How do I know if ChatGPT mentions my company?
Ask it the questions your buyers ask, not questions with your name in them, and record the answers over time. Why a one-off check tells you almost nothing, and what to measure instead.
Ask ChatGPT the questions your buyers would ask, without your company name in them, and record who it names. A question containing your brand proves nothing, because you are the only person who would ask it.
Why does typing my own name in not work?
Because it guarantees the answer. Ask "what does Acme do" and the model will talk about Acme, which tells you it has heard of you and nothing about whether it recommends you.
The question that matters is the one a buyer types before they know you exist: "best X for Y", "who does X in Ireland", "how do I choose an X". If your name appears in an answer to one of those, that is visibility. If it does not, that is the finding.
Is checking it once enough?
No, and this is the part most people get wrong. A single answer on a single day is one sample from something that changes with the model, the retrieval and the phrasing.
The number worth tracking is the share of answers that name you across a fixed set of questions, run on a schedule. A share can move, and movement is the only thing you can act on.
Does it count if it names me without linking?
Count it separately. A mention with no link earns neither traffic nor authority, so folding the two together flatters the number.
Being cited, with a link to your domain in the sources, is the outcome worth having. Being mentioned in the prose is a weaker signal worth tracking on its own line.
What about the other engines?
Check them too, because they disagree more than people expect. On one real run across the same six questions, Claude cited a site in a third of answers while ChatGPT cited it in none.
That spread is the finding. Optimising against one engine tells you very little about the rest.
Questions
Can I just ask ChatGPT if it knows my company?
You can, and the answer is close to meaningless. Naming your company in the question guarantees it appears in the reply. The useful test is whether it names you in answer to a category question that never mentions you.
How often should I check?
Weekly is enough for most companies. Answers shift as models and retrieval change, but not fast enough that daily checking tells you anything a weekly run does not.
Does ChatGPT browsing change the answer?
Yes, substantially. An answer with web search enabled cites live pages and can name companies the model has never memorised, which is exactly why crawlability matters as much as reputation.
Find out where you stand on your own domain: the free AI visibility check asks all four engines about you, and the content scorer scores any page against the published rubric. Neither needs an account. The full background is what answer engine optimization is.