Building Astiva: How We're Solving the AI Visibility Problem for Brands

By Satish K · 16 min read · Published December 20, 2024 · Last updated: May 2, 2026

How we're building the Competitive Intelligence platform for AI Search and Visibility. Our philosophy, roadmap, and why AI visibility must be measurable.

Astiva AI is the Competitive Intelligence platform for AI Search and Visibility that tracks how brands appear across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and 6 other AI surfaces — and prescribes the exact fixes to improve citation rate, sentiment, and share of voice. Founded in December 2025. Paid plans start at $29/month.

The Problem We're Solving

Brands invest millions in SEO, content marketing, and brand building—but when someone asks ChatGPT "What's the best [product category]?", they disappear. Meanwhile, competitors with weaker Google presence get recommended. Why?

Because AI visibility operates on completely different rules than search visibility. And until now, there was no platform to:

• Measure your brand's visibility across AI platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini)
• Track how you compare to competitors in AI recommendations
• Understand why you're mentioned or excluded
• Monitor changes over time and across model updates
• Get actionable insights on improving AI visibility

Our Product Philosophy: Visibility as a Measurable Metric

Google Search Console made SEO measurable. You can see impressions, clicks, positions, and CTR for every keyword. We believe AI visibility deserves the same rigor.

Core Product Principles

• Multi-platform by default: Track all major AI platforms, not just one
• Competitor context matters: Visibility is relative—who else appears matters as much as whether you appear
• Sentiment and positioning: Being mentioned negatively or ranked last isn't success
• Continuous monitoring: AI responses change—one-time audits aren't enough
• Actionable insights: Data without recommendations is just noise

What We've Built: Core Platform Features

1. Multi-Platform AI Query Monitoring

Astiva's core platform covers the full AI visibility lifecycle — from daily monitoring to competitive benchmarking to actionable optimization. Our platform continuously queries ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, and Mistral AI with thousands of category-relevant prompts each day, giving you a comprehensive view of where your brand stands across all 10 major AI surfaces. Core tracked metrics include:

• Brand mention frequency across platforms
• Position in recommendation lists (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
• Context: Which use cases and queries trigger mentions
• Sentiment: Positive, neutral, or negative framing
• Quote accuracy: What AI actually says about you

Result: A visibility score that tells you exactly how discoverable you are in AI assistants compared to Google.

2. Competitive Intelligence Dashboard

We don't just track your brand—we track your entire competitive landscape:

• Head-to-head comparisons: How often you appear vs. competitors
• Share of voice: Your percentage of category mentions
• Platform differences: Where you win vs. where competitors dominate
• Positioning analysis: How AI describes you vs. alternatives
• Emerging competitors: New brands gaining AI visibility

3. Model Update Impact Detection

When OpenAI updates GPT or Anthropic ships a new Claude version, brand visibility can change dramatically. We detect and alert you:

• Pre/post update visibility comparison
• Visibility gain or loss percentage
• Which specific queries were affected
• Competitor impact for context
• Recovery recommendations if visibility drops

4. Authority Source Tracking

AI models trust certain sources more than others. We track your presence in what matters:

• Wikipedia coverage and update history
• Industry publication mentions
• Review platform presence (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot)
• Community discussion sentiment (Reddit, forums)
• Citation analysis in authoritative content

This helps you understand why you're visible (or invisible) and where to focus effort.

5. Actionable Recommendations Engine

Data is useless without action. Our platform provides specific, prioritized recommendations:

• Quick wins: High-impact, low-effort improvements
• Content gaps: Missing use cases or comparisons AI needs
• Authority opportunities: Where to earn citations and mentions
• Messaging consistency issues: Conflicting information across sources
• Competitive vulnerabilities: Gaps where competitors are beating you

Product Design Decisions: Why We Built It This Way

Decision 1: Multi-Platform from Day One

We could have built for just ChatGPT (largest user base) or just Perplexity (actual search engine). We didn't.

Reasoning: Users don't stick to one AI platform. A startup founder might use ChatGPT for brainstorming, Perplexity for research, and Claude for analysis. If you're only visible on one, you're missing opportunities.

Decision 2: Competitor Context Over Absolute Metrics

We could show "You appeared in 45% of queries." We show "You appeared in 45% of queries vs. Competitor A (62%) and Competitor B (38%)."

Reasoning: AI visibility is a zero-sum game in many queries. If a user asks for "top 3 tools," only 3 brands can win. Relative performance matters more than absolute scores.

Decision 3: Continuous Monitoring, Not Periodic Reports

We could generate monthly reports. Instead, we monitor daily and alert on significant changes.

Reasoning: AI models update unpredictably. A visibility drop might indicate a model update, negative press, or competitor gaining ground. Weekly or monthly checks miss critical changes.

Decision 4: Sentiment and Context, Not Just Presence

We could count mentions. We analyze what AI actually says about you.

Reasoning: Being mentioned with "however, users report reliability issues" is worse than not being mentioned. Positive, prominent mentions are what matters.

