AI Prompt Research: How to Find the Questions Your Customers Ask ChatGPT

AI prompt research means collecting the real questions your customers ask ChatGPT and other assistants, then testing those questions to see which businesses get named. Start with your own sales calls, reviews and FAQs, turn them into full conversational questions, group them by intent, and check the answers across several engines on a regular schedule.

This guide shows where to find those questions, how they differ from keywords, how many to track, and what to do with the results.

What is AI prompt research?

Traditional keyword research asks “what do people type into Google?” AI prompt research asks “what do people say to an assistant when they want a recommendation, an answer or a comparison?” The output is not a list of search volumes. It is a list of realistic questions, each paired with what ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude actually say in reply.

Think of it as AI search keyword research with one big difference: the result is a written answer that names a few businesses, not a page of ten blue links. Either you are in that answer or you are not.

How are prompts different from keywords?

People talk to AI assistants the way they would talk to a knowledgeable friend. That changes the shape of the query.

Prompts tend to be:

• Longer, often a full sentence or two.
• Conversational, with words like “good”, “best for me”, “should I”.
• Loaded with context: budget, team size, location, timing, constraints.
• Follow-up friendly: people refine with “what about cheaper options?”

So do not just paste your keyword list into ChatGPT. Rewrite each important keyword as the question a real customer would ask.

Where do you find the questions customers ask ChatGPT?

You already have most of the raw material. The best prompts come from your customers’ own words.

Sales calls and enquiry emails

Ask your team which questions come up before people buy. “Do you work with companies outside London?” or “Is this suitable for a clinic with two locations?” are prompts waiting to happen. Write them down in the customer’s words, not yours.

Reviews (yours and competitors’)

Reviews tell you what people cared about when choosing. If many reviews mention “fast turnaround” or “speaks Urdu”, someone is likely asking an assistant for exactly that, for example “accountant in Lahore who speaks Urdu and handles tax for freelancers”.

Your website FAQs and support tickets

Every question on your FAQ page is a candidate prompt. Support tickets show the problems people try to solve before they find you. Our guide on writing FAQs AI assistants can quote covers how to answer them on your site too.

“People also ask” and related searches

Google’s “People also ask” boxes and related searches show how real people phrase questions around a topic. Turn the ones that relate to buying decisions into prompts.

Competitor names

Customers often ask “What are alternatives to [competitor]?” or “[Competitor] vs [you]: which is better for small teams?” Add your two to five main competitors to prompts like these.

Locations

If you serve specific places, add them. “Best physiotherapist in Sydney’s inner west” and “best physiotherapist near Bondi” can return different businesses. See local AI visibility for “best service in city” prompts for more on this.

Which intent types should your prompts cover?

Group prompts by what the person is trying to do. This keeps your list balanced and helps you prioritise.

Local, ready-to-buy and comparison prompts usually deserve the most weight because the person is close to a decision. Brand prompts are different: they check accuracy rather than visibility, which links to fixing wrong information in ChatGPT.

How many prompts should you track?

Start small and real. Ten to twenty well-chosen prompts that reflect how your customers buy are more useful than two hundred generic ones.

• Single location, one service: around 10 prompts across local, ready-to-buy and comparison intent.
• Several services or cities: 20 to 30, a few per service and location.
• Agencies: a focused set per client rather than one giant list.

Keep the wording fixed once you start prompt tracking. If you change the prompt, you change the answer, and your trend line stops meaning anything.

How do you test prompts across AI engines?

Ask each prompt in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. Where possible, use a mode with web search on, because that is when engines retrieve pages and cite sources.

A few rules make the results more trustworthy:

1. Use a logged-out or fresh session where you can, to reduce personalisation.
2. Run each prompt more than once. Answers vary by engine, wording, location and time, so one answer is a snapshot.
3. Note the date and the engine for every answer.
4. Remember that answers through an API can differ from what someone sees in the consumer app.

For a step-by-step manual method with a spreadsheet, read how to track your brand in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude.

How should you read the answers?

For each answer, record four things:

• Were you mentioned? Yes or no.
• Position: first, in the middle, or last in the list.
• Competitors named: who appears instead of, or alongside, you.
• Cited sources: which websites the engine linked to.

The cited sources are often the most useful part. They show you which directories, lists, articles and forums the engine trusted for that question. Our guide to which websites ChatGPT cites explains the common patterns.

What is a prompt gap?

A gap is a prompt where a competitor is named and you are not. Gaps on high-intent prompts are your priority list. A gap usually has one of three causes:

1. Engines cannot read or understand your site. Check crawler access and structured data. See allowing AI crawlers in robots.txt.
2. Your facts are unclear or inconsistent. Your services, locations and details differ across your site and profiles.
3. You are missing from the sources engines cite. The pages behind the answer mention competitors but not you.

What should you do after the research?

• Write clear pages that answer your top prompts directly, in plain language.
• Fix on-site issues: crawler access, schema, consistent business facts.
• Work through the cited sources: get listed in relevant directories, contact authors of “best of” lists, take part honestly in communities.
• Re-run the same prompts on a schedule and compare. Our guide to measuring AI visibility improvements covers how.

None of this guarantees a mention. No AI company publishes how it chooses which businesses to name. But it improves your odds, and steady tracking shows you whether it is working.

How Onxeera helps

Onxeera’s Prompt Research tool asks your prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude through their official APIs with web search on. It stores each answer, the brands mentioned, their order and the cited sources, and highlights gaps where competitors are named and you are not. A mention rate appears only after 3 answers, and paid plans track prompts automatically. You can start on the free plan.

Frequently asked questions

Is AI prompt research the same as keyword research?

Not quite. Keyword research looks at short search terms and volumes. AI prompt research looks at longer, conversational questions and checks what AI assistants actually answer, including which businesses they name and which sources they cite. Your keyword list is a useful starting point, but rewrite it as real questions.

Can I see how many people ask a prompt in ChatGPT?

No AI company publishes prompt volumes the way search engines share keyword data. That is why the best prompts come from your own customers: sales calls, reviews, FAQs and support tickets. Prioritise by intent and business value rather than by an estimated volume.

How often should I re-check my prompts?

Monthly is a reasonable minimum for most small businesses, and weekly suits competitive markets or active campaigns. Keep the wording the same each time and run each prompt more than once, because single answers vary.

Should I include my brand name in prompts?

Include a few brand prompts, such as 'What is [your business]?', to check whether AI describes you correctly. Most of your list should be unbranded, because those show whether you get recommended when someone does not already know you.