Has anyone checked if AI actually recommends their brand?

I run an agency in India. Last year a client asked me something I couldn't answer: "I rank #1 on Google — so why doesn't ChatGPT ever mention us?"

I checked. It didn't. Neither did Claude, Gemini or Perplexity. Zero mentions across every question his buyers would actually ask.

That's what pushed me to build Upranke.

Along the way I found something that changed how we built it. Ask an AI engine "what do you know about Acme Corp"and it will say "Acme Corp" back — that's your own question echoing, not the model knowing you. And when a model doesn't know a brand at all, it doesn't say so. It invents.

One engine described a Mumbai wealth-management firm as "a Philippine-based investment platform." At 99% confidence. Our own detector was counting that as a citation.

So we rebuilt it to separate three things most tools lump together:
🟢 verified — named you unprompted, facts match reality
🟣 echo — just repeated the name we handed it
🔴 hallucinated — made things up about you

Uncomfortable side effect: our reports often say "0 verified citations" where a competitor's dashboard would show something flattering. But a number you can't defend in front of a client is worth nothing.

Two things I'd genuinely like to hear from this community:

1. Have you checked whether AI engines mention your product? Go ask ChatGPT "best [your category] tool" without naming yourself, and tell me what came back. I'm collecting these.

2. If a model has ever invented something about your brand — wrong location, wrong pricing, a feature you don't have — I'd love to see it. We keep finding these and I'm curious how common it is outside our client base.

Happy to run a free visibility check for anyone who's curious about their own brand. Just drop your URL below.

— Narender