The ERA Scorecard: our own AI visibility, published
Most agencies that sell AI visibility never publish their own. This page does. Every week we run a fixed set of buyer-intent prompts against ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok, and record whether Smart Money Media is mentioned — wins, misses, and the competitors that surface instead.
This is the same measurement we run for clients, pointed at ourselves. Numbers below are pulled live from our tracking database — not curated screenshots.
Current scorecard
Not all prompts are the same fight
Definition questions, head-term shortlists, and qualified buyer questions are different fights. We do not chase undifferentiated "best agency" head terms — those are decided by legacy brand recognition. The segment that matters is the qualified shortlist, where a buyer names an industry, a deliverable or a specialty.
- 2%Qualified shortlist questions5 of 252 answers · Buyers naming a specific need, industry or deliverable — the ground a specialist can win
- 100%Brand questions40 of 40 answers · Prompts that name Smart Money Media directly
- 0%Head-term shortlist questions0 of 36 answers · Undifferentiated "best agency" prompts dominated by legacy brand recognition
- 0%How-to and definition questions0 of 162 answers · Concept questions engines usually answer without naming any firm
| Engine | Responses | Mentions | Mention rate | 95% CI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 122 | 15 | 12.3% | 7.6–19.3% |
| Gemini (Google) | 122 | 10 | 8.2% | 4.5–14.4% |
| Grok (xAI) | 122 | 10 | 8.2% | 4.5–14.4% |
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | 124 | 10 | 8.1% | 4.4–14.2% |
Tracking window: August 4, 2026 – September 15, 2026. Page data generated .
Prompt-by-prompt results
| Prompt | Answers | Mentions | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| How does Smart Money Media compare to other PR agencies? | 20 | 20 | 100% |
| Who founded Smart Money Media? | 20 | 20 | 100% |
| Who does engineering reference authority for zero-click search? | 16 | 2 | 12.5% |
| What agency merges earned media with answer engine optimization? | 16 | 1 | 6.3% |
| Which firms connect PR with AEO and GEO for AI search visibility? | 16 | 1 | 6.3% |
| Which agency runs a zero-click visibility audit for a brand? | 16 | 1 | 6.3% |
| How do I get my brand cited by ChatGPT? | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)? | 21 | 0 | 0% |
| Best reputation management agency for executives | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| How to remove a fake Google review legally | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| How to deindex a page from Google | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| How to remove yourself from ChatGPT | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| What is a zero-click brand audit? | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| PR agency vs newswire — which is better for startups? | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| Top brand authority strategies for B2B founders | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| How to remove negative reviews from Google | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| Best agencies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) | 20 | 0 | 0% |
| Which PR firms specialize in getting brands cited by AI answer engines? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Which boutique firm specializes in getting executives cited in AI answers? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Who offers an AI search visibility audit for financial advisors? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Who can audit whether ChatGPT and Perplexity cite my company? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Best GEO agency for fintech and financial services companies | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Best AEO agency for RIAs and wealth management firms | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Best AI search visibility agency for financial services firms | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| How do I get my company into Google AI Overviews? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Best answer engine optimization (AEO) agency for B2B brands | 16 | 0 | 0% |
| Which agency can get my brand cited in AI answers? | 16 | 0 | 0% |
Prompts with no answers recorded yet are omitted until the next sweep completes.
Who the engines name instead
- edelman · 83
- weber shandwick · 52
- 5wpr · 31
- walker sands · 29
- fleishmanhillard · 21
- prnewswire · 15
- ketchum · 13
- businesswire · 12
- ogilvy · 9
- prweb · 6
- walkersands · 6
- prowly · 5
Most-cited domains in these answers
- linkedin.com · 95
- support.google.com · 82
- reddit.com · 71
- smartmoneymedia.org · 58
- cracklepr.com · 33
- help.openai.com · 25
- youtube.com · 23
- yesoptimist.com · 22
- openpr.com · 22
- contently.com · 21
- reverbico.com · 20
- 5wpr.com · 18
How this is measured
- A fixed set of buyer-intent prompts (the kind a prospect would actually type) runs on a weekly schedule against each engine's API with no brand priming in the system prompt.
- Each response is scored with word-boundary matching on "Smart Money Media" and its variants, and competitor names are extracted from the same text.
- Runs that error out are excluded rather than counted as misses, so the denominator is successful responses only.
- Mention rates carry Wilson 95% confidence intervals; at low run counts those intervals are wide, and we show them rather than hide them.
Limitations
This is a small, ongoing tracking panel — not a large-sample study. Sample sizes per engine are modest, engine model versions change without notice, API responses can differ from what a logged-in consumer sees in the chat UI, and results are specific to our prompt set. Treat every number as directional. For a larger designed study, see The Reference Authority Report.
Why we publish our misses
Engineering Reference Authority is a long game: engines cite what they have absorbed, and absorption lags publication. Showing the gap while we close it is more useful to a buyer than a screenshot of a single lucky answer — and it is the same honest baseline we give clients on day one.
Score your own brand — freePress-ready citation kit
This study is licensed CC BY 4.0. Quote it, chart it, or re-run it — attribution to Smart Money Media and a link back to the study is all we ask. Everything below is copy-and-paste ready.
Pull-quote-ready findings
- Self-published measurement
“Smart Money Media publishes a live scorecard of its own AI visibility — running a fixed set of buyer-intent prompts weekly against ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok and reporting every miss alongside every mention.”
- Why misses are published
“Engines cite what they have already absorbed, so absorption lags publication. Showing the gap while it closes is more useful to a buyer than a screenshot of one lucky answer.”
- Method
“Each response is scored with word-boundary brand matching, errored runs are excluded from the denominator, and mention rates are reported with Wilson 95% confidence intervals.”
Attribution & citation
According to The ERA Scorecard: Smart Money Media's own AI visibility, original research published by Smart Money Media (https://smartmoneymedia.org/research/era-scorecard).Smart Money Media. (2026). The ERA Scorecard: Smart Money Media's own AI visibility. Smart Money Media. https://smartmoneymedia.org/research/era-scorecard<p>Source: <a href="https://smartmoneymedia.org/research/era-scorecard">The ERA Scorecard: Smart Money Media's own AI visibility</a> — Smart Money Media</p>