Competition in Semly helps you understand which brands your company appears with in AI models’ answers. This lets you check whether AI recommends your brand more often, your competitors, or other companies from the same category.
Competition analysis shows not only who appears in AI answers, but also for which questions the competition beats your brand and where it’s worth looking for visibility gaps.
AI models often reply to users in the form of recommendations or comparisons. If a user asks about the best store, service, product, or platform, AI can point to several brands at once.
Example:
Which platform should I choose to run an online store?
or:
Which store with supplements for athletes is worth choosing?
In such answers, it’s important not only whether your brand shows up. It’s also important whether it appears higher than the competition, whether it’s described positively, and whether it shows up for prompts with high purchase intent.
Adding competitors lets you check:
which brands AI recommends next to your brand
which brands show up instead of your brand
with which prompts the competition has an edge
how often your brand appears together with the competition
where your brand has visibility gaps
whether your actions improve your position compared to the competition
To go to the competition analysis:
Log in to the Semly panel.
Go to the Competition section.
Check the list of added competitors.
Click on a selected competitor to see a detailed comparison.
In the Competition section you’ll see among other things:
competitor name
number of mentions of your brand
number of competitor mentions
number of shared mentions
date the competitor was added
button to go to details
To add a competitor:
Go to the Competition
Click Add competitor
Enter the competitor’s URL
Save the competitor
Once you add a competitor, Semly can compare its mentions with your brand in AI answers.
You don’t have to add every company on the market. To start, pick a few competitors that matter most for your analysis.
It’s worth adding:
direct competitors
category leaders
brands often compared to your company
companies visible in AI answers
marketplaces or platforms appearing in the same category
local competitors, if you operate locally
premium brands, if you want to compare positioning
budget brands, if you compete on price
Example for a furniture store:
IKEA
Agata
Black Red White
Abra
Beliani
Example for an e-commerce platform:
Shopify
Shoptet
RedCart
WooCommerce
PrestaShop
Example for a supplements store:
SFD
Olimp Store
SportFuel
Muscle Power
GymBeam
At the beginning it’s best to add a few of the most important competitors and grow the list over time.
Recommended starting point:
3 to 5 direct competitors
1 to 2 market leaders
1 to 2 brands detected in AI answers
1 marketplace or platform, if it shows up often in your category
It’s not worth starting with a very long list. Too many competitors can make analysis harder and scatter your focus.
In Semly it’s useful to distinguish between two types of competitors.
These are companies you know from the market that offer similar products or services.
Example:
A furniture store monitors other online furniture stores.
These are brands that often show up in AI model answers, even if they weren’t obvious competitors before.
Example:
When asked about products in a given category, AI often recommends a marketplace, ranking site, or large platform instead of a classic online store.
In the competition section you can see a few important values.
They show how many times your brand appeared in AI answers without the analyzed competitor showing up at the same time.
They show how many times the analyzed competitor appeared in AI answers without your brand showing up at the same time.
They show how many times your brand and a competitor appeared in the same answer.
Example:
If your brand appears 20 times, the competitor 50 times, and joint occurrences are 10, it means the competitor is more visible and in many answers appears independently of your brand.
After clicking a competitor, you’ll see a detailed comparison of their visibility with your brand.
In the details you can check:
visibility chart of both brands
the number of mentions of your brand
the number of mentions of the competitor
prompts where you both appear together
prompts where only your brand appears
prompts where only the competitor appears
the brand’s position in responses
visibility for a specific prompt
sentiment
Shared prompts show the questions where the AI mentions both your brand and the competitor.
This is an important area because it shows where the AI sees you as alternatives for the same user problem.
Example:
Which platform should you choose to run an online store?
If your brand and a competitor show up as answers to a question like this, it’s worth checking:
who appears higher?
who has better sentiment?
who is described more concretely?
what advantages does the AI point out?
what sources the model uses?
Prompts only for your brand show questions where your brand appears in AI answers and the selected competitor doesn’t show up.
This can mean an advantage in a given area.
