The intent funnel
How prompts are grouped by intent and where you lose visibility in each funnel stage.
Not all prompts are equal. "What is X" and "best X for Y" represent completely different customer stages, and AI answers treat them differently. SEOAI automatically classifies every prompt into one of six intents:
- Brand: questions about a specific brand, usually yours
- Definition: what something is, explanations of a concept
- Best-of: recommendations and rankings, the classic "best X for Y"
- Comparison: X versus Y questions
- How-to: instructions and problem solving
- Fact: factual lookups
Classification runs automatically in the background after prompts are tracked and usually finishes within a minute.
The funnel stages
For each intent the funnel shows two stages:
- Exposure: your brand entered the answer at all, as a mention or a citation
- Cited: the answer linked your site
The space between the two stages is prompts where you were mentioned but never linked. Each stage that leaks visibility is a different problem: weak exposure is a recognition problem, mentioned-but-not-cited is a citability problem.
How to use it
Find the intent with the worst drop-off and prioritize it. For most businesses, Best-of and Comparison prompts are where revenue lives: one good citation on a buying-intent prompt is worth more than many on definitional ones.
Gap diagnosis
Prompts: choosing what to track