New in Scrunch: Track which topics and personas drive brand perception over time with Sentiment Trends

TL;DR - See how brand sentiment in AI answers changes over time—and why. - Pinpoint the topics and personas driving positive or negative shifts. - Drill into the exact prompts and AI responses behind each change to understand positioning and citations.

Aggregate sentiment can look fine until you slice it by “pricing,” “implementation,” or “enterprise buyers.” That’s where real risk and opportunity live. Sentiment Trends surfaces directional change by topic and persona so you can focus your efforts where they’ll matter most.

How Sentiment Trends works

Scrunch uses a machine learning model trained on AI responses to classify tone and positioning:

Classification	What it means
Positive	Language is favorable or endorsing of your brand.
Mixed	Language includes both pros and cons, or neutral observations.
Negative	Language highlights drawbacks or positions your brand as less desirable.

From the Home screen, open the Sentiment panel and click "Explore trends" to access four core views:

Positive Sentiment Over Time: Week-by-week trajectory for your selected period.
Most Influential Drivers: Topics and personas ranked by how much they shifted sentiment in the last 4 weeks versus an 8-week baseline.
Sentiment Breakdown: The share of positive, mixed, and negative responses.
Average Change in Sentiment: Your week-over-week trend benchmarked against peer brands.

Filter and analyze results across multiple dimensions:

Filter dimension	Examples
Audience	Persona, funnel stage
Content	Topic
Geography	Region
Platform	Cross-platform or platform-specific (e.g., ChatGPT vs. Gemini)

Click “View prompts” to: - See the exact prompts and AI answers that moved sentiment. - Inspect citations and the on/offsite content influencing those answers. - Identify gaps or mispositioning to fix.

Scrunch currently monitors 9 major AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Meta AI, Grok, and Microsoft Copilot. Learn more about sentiment classification and analysis in this FAQ: Does Scrunch track sentiment about my brand in AI responses?

Compare sentiment against competitors

Understanding your own trend line is useful; seeing it in market context is better. Sentiment Trends shows your: - Average Change in Sentiment benchmarked against other brands in your space. - Topic- and persona-level shifts that explain where you’re outperforming or lagging peers.

This gives you a clear read on whether changes are brand-specific or part of a broader market pattern.

A practical workflow to evaluate during your trial

Use this six-step loop to validate impact in your first week:

Set up monitoring: Add your site; Scrunch auto-suggests competitors, personas, and topics. Import prompts or paste keywords—Scrunch converts them automatically.
Spot shifts: In Sentiment Trends, look for dips or spikes in Positive Sentiment Over Time.
Find the drivers: Open Most Influential Drivers to see which topics and personas moved the needle.
Inspect prompts: Click "View prompts" to read AI responses, check citations, and locate the content or positioning causing issues.
Take action: Prioritize fixes on the topics and personas with the largest negative influence. Address missing citations, clarify positioning, and fill content gaps.
Track improvements: Watch Average Change in Sentiment and the share of positive, mixed, and negative answers week over week, and compare to peers.

KPIs to watch:

KPI	What to measure
Positive Sentiment share	Increase for priority topics and personas
Negative Sentiment share	Reduction in segments where risk is highest
Average Change in Sentiment	Week-over-week trend versus peer brand benchmarks

What to expect in your first week

Fast setup: Many customers are deployed and collecting data within one day. Data typically starts populating within 20–60 minutes for smaller organizations and 1–12 hours for larger organizations. Details: How long does Scrunch implementation take?
Free trial: Scrunch offers a 7-day free trial of the self-serve Core plan. You can sign up instantly without speaking to sales. See what's included: Does Scrunch offer a free trial?
Trial limits: One brand per trial; certain Enterprise features (e.g., SSO, enterprise data API) are not included. If you're evaluating for multiple brands or need Enterprise features, book a demo to discuss a custom evaluation.
After the trial: Continue seamlessly on a paid plan, or cancel before your billing date. See pricing for details.

Why this matters

Being mentioned in AI search isn’t enough—how you’re positioned is what shapes brand perception. Sentiment Trends turns a static score into a story you can act on, linking shifts back to specific topics, personas, and prompts so you know exactly where to focus.

Improve AI search sentiment with Scrunch. Start a 7-day free trial or book a demo with our team.