AI search has changed where product discovery happens. Buyers now get tool recommendations directly inside AI answers. This motion design SaaS used Skale’s AI Brand Mentions Service to gain inclusion. In 4 months, they outranked category giants Adobe and Canva, increased AI brand coverage from 22% to 55%, and grew brand mentions and domain citations 90x.
150%
AI brand coverage
90x
Domain citations
2.25–1.96
Average AI results position
AI-generated answers now do the job that category pages, comparison posts, and “best tools” roundups used to.
When a buyer asks ChaGPT of Gemini for “best motion design tools” or “alternatives to heavy video editing software,” the response functions as a ready-made shortlist. The tools that appear in that answer are considered. The ones that don’t are invisible.
For brands operating in competitive categories, this shift is monumental. Inclusion inside the answer layer is now a competitive battleground.
Our client Jitter, a motion design and animation platform, competes in a space dominated by established tools like Canva and Adobe.
The challenge was clear: earn consistent inclusion in AI-generated recommendations for high-intent prompts. In other words, be present in the moments where buyers are actively deciding what to shortlist.
This was not a full-service organic growth engagement. Our targeted AI Brand Mentions Service had one goal: get Jitter included in the listicles and third-party “best tools” content that AI engines already cite when answering motion design and animation tool queries.
Our hypothesis was based in our reverse engineering approach. Instead of a spray-and-pray Digital PR approach, we work backwards from our goal to determine which inputs will make a meaningful change, and which are just noise.
This reveals what actually influences AI answers right now and where AI Brand Mentions will be most impactful.
We determined that if we can place the brand into the third-party sources AI engines already cite for motion design and animation tool queries, then inclusion inside AI answers will expand and compound over time.
To evaluate our success, we measured AI visibility outcomes rather than traditional SEO metrics. Specifically, we tracked:
At the beginning of our work, Jitter was not invisible, but they weren’t consistently included in AI answers either.
Across the high-intent prompts we tracked, they appeared in 22% of AI-generated responses. The brand had earned 5 brand mentions, 5 domain citations, and held an average position of 2.25 when it did appear in AI answer lists.
Over the next three months, as we earned placements in the sources AI engines already rely on, Jitter moved from occasional appearances to repeated inclusion.
November was the first inflection point. Once the brand began appearing in the third-party listicles and sources we targeted, mentions and citations accelerated, and coverage started to move.
By January, that momentum turned into repeatable inclusion: coverage reached 55% and average position improved to 1.96, meaning the brand showed up in more than half of the high-intent prompts we tracked and appeared higher in recommendation lists.
Brand mentions, average brand position, domain citations, and brand coverage all improved materially over the four-month period.
Because of the amount of outreach completed and the negotiations we managed, we were able to overtake competitors and unseat two top brands.
As we got Jitter included in targeted third-party listicles and sources, brand mentions rose by 1,620%, and domain citations increased by 1,960%.
Brand coverage also moved from 22% to 25%. This shows that the brand was showing up more often within answers across the prompt set we tracked.
AI systems now handle the early-stage filtering for buyers. If your brand isn’t included in that recommendation layer, you’re not being evaluated in the moment that matters most.
This case study shows that inclusion isn’t random. It can be reverse engineered by earning placements in the third-party listicles and sources that AI models already rely on when generating recommendations. And as those mentions and citations accumulate, your brand appears more often in AI generated answers.
This AI Brand Mentions service works as a strong, standalone foundation for building AI visibility, but it’s most powerful when it’s plugged into a full organic growth system that includes both SEO and GEO tactics.
The shift in search is happening faster than most brands realize. AI shortlists are forming now, and once certain names become the default recommendations, they’re harder to displace.
Brands that act early will have the advantage. Brands that wait will be forced to react from behind.
If you’re not in the AI answer set, you’re not in the shortlist. Let’s fix that. Talk to us about AI Brand Mentions.
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