It’s worth checking:
why does AI point to your brand?
does the answer have a positive sentiment?
is your position high?
what sources support this visibility?
does this area have sales potential?
Example:
If your brand shows up for purchase prompts and your competitor doesn’t, this might be a good area to keep strengthening your content and sources.
Prompts only for the competitor show questions where the competitor appears in AI answers and your brand doesn’t show up.
This is one of the most important sections of competitor analysis because it shows visibility gaps.
It’s worth checking:
what questions give the competitor an advantage
are these purchase prompts
does the competitor have better sources
does your site answer a given question
is it worth preparing new content
is there missing information in the brand profile
are the product data detailed enough
A visibility gap appears when a competitor shows up in AI answers for an important question and your brand isn’t mentioned.
To find such gaps:
Dig into the competitor’s details
Check the prompts where only the competitor appears
Choose prompts with high purchase intent
Check the sources used by the AI
Analyze the content of the model’s answer
See if Semly generated recommendations for this area, if not, generate 2–3 pieces of content for this topic
Actions can include:
improving brand data
filling in product descriptions
creating a new article
expanding the knowledge base
improving the site structure
gaining presence in important sources
updating the product feed
adding new prompts
Just showing up in the answer isn’t enough. It also matters in which place your brand is mentioned.
Example of an AI answer:
Competitor A
Your brand
Competitor B
In this case, your brand is visible, but it’s not the first recommendation.
It’s worth analyzing:
whether your brand appears before the competitor
whether the competitor appears before your brand
how often you’re in position #1
for which prompts the competitor wins the position
whether a high position is tied to a positive sentiment
Sentiment shows what tone AI uses to describe the brand.
It can be:
positive
neutral
negative
When comparing sentiment with the competition, check:
whether AI describes your brand positively
whether the competitor has better sentiment
what advantages AI points out for the competitor
whether your brand is described too generally
whether limitations or gaps show up
whether AI has enough data about your brand
Example:
If a competitor has similar visibility but better sentiment, the problem might not be your presence in AI itself, but the way the model describes your brand.
If your competition has higher visibility, start by analyzing the reasons.
Check:
for which prompts the competition is winning
whether these are purchase-intent prompts
what sources are supporting the competition
whether your brand has complete data
whether the products are well described
whether the website answers these questions
whether you have content for the most important customer intents
whether Semly points to recommendations to implement
Then take action:
improve your brand profile
complete product data (online stores only)
generate content for prompts with a visibility gap using Content Generator in Semly
check competitors’ sources
expand your knowledge base
monitor position changes over time
It’s worth updating the list of competitors regularly, especially when the market changes or when your report results change.
Update your competitors when:
a new competitor shows up
you enter a new market
you add a new product category
you change your target group
AI often shows a brand you don’t monitor
a competitor stops being relevant
you want to analyze a separate market segment
you see new brands in AI answers
After adding competitors, go to the comparative analysis.
Check:
do competitors appear in AI answers?
with which prompts do you show up together?
where does only your brand appear?
where does only the competitor appear?
who has a better position?
who has better sentiment?
what sources support the competition?
what recommendations does Semly suggest for visibility gaps?
How to complete the brand profile
Find out how to correctly fill in brand data in Semly so the system can better analyze your company's visibility in AI answers
How to create prompts and topics
Learn what prompts are in Semly, how to create good questions for AI monitoring, and how to organize them into topics.
How to read the Visibility Report
Find out how to analyze the Visibility Report in Semly and check how your brand shows up in AI answers.
What AI answer sources are
Find out what sources are in Semly and why they matter a lot for your brand’s visibility in AI answers.
How to read Semly recommendations
Find out how to use Semly’s recommendations and turn AI analysis results into concrete actions that improve your brand visibility.
Adding competitors lets you check how your brand stacks up against other companies in AI answers.
Key rules:
add competitors’ URLs to their main pages, e.g. https://ikea.com
start with a few key competitors
analyze prompts that are shared and prompts that only the competitor has
pay attention to position and sentiment
check sources that support the competition
use visibility gaps to create content and implement recommendations
