TL;DR
Share of Answer is the share of analyzed AI answers that name a brand. Share of Voice is the brand's mentions divided by the mentions of every monitored brand. In 20 answers to one prompt, from 28 to 30 October 2026, one rival held 35% Share of Answer and 39% Share of Voice. Share of Voice equals Share of Answer times answers divided by mentions. In the 28 days to 30 October 2026, on 7 AI platforms, that factor was 0.71.
On this page
A marketing manager sees two percentages for the same brand, from the same answers, and asks why they differ. This guide defines Share of Answer and Share of Voice by the denominator of each. It then computes both by hand from 20 real answers and gives a sheet formula for each. For the step-by-step measurement of Share of Voice, and why it moves when the rival list changes, read our guide on Share of Voice. For the decision each metric supports, read our guide on AI visibility metrics.
What is Share of Answer, and how does it differ from Share of Voice?
Share of Answer is the share of all analyzed answers that name a brand at least once. Share of Voice is the brand's mentions divided by the mentions of every brand you monitor, your own included. A mention is one brand named in one answer, so both numbers have the same numerator and a different denominator.
FullReach AI reports Share of Answer as visibility. Our guide on the visibility score lists what each vendor puts in that denominator.
How do you compute both from 20 answers?
Take the 20 newest answers to one prompt, mark each monitored brand that each answer names, and divide twice. We did this on our own project. It monitors five rivals in our category, AI visibility tools, and our own brand. The prompt was "How do I measure share of voice in AI answers?". The 20 newest answers came from 28 to 30 October 2026, on 7 AI platforms. The prompt drew 21 answers in those three days, 7 per day. The oldest, from ChatGPT on 28 October, falls outside the 20. The table lists the five rivals in the order of their visibility over the 28 days to 30 October 2026.
| Answer | Platform | Day | Monitored brands named |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Google AI Overviews | 30 October | 1 |
| 2 | Gemini | 30 October | 0 |
| 3 | Perplexity | 30 October | 0 |
| 4 | Grok | 30 October | 3 |
| 5 | Google AI Mode | 30 October | 2 |
| 6 | Copilot | 30 October | 0 |
| 7 | ChatGPT | 30 October | 3 |
| 8 | Gemini | 29 October | 2 |
| 9 | Google AI Overviews | 29 October | 1 |
| 10 | Perplexity | 29 October | 0 |
| 11 | Grok | 29 October | 0 |
| 12 | Google AI Mode | 29 October | 3 |
| 13 | Copilot | 29 October | 0 |
| 14 | ChatGPT | 29 October | 0 |
| 15 | Google AI Overviews | 28 October | 1 |
| 16 | Gemini | 28 October | 0 |
| 17 | Perplexity | 28 October | 0 |
| 18 | Grok | 28 October | 0 |
| 19 | Google AI Mode | 28 October | 0 |
| 20 | Copilot | 28 October | 2 |
Nine answers named at least one monitored brand, and 11 named none. The 20 answers hold 18 mentions. No answer named our own brand, so the second table has no row for it. Each Share of Answer divides by the 20 answers. Each Share of Voice divides by the 18 mentions.
| Brand | Answers that name it | Share of Answer | Share of Voice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | 6 | 30% | 33% |
| Otterly AI | 7 | 35% | 39% |
| Peec AI | 2 | 10% | 11% |
| Scrunch | 2 | 10% | 11% |
| AthenaHQ | 1 | 5% | 6% |
| Any of the five | 9 | 45% | 100% |
The Share of Voice column sums to 100%, because every mention belongs to one brand. The five brand rows of the Share of Answer column sum to 90%, which is 18 mentions over 20 answers. The last row counts each answer once: 9 of 20 answers, 45%, name at least one rival. The brand rows sum above 100% when the answers name more than one monitored brand on average.
Otterly AI's 35% is 7 of 20 answers, a reading from a sample of 20. In the 28 days to 30 October 2026, on 7 AI platforms, Profound held 41% Share of Answer and Otterly AI held 37%. In these 20 answers, Otterly AI led. Our guide on how many prompts to track shows how far a small set moves.
