Most companies monitor competitors on Google, on social, and in the press — and completely ignore how they appear in AI. It's a big blind spot, because that's exactly where, in AI answers, a lot of buying decisions are being influenced right now. The good news is you can start a competitive audit with nothing but access to an assistant and the right questions. Here are fifteen prompts to run — about your competitor and then about you, to compare.
Replace the brackets with your market, and run each in more than one model. The value is in the comparison.
Mapping the Competitor's Basic Presence
1. "What are the main companies in [your industry]?" — See if the competitor appears, in what position, and who else makes the list.
2. "What do you know about [competitor]?" — Reveals how AI describes the company: what it highlights, what it ignores, what it gets wrong.
3. "Is [competitor] a good option for [use case]?" — Shows the sentiment and caveats AI associates with them.
4. "What are [competitor]'s strengths and weaknesses?" — AI often articulates a pros-and-cons perception worth knowing.
Understanding Perceived Positioning
5. "What kind of company is [competitor] best suited for?" — Discovers who AI associates the competitor with, revealing the perceived niche.
6. "Is [competitor] more for beginners or advanced users / small or large companies?" — Exposes the segment framing AI reproduces.
7. "What sets [competitor] apart from the others?" — Shows what differentiation narrative the competitor did (or didn't) build in AI's mind.
The Direct Comparison Questions
8. "[Competitor] or [your brand]: which to choose for [use case]?" — The direct duel. See who AI favors and with what argument.
9. "What are the alternatives to [competitor]?" — Check whether your brand appears as an alternative to them. If not, there's a clear opportunity.
10. "Compare [competitor], [your brand], and [third party] on [important criterion]." — Forces AI into a comparison table that reveals how it weighs each one.
Probing Depth and Currency
11. "How much does [competitor] cost and how does pricing work?" — See whether AI has the right information about them. Errors happen with competitors too.
12. "What are [competitor]'s main integrations / features?" — Measures the level of detail AI has about the competitor's product.
13. "Has [competitor] had any recent news or changes?" — Tests whether AI is up to date on them, or stuck on an old version.
Reading Reputation and Trend
14. "What's [competitor]'s reputation among users?" — Synthesizes the aggregate sentiment AI retrieved from sources.
15. "Why might someone stop using [competitor]?" — Exposes the objections and weaknesses AI associates with them — which can be your opening.
How to Read the Result
Running the fifteen prompts isn't the end; it's the start. The value appears when you cross the answers. Where does the competitor appear and you vanish? That's a visibility target. Where does AI praise the competitor for something you also do, but you're not cited? That's a presence or narrative problem. Where does AI get it wrong about the competitor? It might be an opportunity — or a warning that it might be getting it wrong about you too.
And there's a technical detail you can't ignore: the randomness of models makes a single run fragile. Run each prompt a few times, in different models, and look for the pattern, not one day's answer.
Doing this once, by hand, already opens your eyes. Doing it continuously, at scale, comparing you and each competitor on the same questions over time, is what turns the one-off audit into real competitive intelligence — and that's precisely what Genoma automates. Start with the fifteen prompts today; they'll show you a battlefield you probably weren't tracking.