Prompt Research
Prompt research is finding the questions people ask AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode about what you sell, and which brands the answers name. Semrush, which sells a prompt research tool, calls it keyword research for the AI era. Its tool groups prompts into topics and shows an estimated monthly volume for each topic.
Source: Semrush Knowledge Base, Prompt Research Report, checked October 29, 2026
What Prompt Research means for your business
Semrush says single prompts are too specific to count, so it estimates demand by topic, combining outside data on real AI use with its own machine learning models. Its prompts come from AI search clickstream data and Google's keyword data for AI Overviews. We'd use numbers like these to see which topics are busy, and not as a count of people asking.
We'd write each buyer question out in full, the way someone would type it into a chat, with the extra details people add, like a budget or a deadline. A tool can then point out topics you missed.
Prompt research picks the questions. Asking the same ones again on a schedule shows how the answers change, and that fixed list is what we call a question set.
If you're not sure which AI questions are worth watching for your business, how we check AI answers each month explains how we track them.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview gave two meanings, the marketing one and writing better prompts for academic work, citing agency blogs, LinkedIn, an AI tracking vendor, Semrush's blog and YouTube. ChatGPT gave only the second meaning, about improving your own prompts, with no sources.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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