Sentiment Score (AI)
An AI sentiment score is a 0 to 100 rating of how warmly an AI engine describes your business when it mentions you, where high scores reflect language like highly rated and low scores reflect hedges or complaints.
Also known as: AI reputation score, Mention sentiment
A sentiment score puts a number on the tone an AI engine uses when it talks about you. Two plumbers can both be mentioned in the same Perplexity answer, one as a well-reviewed local company known for fast emergency response and the other as another option in the area with mixed reviews. Both got a mention. Only one got a recommendation. The sentiment score, on a 0 to 100 scale, captures that difference so it can be tracked over time.
The score is derived from the words around your name in each answer: qualifiers like highly rated, trusted, affordable, or specializes in push it up; hedges like mixed reviews, some complaints, limited information, or a mention with no descriptor at all pull it down. Because it's computed per mention, it can be averaged per engine and per question, and compared against the sentiment competitors receive in the same answers.
Where does the tone come from? Mostly from the sources the engine read. If Yelp and Google reviews describe you as responsive and fairly priced, the engine tends to echo that. If a Reddit thread complains about a missed appointment, that can surface too. Your own pages matter as well: a site that states what you specialize in gives the engine specific positive language to reuse, while a vague site leaves it to summarize whatever the reviews say.
For a dentist or restaurant, sentiment is the difference between being listed and being chosen. High mention rate with weak sentiment still loses the call, because the reader picks the option described most confidently. Nobody has measured the exact conversion effect of AI sentiment, so treat any precise claim about it with suspicion. But the logic is the same as a review star rating: being present isn't enough if the description is lukewarm.
Tibly assigns a sentiment score to every mention across the seven engines it tracks, shows your profile against each competitor's, and traces the tone back to the sources that produced it. When the fix is on your own site, a clearer specialty statement or an updated service page, Tibly drafts the change and publishes it to your Tibly-hosted site.
Keep exploring the glossary
- Brand Mention (AI answer)In an AI answer, a brand mention is any instance where the engine names your business in its response, with or without a link, distinct from a citation, which is a source the engine used and may not be yours.
- Review SignalsReview signals are the count, rating, recency, and written content of customer reviews on Google, Yelp, and industry directories that search engines and AI answer engines read as evidence of a business's quality when deciding how to recommend it.
- Position in AnswerPosition in answer is the rank at which an AI engine names your business within a single response, where position 1 means you were named first, and it matters because answers hold only a few slots.
- Cited SourceA cited source is a specific web page or domain, such as a Yelp listing, a Reddit thread, or a business's own service page, that an AI engine references as the basis for its answer, showing where it learned it.
Common questions about Sentiment Score (AI)
- How is an AI sentiment score calculated?
- Each time an engine names your business, the language around the mention is classified for warmth and scored from 0 to 100. Scores are averaged per engine and per question. It measures how the engine described you, not how customers feel, though the two are usually linked through reviews.
- Can I improve how AI describes my business?
- Yes, indirectly. Sentiment follows sources: reviews, your service pages, and how your work is described on directories. Fix the sources and the engine's language tends to follow in later scans. There's no way to edit the engine directly, and no published study quantifies how fast the tone shifts.