answers without a mention included?
If your brand doesn't appear, there's no sentiment to evaluate. The answer is labeled "Not mentioned" and excluded from the average sentiment score.
It isn't counted as "Neutral" either.
Why is my "Average Sentiment" 50?
Both "Neutral" and "Mixed" receive a score of 50. An average of 50 can also result from an equal number of positive and negative answers.
Check the sentiment distribution to understand what's behind the score.
Why does my sentiment score fluctuate so much?
When you only have a small number of answers, a single positive or negative assessment can noticeably change your average.
Try looking at 30 or 90 days instead of 7, and review the individual answers. The Mention rate and position page explains more about why AI metrics fluctuate.
And remember, neutral sentiment isn't necessarily bad. Many AI answers simply mention a company as an option without making a positive or negative judgment.