If you’re running paid media or managing a brand’s online presence, you’ve probably noticed something shifting. Search isn’t just Google anymore. People are increasingly turning to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to ask questions, get recommendations and make decisions. These aren’t just fringe behaviours. They’re real, growing, and already influencing how people discover and trust brands.
That’s why I’ve built something called Omnipresent Search. It’s a tool that checks how visible your brand is across these new AI-driven search models. It tells you whether you’re being mentioned, how often, in what context and which competitors are stealing the limelight. I built it using a free automation tool called n8n, combined with Google Sheets and Looker Studio for analysis and reporting. It’s designed to be simple to run, low cost to maintain and actually useful for marketers, whether you’re focused on SEO, content, or paid media.
Check out my video below (or on YouTube) as to how I did it. But, if you want more of an in-depth guide, let’s break down how you can build something similar yourself.
Start by thinking about the types of queries that your customers might be asking. These should include both branded and non-branded questions. Think of things like “Is [brand] any good?” or “What’s the best place to buy a fridge freezer?” The goal is to replicate the kind of real-world prompts someone might type into an AI chat interface. You can log all of these into a Google Sheet, with some tags to help sort them later – maybe flagging whether they’re branded or generic, or linked to specific services or products.
Once your list of questions is ready, you’ll want to create a workflow in n8n that runs through each one, sends it to ChatGPT and Gemini via their APIs, and collects the responses. You can run this on a schedule – I’ve got mine going daily. For each response, you extract whether your brand is mentioned, whether competitors are mentioned, and if there’s any clear sentiment. That data gets added back into Google Sheets for storage.
From there, Looker Studio does the heavy lifting in terms of making it all understandable. You can build a dashboard that shows how often your brand is being mentioned, what the general tone is, which queries it isn’t appearing in at all, and where competitors are doing a better job. It gives you a really clear view of where you stand in this growing world of AI-generated search results.
The applications go far beyond vanity metrics. For SEO, you can start writing the content that fills those gaps. If you’re absent for a query like “how to dispose of a broken washing machine,” that might be a blog post worth writing. For PPC, you can use these queries to inspire high-intent ad copy or identify new areas for conquesting. If Gemini keeps recommending a competitor instead of you, it’s a clear sign that they’re owning that part of the conversation.
Reddit, by the way, is gold dust. LLMs seem to love it. So if you’re serious about showing up, it might be time to revisit your Reddit strategy. Helpful, non-promotional content in the right communities can go a long way.
I’ve also built in some automation that gives commentary on the results, summarising trends and suggesting actions based on what the LLMs are saying. It’s not perfect, but it’s a helpful steer – especially when analysing dozens or even hundreds of queries. Eventually, I plan to add support for more models like Claude, Llama and Grok, and even plug in data from Google AI Overviews and Search Console to get a fuller picture.
Cost wise, this isn’t a big investment. The whole thing runs off free or low-cost tools. If you self-host n8n with Docker, you’ll avoid the monthly fees, and the API costs for OpenAI and Gemini are minimal if you manage your token use smartly.
And no, I’m not turning this into a product or asking you to comment “ENGAGE” to unlock it. It’s just something we’ve built in-house at Can-Do to support our paid media clients. We focus on performance marketing and delivering results through PPC and social ads, but this layer of visibility analysis has already helped us shape better strategies, identify missed opportunities and understand how AI is reshaping the search landscape.
If you’re a brand or agency looking to understand how you show up in AI, this kind of tool is a great place to start. You don’t need to be a developer. Just a bit of curiosity, some patience with setting up workflows and a willingness to experiment.
If you’re interested in trying it, or want the base workflow and dashboard template to get started, just drop me a message. Happy to share it.
This is just the beginning. Search is still a behaviour, but the platforms people use to search are changing fast. If you want to stay visible, stay relevant and keep winning, it pays to be everywhere people are asking questions — not just on Google.
