> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.perform.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Prompts > Prompts are the questions AI Commerce Visibility runs against AI assistants per product category, keeping every answer, search query and citation. **Available to all AI Commerce Visibility customers.** ## Summary Prompts are the shopper questions that AI Commerce Visibility sends to AI assistants to find out how your brand, products and sales channels come up in their answers. AI Commerce Visibility generates a full prompt set for every active product category and market, lets you add your own, runs them on a schedule, and keeps each assistant's full response, the searches it ran and the sources it cited. ## Who it’s for Marketing and e-commerce teams who want to know what shoppers ask AI assistants in their category and what the assistants answer. Analysts who need to verify where a number on a chart comes from, or diagnose why Visibility moved on one assistant, without raising a support ticket. ## Key benefits * **No blank page.** Activating a product category generates around 200 prompts for it, covering every stage of the shopping journey from brand discovery to delivery and returns, in each market's language. * **Every answer is kept.** Open any prompt to read each AI assistant's full response side by side, with badges for whether your brand and your competitors were mentioned. * **Every chart links to its prompts.** **View Prompts** on any chart opens the Prompts page already filtered to what you were looking at, so you can trace a number back to the exact questions and answers behind it. * **You see the searches and sources behind an answer.** Each response shows the search queries the assistant ran and the sources it cited, with the exact phrase it took from each source. * **You control the set.** Add custom prompts with their own prompt category, product category and market, and deactivate prompts you no longer need. ## How it works ### Prompt categories Each prompt belongs to one product category and one prompt category. The prompt categories follow the shopping journey, and together they feed the Insights tabs. | Prompt category | Stage of the journey | Example | Feeds | | - | - | - | - | | Brand | Discovering brands | "What are the best running shoe brands in Germany?" | Brand tab | | Product | Choosing a product | "Which running shoe has the best cushioning?" | Product tab | | Merchant | Choosing where to buy | "Where should I buy trail running shoes in the UK?" | Merchant tab | | Sentiment (Trust) | Checking the seller before buying | "Is this online store reliable for delivery?" | Trust tab | | Brand attribute | Comparing brands on one attribute | "Compare the sustainability of these three brands for running shoes in the UK." | Brand tab attributes | | Product attribute | Comparing products on one attribute | "Compare the cushioning of these running shoe models in the UK." | Product tab attributes | | Merchant attribute | Comparing sales channels on one attribute | "Compare the shipping options when buying running shoes from these stores in the UK." | Merchant tab attributes | The Dashboard combines the Brand, Product, Merchant and Trust prompt categories. The Brand, Product, Merchant and Trust tabs each use only their own prompt category. ### Generated prompts When a product category is activated, AI Commerce Visibility creates the full prompt set for it: prompts in every prompt category, for every market in the category, phrased in that market's language. Around 200 prompts are created per category. Active personas add persona-specific prompts on top of this generic set; see [Personas](https://developers.perform.ai/products/ai-commerce-visibility/personas.md). ### Custom prompts You can add your own prompts. A custom prompt needs a prompt category, a product category and a market, so it is analysed alongside the generated prompts. > [!WARNING] > > Custom prompts can bias your own results, for instance a question written to favour your brand. The results only affect your account, and they are your responsibility. Keep the generated prompts as the baseline and add custom prompts sparingly. Changing or removing many generated prompts makes comparisons with earlier periods less meaningful. If you need to return to the default set, contact your account team. ### Status and execution Each prompt has a status. Active prompts run on the schedule; paused and draft prompts do not. The prompt list shows each prompt's status, category, market, activation date and number of executions, and you can filter it by status, category and market. Prompts run on a scheduled cadence against the AI assistants you track, rather than continuously, because the assistants update their search indexes only periodically and daily runs mostly add noise. The default cadence is weekly, and the cadence and the AI models are set under **Settings**. The default models are ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity; Gemini can be added as a fourth model. ### The Prompts page The Prompts page lists every prompt with whether your brand was mentioned, which competitors were mentioned and the market. You can filter it by market, prompt category and competitors. Filtering