Competitor discovery
Find out who ChatGPT recommends instead of you
Your competitors in AI search are not always the ones you expect. Rankry finds them in your first report, keeps the brands that compete for your customers, and lets you add or remove rivals at any time, with every figure recomputed instantly.
7-day Base trial · No card needed
Who wins this prompt
Last 30 days- Notion62% of answers
- UGC Planner41%
- Collabstr35%
- Brkaway18%
Sample data
“Best app to track UGC brand deals?”
In short
AI search competitors are the brands AI engines name when buyers ask the questions you want to win. Rankry discovers them automatically from your first report: it ranks the brands the answers named, checks which ones compete for the same customers, and fills your plan’s competitor slots. You can add or remove competitors later, and all figures recompute instantly from stored answers.
Automatic discovery
How does Rankry find competitors in AI search automatically?
Discovery runs once your first report is complete and every engine has answered. There is nothing to set up.
- 01
Collect every brand AI named
Rankry gathers the brands that appeared in your first report’s answers and have a website.
- 02
Leave out what isn’t a competitor
Your own site, review sites, communities, wikis and code hosts such as GitHub and npm are set aside.
- 03
Rank the rest
Brands are ranked by how many prompts named them, then how many engines, then total mentions, then average rank. The top 30 move on.
- 04
Check each candidate
An AI model asks of each one: does this brand compete directly with your business for the same customers? Brands that clearly do are kept. If the check can’t run, the top-ranked brands are used.
- 05
Fill your slots
The strongest matches fill the free competitor slots on your plan, and your Compete page and share of voice are ready to read.
From one prompt to your category
Who does ChatGPT recommend instead of me?
Rankry answers this at several levels, from a single prompt on a single engine to your whole category.
For one prompt
“Who wins this prompt” lists every brand the answers named, with its share of answers and its average position when named.
Engine by engine
The run grid shows which engine named whom, so you can see when ChatGPT prefers one rival while Perplexity prefers another.
Across your category
The Compete leaderboard ranks you and your tracked competitors by visibility, position, sentiment and score.
Head to head
Pick a competitor and see your win rate on the prompts where you both appear, with “Where you win” and “Where they win”.
By topic
Category battleground compares your average ranking with competitors across your prompt categories.
Rivals you don’t track yet
The Action plan’s “Beat your competitors” step shows the top rivals by mentions, flags any you don’t track, and lists the questions they won.
Your list, your call
How can I manage my competitor list?
Automatic discovery is a starting point. You can change the list from three places, within your plan’s limit.
| Where | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Settings → Competitors | “Add competitor” opens a list of brands that already appeared in your reports. Changes wait until you click “Save changes”, or “Discard” to undo them. |
| Compete page | The “Competitors” button opens a side panel with the brands Compete measures you against. |
| A prompt’s panel | In “Who wins this prompt”, every brand named except you has a one-click “Add to competitors” or “Remove from competitors” chip. |
| Plan limit | A counter shows how many competitors you track and how many more your plan allows. |
| Minimum | Keep at least one competitor. The last one can’t be removed. |
Competitors are chosen from brands found in your answers, not typed in by URL, so every competitor you add comes with data from day one.
Spend slots wisely
Which competitors should I keep tracking?
Competitor slots are set by your plan, so give them to the brands that tell you the most. A quick test for each candidate:
- It competes for the same customers, not just the same words
- It appears in answers to several of your prompts, not just one
- It wins prompts you want to win
- It shows up on more than one engine
- Its momentum on the Compete page is rising
- How it performs would change your plans
Instant recompute
What happens when I add or remove a competitor?
Nothing has to re-run. Rankry stores every answer and every brand it named, so when you add a competitor, its visibility, position, sentiment and share of voice are worked out from the answers you already have, across your whole history window. Remove one and the figures update the same way.