What We're Building Next: Product Roadmap

Q1 2025: Enhanced Analytics and Insights

• Use-case visibility breakdown: See which specific scenarios trigger mentions
• Geographic visibility: AI responses vary by location—track regional differences
• Historical trends: 12-month visibility history and seasonality analysis
• Custom query sets: Test your own specific questions beyond our defaults
• API access: Integrate Astiva data into your internal dashboards

Q2 2025: Competitive Intelligence Expansion

• Automated competitor discovery: AI-identified competitive set
• Feature comparison analysis: How AI describes your features vs. competitors
• Share-of-voice alerts: Notifications when competitors surge
• Positioning map: Visual representation of category landscape in AI
• Sentiment comparison: Your positive/negative ratio vs. market

Q3 2025: Content and Optimization Tools

• Content gap analyzer: Identifies missing topics that hurt visibility
• Message consistency checker: Finds conflicting info across sources
• Authority score calculator: Predicts impact of new citations/mentions
• Optimization simulator: "What if" scenarios for strategic planning
• Template library: Proven content formats for improving AI visibility

Q4 2025: Paid AI Advertising Integration

As ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini launch advertising (following Perplexity), we'll add:

• Organic vs. paid visibility tracking
• Ad performance correlation with organic presence
• Budget recommendations based on competitive landscape
• ROI calculator for AI advertising investments
• Cross-platform ad campaign management

Product Challenges We're Solving

Challenge 1: Non-Deterministic Responses

Problem: Ask the same AI the same question twice, get different answers.

Our Solution: Statistical sampling. We run each query multiple times across different contexts and aggregate results to identify consistent patterns vs. random variations.

Challenge 2: No Official APIs for Brand Tracking

Problem: Unlike Google Search Console, AI platforms don't provide brand mention APIs.

Our Solution: Automated querying infrastructure that simulates real user interactions at scale, with natural language processing to extract brand mentions and sentiment.

Challenge 3: Rapid Model Evolution

Problem: AI models update frequently, changing how they respond and what they recommend.

Our Solution: Version detection and historical comparison. We identify when models update and automatically compare pre/post performance to isolate update impact.

User Feedback Shaping Our Product

Early customers have driven significant product evolution:

Request: "I need to prove ROI to my CMO"

What we built: Traffic attribution tracking. Connect AI visibility scores to actual website traffic from AI platforms, demonstrating direct business impact.

Request: "Tell me what to do, not just what's wrong"

What we built: Prioritized action plans. Instead of dumping 50 recommendations, we identify the top 3-5 highest-impact actions based on your specific situation.

Request: "I want to track specific competitors, not generic category"

What we built: Custom competitive sets. Choose exactly which brands to track instead of relying on our automated category detection.

Pricing Philosophy: Transparent and Scalable

We designed pricing to be accessible for startups while scaling for enterprises:

Free Tier: AI Visibility Audit

• One-time snapshot of your AI visibility
• Basic competitor comparison (3 competitors)
• Top 10 queries tracked
• Manual refresh only

Starter: $99/month

• Continuous monitoring across all 4 platforms
• Up to 5 competitors tracked
• 50 category-relevant queries
• Weekly email reports
• Basic recommendations

Professional: $299/month

• Everything in Starter, plus:
• Up to 10 competitors
• 200 queries including custom questions
• Model update alerts and impact analysis
• Authority source tracking
• Advanced recommendations and action plans

Enterprise: Custom

• Unlimited competitors and queries
• API access for internal integration
• White-label reporting
• Dedicated success manager
• Custom integrations and features

Why Now? The AI Visibility Market Timing

We're building Astiva now because the AI visibility market is at a critical inflection point — AI search is growing explosively while enterprise awareness of the visibility problem is just beginning. Brands that establish AI visibility infrastructure in 2026 will compound those advantages as AI search displaces traditional search for an increasing share of buying queries. This is the same window of opportunity that existed for early SEO adopters in 2004-2008, and the category leader has not yet been determined. Here are the signals that made the timing undeniable:

• AI search usage growing 527% year-over-year
• Google search plateauing for first time in 20 years
• Perplexity launched ads—ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini ads coming in 2025
• Enterprises realizing they're invisible in AI despite strong SEO
• No established category leader yet—early mover advantage available

This isn't just internal signal-reading — Gartner projected in February 2024 that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026 due to AI chatbots and other virtual agents — a forecast that's tracking, not yet a confirmed retrospective figure, but consistent with what we're seeing in the platforms our customers get evaluated on.

Product Metrics We Track Internally

To build the best Competitive Intelligence platform for AI Search and Visibility, we measure ourselves on:

• Coverage: Percentage of customer brands where we detect visibility changes before they notice
• Accuracy: How often our recommendations lead to measurable visibility improvement
• Actionability: Percentage of recommendations customers actually implement
• ROI proof: Customers who can demonstrate business impact from AI visibility gains
• Platform parity: Equal quality tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini

Our Product Vision: The AI Visibility Operating System

Long-term, we're not just building monitoring—we're building the complete Competitive Intelligence platform for AI Search and Visibility:

• Monitoring: Track visibility across all platforms continuously
• Analytics: Understand why you're visible or invisible
• Optimization: Get specific, actionable recommendations
• Content: Generate AI-optimized content that improves visibility
• Automation: Automatically update information across authority sources
• Advertising: Manage paid AI placements alongside organic visibility
• Attribution: Prove ROI by connecting visibility to revenue

Join Us in Building the Future

We're in the early stages of a massive shift in how brands are discovered. Just as SEO tools became essential in the 2000s, AI visibility platforms will become critical infrastructure in the 2020s.

Astiva is that platform. We're building in public, shipping fast, and listening closely to customer needs. If you want to influence where we take this product, get started now—your feedback directly shapes our roadmap.

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