The metric
AI Density
When an AI answer does list its sources, it may name two or it may name fifteen. AI Density is that count, engine by engine, and it says how much room there is inside the answer.
Definition
AI Density is the number of distinct sources an answer carries, counted only over the answers that name at least one. It is measured per engine, over a stated set of questions and a stated period, and a source cited through three pages of the same site counts once.
How the number is built
An average over a deliberately narrow denominator. That choice is the design: it is what keeps AI Density from repeating what AI Coverage already says.
- Only sourced answers are in the denominator
- Dividing by every answer would fold AI Coverage back into AI Density, and the two numbers would then carry the same information twice. Over sourced answers only, one measures how often and the other how many, and neither contains the other.
- The unit is the site, not the page
- A source cited through three pages of the same site counts once. The number of links an engine prints per source describes how it formats citations, not the places it went.
- Only the sources the engine credits
- A page the engine cites in its answer counts. A page it read without crediting does not, because engines differ in whether they expose those at all, and counting them would make one of them incomparable to the rest.
What it tells you
AI Density is a measure of room. It says how many names go through the door once it opens, and therefore how crowded the list you are trying to enter is.
Read it as competition
An engine naming thirteen sources leaves space for a long list. An engine naming four keeps a short one, where the same appearance is harder to win and worth correspondingly more.
Do not read it alone
A high AI Density on an engine that rarely cites at all is a wide door that seldom opens. Read it next to AI Coverage, and read their product when you want a single comparable figure.
Watch it move
Engines change how much they list. Epovest records the figure on every survey, so it is a curve rather than a single reading, and a change is attributable to the engine that produced it.
AI Density says how many. AI Coverage says whether.
On its own, AI Density describes only the answers that already cite, and says nothing about how often that happens. An engine may name fifteen sources in the one answer out of two where it cites anyone at all. Read the two together, and their product gives the average number of distinct sources an answer carries.
Common questions
What is AI Density?
AI Density is the number of distinct sources an answer carries, counted only over the answers that name at least one. It is measured per engine, over a stated set of questions and a stated period. A source cited through three pages of the same site counts once, because the unit is the site and not the page.
Why is AI Density counted only over answers that cite?
Because dividing by every answer would put AI Coverage back inside it. The two figures would then carry the same information twice, and neither could be read on its own. Counted over sourced answers only, AI Coverage measures how often an engine cites and AI Density measures how many it names, and the two vary independently.
How does AI Density differ from AI Coverage?
AI Density says how many distinct sources an answer names when it names any; AI Coverage says how often that happens at all. Multiplying them gives the average number of distinct sources an answer carries, and that product is the figure to compare across engines: two engines can reach the same product by opposite routes.
How does AI Density differ from AI Authority?
They describe different objects. AI Authority is a property of a SOURCE: it says how much a given engine leans on a given site, on a scale where 100 is the site that engine cites most. AI Density is a property of the ANSWER: it says how many sources fit inside one. One tells you which source to work on, the other how many places there are on the list.
Does AI Density depend on the questions being asked?
Its level does, so it is always read over a stated set of questions and a stated period, and Epovest reports it per engine on the questions you actually track. What it isolates is the engine: every engine in a survey sees the same questions on the same day, so a difference between engines is a difference between engines.
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