Trend exploration
Use this guide if you need to: - See which AI search topics are growing in your industry - Spot AI topics in your product category that have the highest volume - Learn if your brand is mentioned in any major AI topic clusters - Prioritize trending topics that have the highest potential impact for your brand - Understand if a trending AI search topic is worth investing content in
Contents - Quick answer - Start here - Step 1: Track topic volume, trends, and brand presence in the Trends tab - Step 2: Explore sentiment, competitive presence, and related prompts in Topic Details pages - Measure impact and compare to competitors - Turn trends into action - Accuracy and methodology notes - Pros and cons - FAQs
Track topic volume and trends in AI search from Scrunch’s Trends tab.
Topic volume and trends show how frequently people ask AI about topics related to your brand over time and how interest is moving. Here’s the fastest path:
Brand presence: percentage of AI responses that mention your brand for the topic
Add new topics directly in the Trends tab:
Submit requests with the “Request a New Topic” button if you don’t see what you need
Drill down in each Topic Details page:
Convert any sample prompt into a tracked prompt with one click and move it into the Prompts Monitoring tab
Track changes over time:
Use the date selector (default: last 12 weeks) to analyze topic volume and brand presence for any period
Sort and prioritize:
Bottom line: The more you know which AI search topics are growing and how your brand shows up, the faster you can prioritize high-impact opportunities before competitors do.
Topic volume and trends tell you where AI demand is and how it’s shifting. That helps you: - Decide which prompts and topics deserve attention - See where your brand already shows up—and where it doesn’t - Time content and go-to-market bets to rising interest
Here’s how to do it in Scrunch.
Before you begin: - Log in to Scrunch or sign up for a free trial to follow along - Add your brand and website to the AI Context tab in Scrunch, including any alternate domains or subdomains - Customize brand context (alternative brand names, competitors, personas, key topics)
Log in to Scrunch and open the Trends tab.
This page gives you a high-level view of how often people ask AI about topics related to your brand and how frequently your brand appears in answers.
At the top is the Industry Topics Watchlist—every topic you’re tracking. Each topic is a cluster of semantically related prompts. You’ll see: - AI search activity: estimated conversation volume for each topic - Line chart: interest over time - Brand presence: percentage of AI responses that explicitly mention your brand for that topic
Adjust the time window with the date selector at the top (default: last 12 weeks). You can also sort by: - Highest volume to find big, established topics - Highest trend to find fast growers
Add topics to your watchlist using the search bar: - Search by keyword or browse by NAICS classification - Click into any topic to preview volume, trend lines, and sample prompts and responses - Click “+” to start tracking a topic (remove anytime with “–”)
If you can’t find a topic, use “Request a New Topic.” Scrunch reviews submissions and adds new topics regularly.
You’ll also see Recommended Industry Topics based on your AI Context inputs. These shortcuts help you expand coverage quickly with relevant picks.
Tip: Focus your analysis on product areas or topics where you want to gain share of voice versus competitors or trusted third-party sources.
Click any topic to open its Topic Details page. In addition to volume and trend, you’ll see: - Sentiment: percentage of positive, mixed, and negative sentiment toward your brand in AI responses - Competitive presence: your brand presence versus competitors across AI platforms - Top brands: brands with the highest average presence in responses for the topic
Scroll to Sample prompts & responses: - Validate that the topic matches what your audience actually asks - Convert any sample into a tracked prompt with “+” - Assign a persona and tag, and choose which AI platforms to track - The prompt moves to the Prompts Monitoring tab, where Scrunch collects platform responses
This links topic-level trend intelligence to prompt-level visibility so you can move from insight to action quickly.
Scrunch provides analytics to measure the impact of AI on your brand visibility—and how you stack up: - Track brand presence and competitive presence by topic, persona, country, individual platform, funnel stage, or custom tag - Compare performance over different timeframes (e.g., Q2 vs. Q1) using the date selector - Analyze share of voice versus competitors for key topics and prompts - Visualize changes and divergence by platform using line charts and filters - Pair topic-level trends with prompt-level results to pinpoint where to invest
For ongoing performance, monitor trend data consistently over 2–3 week periods to separate meaningful movement from one-off spikes.
Use trend insights to prioritize and execute: - Update your prompt list: focus monitoring on rising topics and demote declining ones - Expand where you’re absent: identify high-volume or rising topics where your brand isn’t mentioned and create a plan to appear - Close citation gaps: review which third-party or competitor sources AIs cite and build or improve content to meet or exceed those sources - Strengthen technical access: confirm AI agents can crawl and render key pages; fix robots.txt or delivery issues if present - Track downstream impact: pair topic trends with brand presence, citations, AI agent traffic, and AI referral traffic to see what’s driving outcomes
Helpful resources: - Learn how Scrunch estimates AI search volume at the topic level in this FAQ: How Scrunch estimates AI search volume metrics - See guidance on reading trend movement over time in this FAQ: How to see if AI search visibility is improving or declining - Explore useful KPIs in this FAQ: Benchmarks and baselines for evaluating AI search performance
Pros - End-to-end topic intelligence: discover, track, and prioritize high-volume or fast-growing topics with one workflow - Clear competitive context: see competitive presence, top brands, and share of voice by topic and timeframe - Actionable bridge to execution: convert sample prompts to tracked prompts in one click, assign personas, and start collecting platform responses - Granular segmentation: analyze by topic, persona, country, platform, funnel stage, and custom tags - Broader performance picture: pair trends with brand presence, citations, AI agent traffic, and AI referral traffic for fuller impact measurement
Cons - Volume is estimated and directional, not exact; best used for prioritization and trend direction - Topic-level volume (not prompt-level volume) is provided to ensure quality and reliability - Brand presence focuses on explicit mentions; implied references without a direct brand name may not be counted
Use trends to: - Identify what your audience cares about now - Find high-demand topics where your brand is missing - Prioritize topics for content or campaign investment - Uncover content or technical gaps hurting visibility - Spot rising interests and seasonal movement - Deprioritize declining topics that don’t need immediate focus - Anchor your roadmap in observed user behavior instead of guesses
Scrunch’s AI Search Trends estimates topic-level AI search volume from end-to-end AI interaction data provided by high-quality, privacy-compliant third parties. It includes estimated prompt volume related to topics, how that volume changes over time, and brand and competitor presence over selected timeframes. Learn more in the FAQ: How Scrunch estimates AI search volume metrics.
Monitor trend data like brand mentions and citations consistently over 2–3 week periods to identify real changes versus one-off fluctuations. Learn more in the FAQ: How to see if AI search visibility is improving or declining.
What’s next - Update your prompt list: prioritize monitoring based on rising or falling topics in your category - Compare to competitors: identify brands that consistently appear in responses and work to gain share of voice - Run a site audit: fix access, delivery, or content issues that harm visibility - Update or create content: study cited sources on important prompts and outperform them - Track core KPIs: include brand presence, citations, referral traffic, AI agent traffic, and share of voice to benchmark and measure progress
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