Share of Model.

Share of voice was a currency of brand communication for decades: what proportion of all mentions in a media environment belongs to my brand? Share of Model applies the same logic to language models. It measures the proportion of answers within a defined question space in which your own brand appears, relative to all providers named. Unlike a ranking position, the value is probabilistic: the same question can return a different list of providers on the second run. Share of Model is therefore only meaningful across repeated measurements.

The difference from citation rate matters, and it is frequently blurred. Citation rate counts whether your own domain turns up as a source. Share of Model counts whether the brand is named or recommended in the answer text, regardless of whether your website is linked at all. The two figures diverge regularly. A provider can appear often in recommendation lists because third parties write about it, while its own domain is never cited as a source. Steering the work needs both numbers side by side.

Share of Model is created largely outside your own website. Language models form recommendations from repeated agreement: when several independent, credible sources name the same provider for the same purpose, that association hardens. A single strong backlink does little here; consistent mentions in trade media, directories, expert articles and forums do a great deal. That moves disciplines to the centre which classic SEO treated as peripheral — digital PR, well-kept professional profiles, unlinked mentions, and a description of your offer that is identical across every channel.

A concrete example: two agencies in the Zurich region rank comparably for similar search terms. One is named regularly as an option in AI answers; the other never is. The difference rarely lies in the website. It lies in the fact that the first appears in several independent round-up articles, directories and trade pieces. For the second agency, the right measure is therefore not another service page but deliberate presence in exactly the sources the models draw their provider lists from.