by AI model or persona is not available on this page. Opening a prompt shows four kinds of evidence: | Evidence | What you see | | - | - | | Prompt configuration | The exact question, and the market and product category it was asked for. | | Responses | Each AI assistant's full answer, expanded on open, with badges for whether your brand was mentioned and whether competitors were mentioned. | | Search queries | The queries each assistant ran to research its answer, shown per assistant. | | Citations | The sources each assistant referenced, with source name, domain, article type (editorial, community or review), title, URL and the exact phrase the assistant took from it. | The detail panel is read-only. A link in the panel opens the prompt's configuration if you want to change it. ### From a chart to its prompts Every chart on the Dashboard, Brand, Product, Merchant and Trust tabs has a **View Prompts** link. It opens the Prompts page with the chart's filters (market, prompt category, competitors) already applied, so you can read the answers that produced the number you were looking at. Prompt chips on the Sources and Citations tabs link to the Prompts page in the same way. ### Export **Export data** on any Insights tab generates a report of up to nine sheets as CSV or XLSX, including a Prompts sheet with one row per prompt and AI model: the full response, your mentions, competitor mentions, product mentions, citations and the searches the assistant ran. The download link arrives by email and is valid for seven days. Each user can generate one report at a time, and the report reflects the filters and date range at the moment you confirm it. ## Set up in the portal Go to **AI Commerce Visibility** > **Configuration** > **Prompts**. 1. Review the prompts generated for your active product categories. Filter by status, category or market to narrow the list. 2. To add a prompt, select **Add Prompt**, enter the question, and set its prompt category, product category and market. 3. To stop a prompt, deactivate it from the list. It no longer runs on the schedule. 4. To change which AI models are queried or how often prompts run, go to **Settings**, adjust the models and the execution frequency, and save. To read the answers behind a chart, select **View Prompts** on the chart, then open any prompt in the list. ## FAQ ### Can I add my own questions? Yes. Add a prompt with its prompt category, product category and market. Keep in mind that a prompt written to favour your brand biases your own results. ### Why do prompts run weekly rather than daily? AI assistants update their search indexes only periodically. Running the same prompt every day mostly returns small fluctuations that are not real changes. A weekly cadence matches how the assistants update. You can change the cadence under **Settings**. ### Are prompts translated for each market? Yes. Prompts are generated per market in that market's language, so you read the answer a shopper in that market actually gets. ### Can I see the AI assistant’s full answer? Yes. Open any prompt on the Prompts page to read each assistant's full response, the search queries it ran and the sources it cited. ### Why don’t some older citations show an extracted phrase? The exact phrase taken from a source is recorded for new prompt executions. Citations from executions before that was introduced may show the source without a phrase. ### A prompt I expected is missing from the content generation list. Why? Only active prompts of type Brand, Product or Merchant are eligible for content generation. Paused and draft prompts are left out. Check the prompt's status under **Configuration** > **Prompts**. ## Troubleshooting | Symptom | Cause | Fix | | - | - | - | | A prompt has no executions | The prompt or its product category is paused or in Draft | Activate the prompt, or activate the category under **Configuration** > **Product Category**, and wait for the next scheduled run. | | Results for a new prompt have not appeared | Prompts run on the schedule, not immediately after creation | Wait for the next scheduled run. The cadence is shown under **Settings**. | | The Prompts page shows prompts you did not expect after using **View Prompts** | The chart's filters were carried over | Check the market, prompt category and competitor filters at the top of the page and adjust them. | | Historical comparisons look inconsistent | Prompts were changed or removed between periods | Keep generated prompts as the baseline. To restore the default set, contact your account team. | | Exported scores do not match the Dashboard cell for cell | The export breaks results out by prompt category while the Dashboard combines them | Compare the export with the Brand, Product and Merchant tabs rather than the Dashboard. | ## Related * [Product Categories](https://developers.perform.ai/products/ai-commerce-visibility/product-categories.md) * [Personas](https://developers.perform.ai/products/ai-commerce-visibility/personas.md) * [Sources](https://developers.perform.ai/products/ai-commerce-visibility/sources.md) * [AI Commerce Visibility overview](https://developers.perform.ai/products/ai-commerce-visibility/overview.md) This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.