Every buyer persona gets different AI answers.
Are you in theirs?
For agencies and brands. Build buyer personas free, then run a Persona-based AI Visibility Audit to see exactly where you show up, and where you don't.
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Buyer Persona Builder
Tell us about the business and its buyers, yours or a client's. Get professional persona cards with goals, pain points, seniority levels, and the AI queries those buyers actually run. Download as a PDF or share results by email.
What are personas in AI search?
In traditional SEO, you track keywords. In AI search, you track personas, because the same question gets different answers depending on who's asking and how they phrase it.
A CTO evaluating data tools and a marketing analyst evaluating the same tools ask ChatGPT different questions and get different recommendations. Gumshoe simulates both, and shows you where your brand appears (or doesn't) for each.
Personas are audience archetypes: a job role, a seniority level, a set of goals and pain points. They define the lens through which AI answers questions. When you set up a Gumshoe report, personas are one of three dimensions that drive every query: personas × topics × AI models.
Default report configuration
8
Personas
10
Topics
11
AI models
Every report run broken down by persona, so you can see exactly where you're winning and where you're not.
What is an ICP?
An ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is the company-level complement to a buyer persona. It's specific to B2B. While a persona describes the person doing the buying, an ICP describes the company they work at.
Together, persona + ICP answer two questions: who is my buyer, and what kind of organization are they in?
Persona
Who the buyer is
VP of Marketing, focused on pipeline growth, frustrated by attribution, triggered to act when the board asks for ROI.
ICP
Where they work
Series A–B SaaS company, 20–200 employees, $2M–$20M ARR, using HubSpot and Salesforce, based in North America.
ICP fields typically include: industry or vertical, company headcount range, revenue range, geography, and tech stack or buying signals.
In AI search, ICP matters because the same persona at different company sizes may get very different AI recommendations. A CMO at a 10-person startup and a CMO at a 500-person company are asking different questions, and AI responds differently to each.
When you run a Gumshoe report, pairing personas with a defined ICP produces more precise visibility data and more targeted content recommendations.
Why persona-level visibility matters
Different buyers, different answers
A CMO, an event planner, and a first-time founder ask very different questions. AI gives them very different answers. You may be winning with one audience and invisible to another.
Pinpoint where you're weak
Persona-level scores show exactly which audience segments aren't seeing your brand. Instead of guessing what content to create, you know precisely what's missing.
Start with at least 6
Gumshoe recommends at least 6 personas per report for statistically robust data. Include your core ICP buyers alongside adjacent influencers who recommend your product.
How personas work in Gumshoe
Define your personas
Gumshoe auto-generates starter personas calibrated to your industry. Accept them, refine them, or import personas you've already built across other reports.
Gumshoe runs the queries
Each persona generates prompts that run against 11 AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and more), simulating how real buyers search for solutions.
See per-persona visibility
Your report breaks down visibility by persona. You see exactly which audiences find your brand and which audiences don't, across every model.
Fix gaps, measure again
Gumshoe identifies the weakest personas and generates content designed to close those gaps. Run again to track improvement over time.
Related resources
Playbook
GEO 101: Measure and Improve AI Visibility
Five steps to measure your AI visibility with real buyer personas and take action on the results.
Methodology
How Gumshoe Works
How Gumshoe builds reports: personas, topics, prompts, models, and the visibility score.
Foundation
What is GEO?
Understand Generative Engine Optimization, the discipline of showing up in AI search results.
See how your buyers find you in AI search
Build your personas free, then run a full AI visibility report to see where your brand appears, by persona, topic, and AI model.
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