> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcited.in/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Brand Mention

> Any appearance of a brand name in an AI-generated response — the atomic unit of AI visibility measurement.

**Brand mention** is any appearance of a brand name in an AI-generated response. It is the atomic unit of AI visibility measurement — every other metric ([mention rate](/glossary/mention-rate), [share of voice](/glossary/share-of-voice), [average position](/glossary/average-position), [sentiment](/glossary/sentiment)) is derived from counting, positioning, or characterizing brand mentions.

## Why it matters

A brand mention in an AI answer is the fundamental signal that the AI considers the brand relevant to the query. Without mentions, a brand has no AI visibility. The distinction between a mention (brand named in text) and a [citation](/glossary/citation) (brand's domain linked as a source) is important — both are valuable, but they serve different purposes.

## How Cited uses it

Cited extracts brand mentions from every AI response using the [Haiku parsing pipeline](/methodology/mention-extraction). Each mention is recorded with its position in the response, sentiment classification, and framing tags (1-3 descriptive words characterizing how the brand was described). These structured mention records are the raw data from which all dashboard metrics are computed.

## Related concepts

* [Mention rate](/glossary/mention-rate) — the aggregated metric built on brand mention counts
* [How we extract mentions](/methodology/mention-extraction) — the parsing pipeline
* [Citation](/glossary/citation) — a mention with an accompanying source link