At the bottom of your Visibility Audit (formerly known as a report) dashboard, you will find a set of visibility heatmaps. These heatmaps visualize how often your brand, and your competitors, are mentioned across different personas, topics, competitors, and AI models in AI-generated responses.
Together, these views help you quickly understand where your brand is winning, where it is weak, and where competitors are outperforming you in AI search.
What heatmaps does Gumshoe include?
Gumshoe includes four primary heatmaps on the dashboard:
- Persona x Topic
- Persona x Competitor
- Topic x Competitor
- Model x Competitor
Each heatmap answers a different strategic question about AI visibility.
What does the Persona x Topic heatmap show?
What it shows:
- Rows: personas
- Columns: topics
- Cells: visibility percentage, showing how often your brand is mentioned when a specific persona asks about a particular topic
Darker cells or higher percentages indicate stronger visibility. Lighter or blank cells indicate weak or missing visibility.
Why it matters: this is the most direct view of how well AI models understand your brand for specific audience needs and themes.
How to use it:
- Identify persona-topic gaps where content is missing or unclear
- Prioritize content generation for weak but important combinations
- Double down on high-performing intersections in messaging and campaigns
What does the Persona x Competitor heatmap show?
What it shows:
- Rows: personas
- Columns: competitors
- Cells: how often each brand is mentioned when that persona asks relevant questions
Why it matters: this heatmap shows who AI models recommend for each persona, giving you a clear competitive view by audience segment.
How to use it:
- Spot personas where competitors dominate recommendations
- Identify personas where your brand has a strong advantage
- Tailor content and positioning to win specific persona battles
What does the Topic x Competitor heatmap show?
What it shows:
- Rows: topics
- Columns: competitors
- Cells: visibility percentage by topic across brands
Why it matters: this view highlights topic-level competitive pressure and reveals which brands AI models associate most strongly with each theme.
How to use it:
- Identify topics where competitors are consistently cited
- Focus content and authority-building on high-demand, low-visibility topics
- Validate whether your positioning matches how AI currently understands the category
What does the Model x Competitor heatmap show?
What it shows:
- Rows: AI models (for example ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity)
- Columns: competitors
- Cells: visibility percentage by model
Why it matters: different models surface different brands. This heatmap shows model-specific strengths and weaknesses.
How to use it:
- Identify where your brand performs well on one model but poorly on another
- Adjust content structure and sources to improve consistency across models
- Track whether optimization efforts improve visibility model by model
How do I read the cells?
Across all heatmaps:
- Higher percentages or darker shading mean stronger AI visibility
- Lower percentages or lighter shading mean weaker or inconsistent visibility
- Hovering over a cell shows the visibility percentage, the number of mentions, and the total answers analyzed
How do these heatmaps work together?
Use the heatmaps as a system:
- Persona x Topic tells you what content to create
- Persona x Competitor tells you who you are losing to, and for whom
- Topic x Competitor tells you where competitors own the narrative
- Model x Competitor tells you how visibility varies across AI platforms
Together, they help you move from insight to prioritization to action.
To return to the beginning of the Gumshoe Report landing page walkthrough, click here. To explore deeper guides for each section of the report, click here.