My verdict on the free AEO report is simple, because the best one you can get is the one you build yourself from saved AI answers, with two free tools added as a second opinion.
AEO means answer engine optimisation, and a free AEO report is a snapshot of how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI features name, describe and cite your brand.
In this review I rate all nine sections of a good report for how much they help you make decisions, and I score six free data sources you can use to fill them in.
Every score on this page is my own judgement from doing this work, not a measured benchmark, so read it as an experienced opinion.
If you want a strategist to review your AI visibility with you, book a free strategy session and get a competitor gap analysis for your brand.
That session is a live call that leaves you with a plan and a roadmap, so it complements a written report rather than replacing one.
The Free AEO Report Verdict At A Glance
- 🥇 A do-it-yourself report built from saved answers to 20 to 50 buyer prompts is my top pick, because it tests live answers for your real customers.
- 🥈 Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance is my second pick, because it shows real citation counts for your pages in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
- 🥉 HubSpot's AI Search Grader is third, because it gives a free one-time reputation score across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini with no account needed.
I checked both tools on their own pages on 17 October 2026.
What A Free AEO Report Is
A free AEO report is a short document that records how AI answer engines respond when buyers ask about your category or your brand.
It sits on top of normal SEO reporting, because rankings and clicks don't show you the written answer, the brands named in it or the sources cited under it.
Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted inside the "Web" search type of the Search Console Performance report, so you can't see it on its own there.
That gap is exactly why a separate AEO report is worth having.
How I Rated Each Part Of The Report
I scored every section and every free source out of 10 on three things.
| Criterion | What I asked |
|---|---|
| Decision value | Does this part tell you what to do next, or does it just look interesting? |
| Free to collect | Can a small business fill this part in without paying for software? |
| Reliability | Will the result still be roughly true if you test again next week? |
The overall score is my blended judgement across all three, and I've rounded it to a whole number.
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Section-By-Section Reference
Section 1: Summary (score 8 out of 10)
The summary lists the three biggest findings and the three fixes in plain words.
It scores well because it's the only part many owners will read, but it's only as good as the sections underneath it.
Section 2: Prompt set (score 9 out of 10)
The prompt set is the list of real buyer questions you tested, grouped into best-of, comparison, problem and brand-name questions.
It scores high because every other number depends on it, and a lazy prompt set makes any brand look good.
My verdict is to keep the same prompts every month so the trend means something.
Section 3: Share of answers (score 8 out of 10)
Share of answers is the runs that name your brand divided by all runs.
It loses a point on reliability, because AI answers change between chats, so you need three or more runs per prompt.
Section 4: Citation sources (score 9 out of 10)
This section lists the pages and websites cited under each answer.
It scores high because it shows exactly where the AI learns about your category.
Goldie Agency's strategy session page says AI platforms look for consistent signals across the wider web, such as trusted publications, expert articles, independent reviews and comparisons.
The citation list tells you which of those sources matter in your market.
Section 5: Accuracy (score 10 out of 10)
The accuracy section checks every fact the AI stated about you against your own fact sheet.
It gets full marks because a wrong fact has an obvious fix, and the cited URL often points at the page or profile causing it.
Section 6: Sentiment (score 7 out of 10)
Sentiment records whether answers describe you positively, neutrally or negatively.
It's useful, but it's the most subjective section, so I'd quote the actual lines rather than just giving a label.
Section 7: Competitor share (score 9 out of 10)
Competitor share is the same calculation as share of answers, done for each competitor.
It scores high because the prompts you lose to one competitor are usually the clearest opportunities in the whole report.
Section 8: Crawl access (score 10 out of 10)
Crawl access checks whether AI search crawlers can read your site.
OpenAI's documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot if you want to appear in its results.
Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
It gets full marks because a blocked crawler is the one problem that makes every other fix useless.
Section 9: Gaps and priority fixes (score 9 out of 10)
This section lists every prompt where competitors are named and you aren't, then ranks the fixes by impact and effort.
It loses a point only because the ranking is a judgement call that a human should review.
📞 Want your nine sections reviewed by a strategist? Book a free strategy session with Goldie Agency and leave with a custom visibility plan, a clear AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis. → Claim your free strategy session
Metric Reference Table
| Metric | Formula | My score | One-line verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of answers | Runs naming you divided by all runs | 8 | It is the headline number, as long as you run each prompt several times. |
| Citation rate | Runs citing your domain divided by all runs | 8 | It shows whether your own pages are trusted as sources. |
| Third-party citation mix | Count of outside sites cited when you're named | 9 | It shows where your reputation actually lives. |
| Accuracy score | Correct facts divided by all facts stated | 10 | It turns straight into a fix list. |
| Sentiment split | Positive, neutral and negative counts | 7 | It needs the quoted lines to be useful. |
| Competitor share | Share of answers for each competitor | 9 | It shows who you're losing to and where. |
| Crawl access | Allowed or blocked for each crawler | 10 | It is the first thing to check. |
| Gap count | Prompts where competitors appear and you don't | 9 | It becomes your content and coverage plan. |
Six Free Data Sources Compared
| Free source | What it measures | Live answers or training data | Effort | My score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual prompt runs | Brand mentions, citations, facts and tone for your own prompts | Live answers on the day you test | Medium | 9 |
| AI-assisted tabulation | It turns your saved answers into a table quickly | It only reads what you paste in | Low | 8 |
| Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance | Citations of your pages in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, cited pages and grounding queries | Real citation data from Microsoft | Low after setup | 9 |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | A one-time score out of 100 across sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market competition | HubSpot says it is based on training data | Very low | 7 |
| Google Search Console | Overall Google search traffic, which includes AI Overviews and AI Mode in the "Web" search type | Real traffic data, but not split out | Low | 6 |
| Your robots.txt file | Whether OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot are allowed | A direct check of your own rules | Very low | 10 |
Microsoft introduced AI Performance as a public preview in February 2026 and added a Topics Portfolio beta in October 2026, so expect it to keep changing.