This is instant and costs no requests. It also means a competitor’s history is only as deep as the answers that named it: a brand that started appearing last month has a month of data, and a brand that no answer named would show zeros.
Because changing the list doesn’t change what was asked, you can try different competitor sets freely, for example to compare yourself with a new entrant for a while, then switch back.
The Compete page
What does the Compete page show about my competitors?
Once competitors are tracked, the Compete page measures you against them. Each widget answers one question.
| Widget | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Competitive leaderboard | Where you rank among your tracked competitors by visibility, position, sentiment and score |
| Momentum | Who gained or lost visibility, position and sentiment over the period |
| Performance trends | How you and each competitor moved over 7 days, 30 days, 3 months or a year, within your plan’s history |
| Gap to leader | How far you are from the leader on each metric, and your biggest gap |
| Share of voice | Each brand’s share of mentions, for all engines or one at a time |
| Head-to-head | Your win rate against one competitor on the prompts you share |
| Performance radar | Visibility, position, sentiment and diversity on one chart |
| Category battleground | Which prompt categories you lead and which they lead |
| Model preferences | Your average position on each AI engine |
Unexpected names
Why does AI name competitors I’ve never heard of?
AI engines group brands by the problem they solve, not by who you meet at trade shows. A note-taking app, a creator marketplace and a video agency can all appear in the same answer if the engines think they meet the same need.
That is why Rankry checks each candidate for direct competition before tracking it, and why it is worth reviewing the list after your first report. Some names will be real rivals you hadn’t considered. Others are adjacent tools you may prefer to watch through “Who wins this prompt” rather than spend a slot on.
Review sites, forums and wikis show up in answers too, but they are sources rather than competitors. Rankry leaves them out of discovery and shows them on the Sources page instead, marked by type.
Explore Rankry
Related features
Can Rankry find my AI search competitors automatically?
Yes. After your first report, Rankry ranks the brands the answers named, sets aside review sites, communities, wikis and your own site, and has an AI model check which candidates compete directly for your customers. The best matches fill your plan’s competitor slots.
When does competitor discovery run?
Once your first report is complete and every engine has answered. There is no competitor step during onboarding today; the list is ready when your first report is.
Can I add a competitor that isn’t in my reports?
Not from the app. Competitors are picked from brands that already appeared in your reports, so each one already has data. If a brand you care about hasn’t appeared yet, AI isn’t naming it for your prompts, which is useful to know in itself.
How many competitors can I track?
The number is set by your plan. Settings → Competitors shows how many you track and how many more your plan allows, and automatic discovery fills only the free slots.
Does adding a competitor re-run my prompts?
No. All figures are recomputed instantly from answers Rankry already stored, for your whole history window, and no requests are used.
Why does a competitor I added show low numbers?
A competitor’s figures come only from answers that named it. If AI rarely mentions the brand for your prompts, its visibility and share of voice are low, and a brand that no answer named would show zeros.
Why did Rankry pick a brand I don’t see as a competitor?
Discovery keeps brands an AI model judges to compete for the same customers, and AI engines sometimes group adjacent tools together. If the check can’t run, the top-ranked brands are used instead. Remove any brand you don’t want in Settings → Competitors.
Can I see which sources help a competitor?
Yes. Open a prompt the competitor wins and look at the sources tied to it in each engine’s answer. For a wider view, the Sources page lists the domains cited in your current report, and “Gap analysis only” shows the domains cited in answers that name competitors but not you.
Are review sites like G2 counted as competitors?
No. Review sites, forums, wikis and code hosts are left out of discovery. They appear on the Sources page instead, where review sites, forums and reference sites each have their own type.
Do local businesses see competitors on a map?
Yes. For local projects, tracked competitors with a known address are pinned on a map: under “Competitor locations” in Settings once enough of them are placed, and under “On the map” in a prompt’s panel.
See who AI recommends instead of you
Run your first report and Rankry finds your AI search competitors for you.
7-day Base trial · No card needed