Tracking AI search prompts and competitors
See which questions you show up for in AI tools and how you compare with other restaurants.
More and more guests ask AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude where to eat. Spotlight tracks these questions, called prompts, and shows how often your restaurant appears in the answers and how you compare with other businesses. Choose the location you want to look at in the box at the top of the page.
Prompt tracking
A prompt is a question a guest might ask an AI tool, for example "luxury dinner box delivery in the Netherlands". Go to Spotlight > Prompts to see them. Your prompts are split into three tabs:
• Active: the prompts Spotlight is tracking for you.
• Suggested: new prompts Spotlight recommends for your business. Click Activate Prompt to start tracking a prompt, or Delete to remove the suggestion.
• Archived: prompts you no longer track. Their earlier results stay available here.
Understanding the metrics
Under Prompt performance you see these figures for every active prompt. Use the date picker to choose the period, for example the last 30 days.
• Visibility: the percentage of AI answers to this question that mention your restaurant. The label next to it shows how much it went up (green) or down (red) compared with the previous period.
• Traffic: an indication of how often people ask this question. More bars means more interest.
• Sentiment: whether the AI answers talk about you in a positive, neutral or negative way.
• Tracked competitors: which of your tracked competitors also show up in the answers. A number such as +9 means there are more.
• Country and location: where the prompt is tracked.
Use the three dots at the end of a row for more options for that prompt.
Adding a new prompt
1. Click Add prompt.
2. Under Prompt, write the question the way a guest would ask it, in the language your guests use. You can use up to 500 characters.
3. Choose a Topic and a Category. Need a new topic? Click Add topic on the Prompt Tracking page first.
4. Optional: use Location override to track the prompt for a different location.
5. Click Add prompt. The prompt appears under Active, and results come in over the next days.
Tip: the quickest way to add good prompts is to check the Suggested tab regularly and activate the ones that fit your business.
Competitors
Go to Spotlight > Competitors to see how visible other businesses are in AI answers compared with you. At the top you'll find four figures:
• Tracked: how many competitors you're tracking, out of a maximum of 25.
• Avg. visibility: the average visibility of your tracked competitors.
• Total mentions: how often your tracked competitors are mentioned in AI answers.
• Suggested: how many other businesses AI tools mention that you could start tracking.
Below that you'll find two lists:
• Tracked competitors: the businesses you've added, with their visibility and number of mentions. Click the x to stop tracking a competitor.
• Suggested competitors: businesses that ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude mention in their answers. Click Track to add one to your list, or the x to hide it. Click Show more to see more suggestions. AI results can sometimes be incorrect, so check the business and its website before you track it.
Tracking a specific competitor
Want to keep an eye on a competitor that isn't suggested? You can start tracking any business using its website address:
1. Copy the website address of the competitor, for example example.com.
2. Paste it in the field at the top of the Competitors page. You can enter just the domain or the full web address.
3. Click Add. The competitor now appears under Tracked competitors, and Spotlight starts tracking how often it's mentioned in AI answers.
Need help choosing the right prompts or competitors? Contact us.