If you're seeing an aggregate Competitive Presence percentage (like 40%) that looks very different from any individual competitor's percentage (like Competitor A at 16%, Competitor B at 12%), that's expected. The aggregate and the individual percentages measure different things, and they're not designed to add up.

The individual percentages show how often each specific competitor is mentioned by name (Mentions Rate). The aggregate is either a pooled, volume-weighted mention rate across all tracked competitors (what Explorer calls Market Presence), or a normalized share of mentions across the tracked set (Share of Voice).

These percentages overlap. Multiple competitors can appear in the same response, so you can't add the individual numbers together or simply average them to get the aggregate.

Where you'll see it: In Explorer, using the Market Presence or Share of Voice metric, broken down by competitor. Explorer allows up to 5 metrics, 3 breakdowns, and 8 filters in a single view.

What it measures: This aggregates all AI responses, across every tracked platform (including ChatGPT), where one or more competitors are mentioned by name, regardless of whether your brand is also mentioned. This helps identify areas where competitors are more prominently featured.

How it's calculated (illustrative): Responses with one or more competitor mentions, divided by total responses.

Example:

Where you'll see it: In Explorer, using the Mentions Rate metric (API field: competitor_presence_percentage) with a Competitor breakdown, or in the competitor trend charts.

What it measures: How often each specific competitor is mentioned by name in AI responses, across every tracked platform. This uses the same name-detection logic as brand Mentions Rate, so brand and competitor numbers are directly comparable. Citations of a competitor's domain don't count toward this rate; that's tracked separately by Citations Rate (competitor_citation_rate).

How it's calculated: Responses mentioning Competitor A, divided by total responses.

Example:

Explorer's rate charts show the underlying sample size in the tooltip, for example "16% (16 of 100 responses)", so you can always check the response count behind a percentage.

The aggregate isn't an average of the individual competitor percentages. In Explorer, the pooled metric, Market Presence (market_presence_percentage), represents the pooled, volume-weighted mention rate across all tracked competitors, not a simple count of responses where any competitor appears.

The individual percentages (Competitor A at 16%, Competitor B at 12%, etc.) show how often each specific competitor is mentioned by name (Mentions Rate).

Competitor mentions overlap. A single response can include:

So if you looked at 100 responses:

But around 39-40 responses might include at least one competitor (the illustrative aggregate).

Because many of those mentions happen in the same responses, you can't add the individual percentages together or average them to reconstruct the aggregate.

Think of it like overlapping circles (a Venn diagram):

Each competitor is its own circle, and they intersect a lot. The illustrative aggregate is the total area covered by any circle, not the size of one specific circle.

The pooled metrics show the combined competitive footprint. Market Presence tells you the volume-weighted mention rate across the whole tracked set, and Share of Voice tells you each entity's normalized share of that footprint, even though competitors might be appearing together in the same responses.

This is actually a very useful signal, once you know which metric you're looking at.

Example: a high aggregate competitor presence, but the highest individual Mentions Rate is much lower

What it means:

Example: a high aggregate competitor presence, and one competitor's Mentions Rate is close to that same level

What it means:

Scenario (illustrative): A single AI response about "best project management tools"

The response might mention:

This one response contributes to:

So four competitors appeared, but this illustrative aggregate only increases by 1 response, not 4. There isn't a single Explorer metric that literally counts responses once this way; use Market Presence or Share of Voice for real, selectable numbers, and expect them to be calculated differently than this walkthrough.

The Competitive Presence chart in Explorer initially uses a bar graph to display early data points during the first few collection cycles. This approach ensures clarity while results are still being gathered. Once sufficient data is collected, the chart automatically transitions to a line graph, enabling you to track trends over time. There's no need for manual adjustments; the system handles the transition seamlessly.

No, this is not a bug. The aggregate and individual competitor percentages measure different things, and they're designed to overlap because multiple competitors can appear in the same response.

No. The aggregate is not an average of individual competitor percentages. It's a different calculation:

Because competitors often appear together in the same responses, averaging the individual percentages will give you the wrong number.

This pattern typically points to a fragmented competitive landscape: many different competitors are getting visibility across different responses, but no single competitor dominates. This is common in crowded categories. Keep in mind that Market Presence and Share of Voice are pooled and normalized calculations, so check which metric you're viewing before comparing it directly to an individual competitor's Mentions Rate.

Yes! If you added up all individual Mentions Rate percentages, you could theoretically get over 100% because they overlap. That's exactly why the pooled metrics exist separately: Market Presence represents the pooled, volume-weighted mention rate across all tracked competitors, not a simple count of responses where any competitor appears.

Not necessarily. Look at the individual competitor breakdown (Mentions Rate):

Great question! This follows the same logic as citation metrics. In the legacy Citations dashboard, this was called Citation Share (the donut) versus Citation Consistency (row-level). In Explorer today, the equivalent views are Citations Total broken down by Citation Source Owner (matching the donut's composition) and Citations Share of Voice (the row-level rate).