Query Coverage / Surface Coverage
The percentage of relevant customer questions where your brand appears in AI answers — measuring the breadth of your AI search presence.
Plain Language Definition
Query coverage is the percentage of your target search questions where your brand successfully appears in AI answers. Low query coverage means there are entire categories of customer questions — product comparisons, how-to queries, location-specific searches — where AI answers exist but never include your brand. Systematically expanding query coverage is the primary growth strategy for AI search share.
Technical Definition
Ratio of target query set items where the brand entity or cited source is successfully recalled in AI-generated responses across specified model panels — measuring breadth of topical AI visibility coverage relative to the complete query universe.
Why This Matters for AI Search Visibility
Query coverage reveals the size of your AI visibility blind spots. A brand with high coverage on “best SEO companies” but zero coverage on “how to improve Google rankings” or “what is generative engine optimization” is missing entire customer segments who would be warm leads.