What Are Topics in Gumshoe?
Topics represent the major themes within your Personas’ prompts that could cause your brand to appear in AI-generated search results. They highlight the broader conversations where your brand might surface, helping you understand how AI models recognize and reference your business.
Think of Topics as the AI-era equivalent of SEO keyword buckets.
Topics display with:
- Persona count: The number of Personas tied to that Topic.
- Prompt count: The number of prompts linked to that Topic.
This gives you immediate context for how broad or narrow a Topic is across your report.
Why Reviewing Topics Matters
- See how your brand is positioned across AI search.
- Understand the conversation topics AI does and does not associate with your brand.
- Guide the next steps of your report setup.
How Are Topics Generated in Gumshoe?
Topics in Gumshoe are generated through our proprietary diagnostic process, which queries multiple AI Models to identify the subject areas they currently associate most strongly with your brand. These Topics are not pulled from keyword tools or search-volume databases. LLMs do not publish that kind of data. Instead, they reflect the themes, categories, and intent patterns that the models themselves use to interpret your brand in real time.
Think of Topics as the “buckets” AI Models naturally place you in during user conversations. Gumshoe asks the models to use their own context and reasoning when surfacing these Topics, so the results aren’t random; they’re direct diagnostic signals that reveal how AI Models are framing your brand today. You can refine these Topics to match your real-world strategy, but the automatically generated ones are valuable clues into your current AI identity.
When you create or edit a report, Topics are used to generate new questions for each persona to ask, giving you visibility into how the models would behave in real-world interactions.
How Does Gumshoe Use Real-World Search Volume on the Topic Page?
Gumshoe uses real-world search volume on the Topic page as a directional signal of user interest, helping you understand which topics people are actively researching in traditional search. While AI Models do not publish their own query volume or indicate how often users ask specific questions, Gumshoe has partnered with a data company that tracks real-world search volume through other methods. The green volume indicator below the topics shows real-world search volume estimates derived from the data we analyze.
Search volume in Gumshoe helps you prioritize which topics to focus on, decide where to generate more prompts, and identify areas where publishing new content may create meaningful visibility gains. It does not represent what AI Models are trained on or how frequently a topic appears inside any model. Still, when combined with Gumshoe’s visibility data, it becomes a useful guide for choosing high-impact areas to optimize.
How to Edit Topics when Creating Reports
- Click the trash icon on any topics you feel do not fit.
- Click "+Add New Topic" to add a new topic. New topics will take a moment to sync with the existing prompts.
How to Edit Topics in Existing Reports
- Click on "Manage Prompts" in the left-side menu or in the top right "..." menu.
- Click the trash icon to remove any prompts that feel off-topic or irrelevant.
- Click the trash icon on any topics you feel do not fit.
- Click "+Add New Topic" to add a new topic. New topics will take a moment to sync with the existing prompts.
- The changes will be applied to the report after the report is run again.
For more information on editing topics, visit one of the following articles:
- Why can't I Edit my Report Topics, Personas, and Prompts or see all of Gumshoe's features?
- What Does “Regenerate Prompts” on the Prompts Page Do in Gumshoe?
Ensure Your Topics are Covered in Prompts
Each Topic in Gumshoe is most effective when it is paired with one or more prompts. Prompts are the questions Personas ask AI models, and Topics are what tie those questions back to broader themes. If a Topic has no prompts connected, it won’t influence your report results. If a prompt is not tied to any Topics, your report results will be equally impacted.
- Check the prompt count: On the Prompts page, each Topic shows how many prompts are currently connected.
- Click a Topic: This highlights all related prompts below so that you can confirm coverage.
- Add or edit prompts: If a Topic doesn’t have enough prompts, consider adding new ones or adjusting your Personas so they naturally generate prompts tied to that Topic.
Making sure every Topic is represented in prompts ensures you capture the full range of conversations where your brand might appear.
Click here to review the next step in your Gumshoe report.