The same marks on your own buyer questions show whether their answers name your brand at all.
Before you mark 20 answers by hand, see how many of 30 answers name your brand, and which rivals they name.
No account. Ten questions on three AI platforms.
Which factor links the two numbers?
Share of Voice equals Share of Answer multiplied by the answers and divided by the mentions. The factor is the same for every brand in one sample. For the 20 answers, the factor is 20 ÷ 18, or 1.11. So every Share of Voice is 11% above its Share of Answer: 35% becomes 39%, and 30% becomes 33%.
The factor counts every answer, and the 11 answers that named nobody are part of the 20. Our guide on Share of Voice explains how such answers change each number.
What did 28 days of answers show?
On our own project, the 28 days showed a factor of 0.71. In the 28 days to 30 October 2026, on 7 AI platforms, the six monitored brands collected 12,652 mentions in 8,953 analyzed answers. That is 1.41 mentions per answer, and 1 ÷ 1.41 is 0.71. So each Share of Voice sat below its Share of Answer: Profound's 41% became 29%.
The 20 answers above are a subset of this 28-day window. They held 0.9 mentions per answer, 18 over 20, and so their factor was 1.11.
Our guide on competitor presence in AI answers holds the 28-day table for every brand, and explains how to pick the list. Our guide on the visibility score works the same window as a visibility formula.
The two tiles of the Overview, on sample data. The visibility tile counts the answers that name the brand. The Share of Voice tile counts its mentions against every monitored brand.
Which sheet formula computes each?
Build the sheet with one row per answer and one column per monitored brand. Put a 1 in a cell when the answer names the brand, and a 0 when it does not. The formulas below assume the 20 answers in rows 2 to 21. The platform sits in column A, and the five rivals in columns B to F.
| Number | Formula for Profound, in column B |
|---|---|
| Share of Answer | =SUM(B2:B21)/COUNTA(A2:A21) |
| Share of Voice | =SUM(B2:B21)/SUM(B2:F21) |
| Mentions per answer, the inverse of the factor | =SUM(B2:F21)/COUNTA(A2:A21) |
| Answers that name no monitored brand | =COUNTIF(G2:G21,0), with =SUM(B2:F2) in each row of column G |
Copy the first two formulas across the brand columns. A new brand column changes the denominator of every Share of Voice. A new row changes the denominator of every Share of Answer. Keep both counts visible beside the percentages, because a reader cannot check 35% without the 7 and the 20.
The sheet works for one prompt and three days. A sheet for a full prompt set needs a row for every answer, and a person who read the answer to fill it. FullReach AI fills the rows every day. Its Competitors page shows visibility and Share of Voice for every monitored brand, and its filters split both by platform and market.
See both numbers for your brand and your rivals, counted from stored answers every day.
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What to do next
- Collect the 20 newest answers to one buyer question on the AI platforms you care about.
- Mark each monitored brand per answer, and compute both numbers with the two formulas.
- Report each number with its denominator: 7 of 20 answers, or 7 of 18 mentions.
For how FullReach AI collects and analyzes the answers, read the methodology.
FullReach AI side by side with Peec AI, Otterly AI, Profound, Semrush AI Visibility, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Promptwatch, Searchable, Scrunch, Evertune, Rankscale and AthenaHQ.
Keep reading.
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How to measure Share of Voice in AI answers
How to measure Share of Voice in AI answers, step by step, and why it moves when the monitored rivals change. Measured on real answers from 7 AI platforms.
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Which AI visibility metrics matter, and which tool reports them?
Which AI visibility metrics matter, what each one lets you decide, and the best platform for AI visibility metrics, measured on our own project.
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How to measure competitor presence in AI answers
How to measure competitor presence in AI answers from your own prompt set: visibility, Share of Voice and recommendation per rival, on 8,953 answers.
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How an AI visibility score is calculated, and why tools disagree
How is an AI visibility score calculated? Answers that name the brand over analyzed answers, and five denominators that turn one brand’s 41% into 21%.
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How many prompts do you need to track AI visibility?
How many prompts give a stable AI visibility number? We measured it on real answers from 7 AI platforms. The guide also covers markets, languages and which questions to track.