Average position

Average position, also called average rank, is your brand's average place among the brands named in the AI answers that name you. Position 1 means you were named first, so lower is better. The formula is the sum of your positions divided by the number of runs that name you. Runs that leave you out are not counted.

Example

Your brand is named in four runs: first, third, second and second. The positions add up to 8, so your average position is 8 divided by 4, or 2.0.

How to read it

Read average position next to AI visibility. Because it ignores runs that leave you out, it can improve while you lose ground: if you stop appearing in answers where you were named fourth or fifth, your average improves with no real gain.

Order also varies more than inclusion. In a 2026 SparkToro study, AI tools returned the same list of brands in the same order less than once in 1,000 runs, and the author argues that a ranking position from any single answer is too random to interpret. Averaged over many runs and paired with visibility, position shows whether the answers that include you put you near the top. First mention answers a simpler version of the same question: how often you lead.

Not the same as Search Console

Google Search Console also reports an average position, for links on the results page. For AI Overviews, Google gives every link inside the overview the same position: the position of the overview itself. That number cannot show your place among the brands an answer names. Our methodology defines average rank as PromptSignal reports it.