Keyword research, but for the questions people ask AI

AI prompt research is finding the buying-intent questions people actually ask AI assistants about your category — “best X for Y”, comparisons, “alternatives to…” — and tracking how you show up for each. It's the AI-era version of keyword research: the unit is a question an engine answers, not a string typed into Google.

It's the same job for a new surface. Keyword research finds the terms a page can rank for on Google; prompt research finds the questions that trigger a recommendation inside ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. As buyers shift from searching to asking, the prompt set becomes the list that matters.

Start from the questions, not the keywords. Map the buying-intent prompts in your niche, run them across the AI engines, and see who gets named. Citenzo does this automatically — it generates the prompt set for your category and tracks your visibility on each, so you're researching the questions that actually decide recommendations.

Prompt tracking means running your set of buying-intent questions across the AI engines on a schedule and recording whether — and how prominently — your brand is named each time. It turns “does AI recommend us?” into a metric you can watch move, prompt by prompt and engine by engine.

The best one ties prompts to outcomes: it generates the right questions, runs them across multiple engines repeatedly (answers vary run to run), maps them to buying intent and competitors, and trends the results. Citenzo does all of that inside one AI-visibility dashboard rather than leaving you to script prompts by hand.

Often enough to catch movement, not so often you're paying for noise. Weekly is a sensible default for most brands; faster-moving or competitive categories benefit from daily. Citenzo runs your prompts automatically on your plan's cadence and flags when your presence on a question changes.

No — Citenzo generates them from your niche and language. You can add, edit or remove any prompt to match exactly how your buyers phrase things, but you're never starting from a blank page.

It depends on your plan. The free check uses a focused set so you can see the idea in action; paid plans track many more prompts, more often, with full history and intent mapping.

AI answers a question, not a keyword, and the phrasing changes the answer. “Best project tool” and “best project tool for a 3-person startup” can return completely different brands. So the exact prompt — not a keyword root — is the unit that decides whether you're recommended.

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Grok, with more on the roadmap. Each prompt runs across engines because they cite different sources and recommend differently — a prompt you win on one you can lose on another.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) are about being recommended inside AI answers instead of ranking blue links. Their version of keyword research is prompt research: finding the questions engines get asked in your category, then optimising and tracking your presence on them.

For AI search, yes — that's essentially what prompt research is. Citenzo automates generating the buying-intent questions, running them across engines, mapping them to intent and competitors, and tracking your visibility, so the whole loop runs without you scripting prompts by hand.

Those measure Google — search volume and rankings for keyword strings. Prompt research measures AI answers — which questions get asked and whether an engine names you. They're complementary: keyword tools for classic search, prompt research for the AI answers increasingly making the recommendation.

No — different thing, similar words. Prompt engineering is writing prompts to get better output from a model. Prompt research is discovering the questions your buyers ask AI and tracking how your brand shows up for them. One is about crafting inputs; the other is about market demand and visibility.

Citenzo groups prompts by stage — discovery (“what is…”), comparison (“X vs Y”), and decision (“best X for Y”, “alternatives to…”) — so you can prioritise. A missing decision-stage prompt where a competitor is named is worth far more than a broad awareness one, and the map makes that obvious.

You can run a free AI visibility check to see a focused prompt set for your niche and where you stand on each, no account needed. Full prompt research — more prompts, intent mapping, competitor framings and ongoing tracking — is included on Citenzo's paid plans.