We gave AI our entire competitor tracking data and asked it to predict who would beat us.

Six months ago, we ran an experiment with our own data.

At Rankfender, we tracked 5 of our own competitors across 8 AI systems. We log their share of voice, citation velocity, content gaps, platform variance. Months of raw numbers sitting in a dashboard.

I pulled 6 months of data and fed it into Claude. One question: "Based on this, who is most likely to overtake us in the next 6 months? Show your work. Use the data. Don't summarize. Give me the numbers."

The answer changed how I think about competition.

The dataset:

• 5 competitors tracked daily across 8 AI systems (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Llama, Mistral, )

• 180 days of citation data

• 47 tracked keywords across 3 core categories

• 12,000+ individual citations logged

• Share of voice calculated per platform per week

What the AI found:

Competitor X's velocity.

Total citations:

• Month 1: 47 citations

• Month 3: 89 citations (+89%)

• Month 6: 178 citations (+100% from month 3)

Our citations over the same period:

• Month 1: 312

• Month 3: 341 (+9%)

• Month 6: 378 (+11%)

At month 1, we had 6.6x their citations. At month 6, we had 2.1x their citations. The velocity gap was clear: they were growing at 10x our rate. At that slope, they would match our total citations in 14 months.

The comparison page gap.

Competitor X published 12 comparison pages targeting our brand in the last 3 months. We published 0 targeting them.

Their comparison pages generated 47 citations in month 6 alone. Our pages targeting other competitors generated 31 citations total in the same month.

The AI flagged this as the highest ROI opportunity we were missing. "You are letting them define the comparison narrative without response."

The platform blind spot.

On ChatGPT, our share of voice was 34%. Competitor X had 12%. On Perplexity, our share of voice was 7%. Competitor X had 11%.

Perplexity accounted for 23% of their total citations. It accounted for 8% of ours.

We had deprioritized Perplexity because our volume there was low. They had built a 4% share of voice advantage in a channel we were ignoring.

What I thought before the analysis:

I was worried about Competitor Y. Big brand. Big budget. They had 42% share of voice on ChatGPT. They were the obvious threat.

The data told a different story. Competitor Y's share of voice had dropped 6% over 6 months. Their citation growth was flat (+2% total). They were spending money but not gaining ground.

The real threat was Competitor X. 3x citation growth. 4% advantage on Perplexity. 12 comparison pages against us in 90 days. They were building a moat in the channels we had ignored.

What we did with the analysis:

We shifted our content strategy.

• Months 4-6: published 8 comparison pages targeting Competitor X

• Increased Perplexity tracking to daily (was weekly)

• Added Perplexity-specific optimization to our content briefs
  

Results after 6 months:

• Competitor X's citation growth slowed from 100% to 34% (last 90 days)

• Our share of voice on Perplexity went from 7% to 14%

• The gap in total citations stabilized at 2.1x (down from 2.4x at the peak)

We didn't stop them. But we slowed them down. And we held the gap.

What the data still says today:

Competitor X still has a steeper velocity curve than us. If we both grow at current rates, they'll match our total citations in 14 months.

But we're watching now. And we're not ignoring Perplexity anymore.

What I learned:

The data was there the whole time. I was looking at who was winning today, not who was winning tomorrow. The AI didn't tell me anything I couldn't have seen myself. But it forced me to look at the numbers I was avoiding.

Now every quarter I run this exercise. I feed our tracking data into an AI and ask it to tell me where we're vulnerable. Sometimes it tells me what I already know. Sometimes it tells me what I was hoping wasn't true. Either way, it's better than waiting for the competitor to pass me and then figuring out why.

What I'm curious about:

Have you ever run your own data through an AI and asked it to tell you where you're vulnerable? What did it say that you didn't want to hear?

Imed Radhouani
Founder & CTO – Rankfender
Built on data, not assumptions.