How to pick which AI chatbot questions to watch for your brand

Buyers now ask AI chatbots who to consider, and a new HubSpot guide explains which of those questions a business should watch. Its advice: track a representative sample, not everything. Cover questions that name your brand, questions that name no one, and questions that name your rivals. Spread them across buyer stages, customer types and key markets.

Why it matters

The guide cites Responsive research finding that 56% of tech buyers use generative AI to build vendor shortlists. That means a chatbot may shape who gets considered before a buyer visits any website. Watching these answers shows whether your brand appears, how it is described, and which competitors and sources show up instead.

The guide also notes that people do not type into chatbots the way they type into Google. A question often reads like a brief, with details such as team size, budget and location, plus follow-up questions that change the answer.

The three kinds of questions

• Branded: names your company or product, such as "Does [Brand] integrate with Salesforce?"
• Unbranded: describes a problem or category, such as "best project management software for agencies."
• Competitor: names a rival, such as "alternatives to [Competitor]."

For branded questions, the chatbot should mention you anyway. So the point is not whether you appear. It is whether the answer is accurate and how it sounds.

Where to put the effort

The guide says unbranded questions usually reveal the biggest gaps and should be the largest share of the set. These are the questions from buyers who are still exploring and do not yet know which brands to consider. They are the clearest sign of whether you are reaching new customers.

For competitor questions, the guide suggests tracking three to five direct rivals, focusing on those with strong marketing that perform well online.

The author backs the focus on unbranded questions with an example from a London catering company. Its branded search campaign produced 223 conversions at a 4.20% conversion rate. Branded search accounts for around 46% of the company's conversions. Those buyers had mostly decided already.

Tools and cost

The guide recommends dedicated tools over manual checks. HubSpot's own AEO tool (AEO means answer engine optimization, or making sure AI chatbots mention you) tracks ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. It is included with Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. It is also sold alone for $50 a month with 25 prompts included. Since this is HubSpot's own blog, the product pitch is part of the package.

What to do

Start small. Write a short list of questions your buyers might ask, mixing the three types, and run them through the chatbots they use. Note whether you appear, what is said, and who else is named.