Google describes Search Console as a free service, and HubSpot's grader page says no account is required.
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Three Prompts That Produce The Report For Free
These three prompts cover the parts of the job that take the longest by hand.
Prompt 1 (score the prompt set):
Here are the buyer prompts I plan to test for [BRAND], a [CATEGORY] business.
Label each prompt as best-of, comparison, problem or brand-name, and flag any prompt a real buyer would be unlikely to type.
Then suggest five missing prompts with clear buying intent.
Prompt 2 (extract the evidence):
Read the AI answers below, saved from [AI TOOL] on [DATE].
Return a table with one row per answer: prompt, run, [BRAND] named (yes or no), competitors named, URLs cited, facts stated about [BRAND] and tone.
Use only what the answers say, and write "not stated" when something is missing.
Prompt 3 (check your own report):
Compare the table below with the raw answers underneath it.
List every row where the table does not match the raw text, and quote the exact line that proves the mismatch.
Do not rewrite the table, just list the errors.
The third prompt is my favourite, because it makes the model check its own work before you trust a single percentage.
The Month-On-Month Template
Paste this into a spreadsheet once you've run the report twice.
| Metric | Last month | This month | Change | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share of answers | [X]% | [X]% | [+/-X] | [Better, worse or flat] |
| Citation rate | [X]% | [X]% | [+/-X] | [Better, worse or flat] |
| Accuracy score | [X of Y] | [X of Y] | [+/-X] | [Better, worse or flat] |
| Top competitor share | [X]% | [X]% | [+/-X] | [Better, worse or flat] |
| Gap prompts | [X] | [X] | [+/-X] | [Better, worse or flat] |
| Crawl access | [OK/BLOCKED] | [OK/BLOCKED] | [Changed or not] | [Action needed or not] |
Free Report, Free Session Or Ongoing Tracking?
| Option | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free DIY AEO report | A written snapshot of live answers for your own prompts. | Anyone who wants an honest baseline this week. |
| Goldie Agency's free strategy session | A live call with a strategist, a custom visibility plan, an AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis. | Owners who want an expert to turn findings into a plan. |
| Continuous tracking products | HubSpot's grader page, for example, says its HubSpot AEO product monitors a brand continuously across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. | Teams that need ongoing tracking across many prompts. |
The session is free with no obligation, but it isn't a written or PDF report, so bring your own.
📞 Want a roadmap built from your verdict scores? Grab a free strategy session and get a plan for traffic, mentions and leads built around the bylines, reviews, comparisons and research that fit your market. → Book your free session
Where A Free AEO Report Falls Short
A free AEO report can't see every user's personalised answer.
It can't explain why a model picked one source, because no AI company publishes that formula.
It can't guarantee results, so treat any promise of a fixed mention in ChatGPT or Gemini as a red flag.
It also depends on your discipline, because a report that changes its prompts every month can't show a trend.
Final Verdict On The Free AEO Report
Build your own report from saved answers first, because it's the only free option that tests live answers to your buyers' real questions.
Add Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance for real citation data and HubSpot's AI Search Grader for a quick reputation score.
Fix crawl access and wrong facts before anything else, because those two sections scored highest for a reason.
Related Reading On This Site
- My AEO audit guide covers the full audit process behind the report.
- How to get a free AEO audit compares the free ways to have someone else look first.
- My free GEO audit verdict rates the generative engine checks one by one.
- Eight AI SEO agencies compared helps if you'd rather hire out the fixes.
Also On Our Network
- 🌐 Build a free AEO report in seven operator steps
- 🌐 Four business use cases for a free AEO report
- 🌐 Run your free AEO report from an Agent OS
- 🌐 The models that read AEO report data, scored on GoldieBench
FAQ: Free AEO Report Verdict
What is the best free AEO report?
In my view, the best free AEO report is the one you build yourself from saved answers to real buyer prompts.
Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance and HubSpot's AI Search Grader are useful free second opinions.
Which section of an AEO report matters most?
I rate crawl access and accuracy highest, because a blocked crawler or a wrong fact undermines everything else.
Competitor share and citation sources come next, because they show where competitors are winning.
Is HubSpot's AI Search Grader a full AEO report?
It's a free, one-time brand check with no account required that scores ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini out of 100.
HubSpot says it is based on the models' training data, so it works best next to your own live prompt tests.
Does Goldie Agency's free strategy session include a written AEO report?
No, because the free strategy session is a live conversation rather than a document.
It gives you a custom visibility plan, an AI visibility roadmap and a competitor gap analysis.
Can a free AEO report predict what ChatGPT will say?
No, because it records what AI tools said on the day you tested.
Answers change between chats and over time, and nobody can guarantee what a model will say.
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.
I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.
- I started Goldie Agency on my own, and it is now a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency with 70+ people.
- I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
- I wrote "Link Building Mastery".
- My Udemy courses have taught 29,000+ students.
→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom
When you're ready for expert eyes, book a free strategy session and get a clear AI visibility roadmap, and that's my final verdict on the free AEO report.
