How to see who AI cites instead of you with Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool for websites. Since July 2026 it has a report called Topic Insights, under AI Visibility, that asks an AI model the questions you choose and shows which domains its answers cite. For each topic it shows how often your site is cited, which domains are cited alongside you, and where they are doing better than you.

It is a good free place to start, with real limits. It runs your questions through one model, it allows 10 reports a week per project, and Microsoft does not say it covers ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. This guide covers setting it up, reading the four panels, and checking the engines it does not cover.

What Topic Insights is

Microsoft announced Topic Insights on the Clarity blog on 9 July 2026. It sits under AI Visibility in the Clarity dashboard and is available to every Clarity project. It is in beta, limited to 10 reports a week per project, and limited to eligible website categories, so check that your site qualifies before you plan around it.

You define 3 things: the topics you want to be found for, the prompts that stand for each topic, and the competitors to compare against. For each topic, the report then covers 4 things.

How it works, and what that means for the numbers

Topic Insights does not read real people's AI conversations. It runs your prompts through a model and reports what that model cites. Microsoft names GPT-5.3 as the model, with WebIQ as the grounding layer: grounding is the step where a model looks up sources on the web before it answers. So the report is a probe, a fixed set of questions asked on your behalf, and not a log of AI traffic from real users.

Microsoft does not name ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity as engines the report covers, so do not read it as their answers. Each of those engines searches the web in its own way and can cite different sources for the same question. The last step in this guide covers them.

Set it up and read it

1. Add Clarity to your site

Create a Clarity project for your site and add the tracking code Clarity gives you. Topic Insights is available to every Clarity project, so you do not need anything beyond the free project.

2. Open AI Visibility

In your project, open AI Visibility and find Topic Insights. It is in beta and limited to eligible website categories, so if you do not see it, your site's category may not qualify yet.

3. Define 3 to 5 topics in your customers' words

A topic is a group of questions about one problem you solve. Pick 3 to 5. Write the prompts the way a customer would type them before they have heard of you, such as "best invoicing tool for freelancers", without your product name. A prompt that names you gets an answer that names you, and tells you nothing about whether you are found.

With 10 reports a week per project, a short list you keep fixed tells you more than a long one you change every week. Keep the same prompts from report to report, so one week can be compared with the next.

4. Name your competitors

Add the competitors a customer would weigh you against. The Competition panel reports which domains are cited alongside you, so look out for names you did not expect as well as the ones you listed.

5. Read the four panels

• Visibility: how often your domain is cited, and your share of the citations. Read it per topic. A low share on the topic closest to what you sell matters more than a low share overall.
• Influence: how much of an answer your content supports. Being cited for one small point is different from being the main source behind the answer.
• Competition: in Microsoft's words, "which domains are cited alongside you, how frequently they appear, where they're outperforming you". This is the panel that shows who AI cites instead of you. Open the pages it cites and read what they say that yours does not.
• Opportunities: content gaps and prioritised actions. Treat them as suggestions to check against what your customers ask.

6. Ask the engines it does not cover

Take the same prompts and ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. For each answer, write down whether you are named, whether one of your pages is cited, and who is named instead. Ask each question more than once, because answers change from run to run. Then compare: a domain that beats you in Clarity and on the other engines is the first one to study.

What Topic Insights cannot do

• Export the report. Microsoft mentions no export for Topic Insights. The related Query Topics report, announced on 22 July 2026, does have a dashboard download.
• Send the report to your own tools by API. The Clarity Data Export API, as documented, exposes only behavioural metrics, so this report stays in the dashboard.
• Run more than 10 reports a week per project.
• Show real users' AI traffic, or what any one person was shown. It answers your own prompts.
• Stand in for ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Microsoft does not say it covers them.

Without an export, the history is yours to keep. After each report, write down the date, the topic, your share of the citations and the domains cited alongside you, so you can see the trend over months.

Where AfterLaunch fits

AfterLaunch runs this check every week across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity and keeps the record. It reads the sources behind each answer alongside search, communities and directories, ranks the next move and drafts it. It starts with a free scan, then a 14-day trial. You or your AI finish the work, and you approve what ships.

1. 1Microsoft Clarity blog, announcement of Topic Insights, 9 July 2026.
2. 2Microsoft Clarity blog, analysing AI citation queries by topic (Query Topics), 22 July 2026.
3. 3Microsoft Learn, Clarity Data Export API documentation.