Is there a free tool to check if AI mentions my brand?

What a free check can honestly tell you

A free audit is a snapshot. It answers one question well — right now, when someone asks an assistant about your category, does your name come up? That is worth knowing, and most businesses have never checked.

What it cannot tell you is whether anything is changing. AI answers vary between identical runs: ask the same question twice and you can get two different brand lists. That single fact undermines most of what this industry reports, and it is the reason a one-off number should be read as indicative rather than measured.

Mentions and citations are two different things

Almost every tool conflates these, and the distinction decides what you should actually do about it.

A mention is your brand named in the text of the answer — the assistant recommends you. A citation is your URL listed as a source — the assistant read your page. You can have either without the other, and each has a different fix.

Being mentioned without being cited is the most common and most interesting case: AI recommends you, then sends the reader to someone else's page. That is not a failure, it is a leak.

What to look for in any free checker

Four things separate a real measurement from a lead-capture form with a progress bar:

• Does it show you the actual questions it asked, and the actual answers it got? If you can't read the evidence, you can't check the conclusion.
• Does it ask each question more than once? A single run cannot distinguish a stable result from a coin flip.
• Does it separate mentions from citations, or report one number?
• Does it require an account before showing you anything? A check that costs you an email before it tells you anything is a lead magnet, not a tool.

Common questions