Sentiment and position | Recited AI Docs

Being mentioned is not enough

Two answers can both mention you, with completely different value. One opens with you as the recommended choice. The other lists you seventh with a caveat. Sentiment and position are the two metrics that capture that difference.

Sentiment

Sentiment measures how answers talk about your brand when they mention you.

At the level of a single prompt, each mention is read as positive, neutral, or negative, and the Prompts page shows the prevailing tone for that question. At the brand level, sentiment rolls up into a 0 to 100 score, where higher means answers frame you more favorably. Brand-level sentiment appears on the Competitors leaderboard and the My brand page, alongside its change since the previous scan.

Most brands most of the time sit in neutral territory: AI answers tend to describe rather than praise. What deserves attention is movement, and outliers. A prompt whose sentiment turns negative has specific answers behind it; open them in the answer log and read what is being said. The source list on those answers often shows where a negative framing entered the ecosystem, which tells you where a fix would help.

Position

Position is the average rank of your brand within the answers that mention you. Lower is better: position 1 means you tend to be the first brand named.

Position matters because AI answers are read top down, and the first recommendation carries most of the weight. Moving from average position 5 to average position 2 can matter more than appearing in a few more answers.

Position appears per prompt on the Prompts page and per brand on the leaderboard. Its delta is read inverted: a falling number is an improvement, and the tables color it accordingly.

How they interact with the score

Neither sentiment nor position is directly part of the visibility formula, which is built on coverage and mention strength. Treat them as quality lenses on top of it:

High visibility, poor position: you are everywhere, but always an afterthought. Content that gives platforms a reason to lead with you is the lever; see writing articles.
High visibility, weak sentiment: you are present but framed with caveats. Find the sources feeding the framing.
Good position on few prompts: you own some questions; now widen coverage. The weak-placement and losing-prompt detectors in opportunities work both ends of this.