Consumer Voice Snapshot
People talk. AI answers. Duke wanted to benchmark both.
Duke University wanted to understand how its brand and key academic and research topics were perceived across the marketplace, and how emerging AI answer engines were representing the university. A Consumer Voice (CV) Snapshot benchmarked Duke against eleven leading universities across both human conversation and AI-generated answers.
A measurable baseline for tracking how Duke is perceived by both people and AI answer engines.
One benchmark across people and AI.
Duke University wanted to better understand how its overall brand and key academic and research topics were being discussed and perceived across the marketplace. Beyond traditional conversational intelligence, Duke also wanted to understand how the university was being represented by emerging AI answer engines and how its visibility compared with other leading universities. The challenge was to establish a clear, competitive benchmark across both human conversation and AI-generated answers.
Twelve schools. Five KPIs. Four answer engines.
We developed a Consumer Voice (CV) Snapshot that combined conversational data analysis with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) visibility analysis. The study benchmarked Duke against leading universities across a competitive set of twelve (12) schools, measuring five primary conversational KPIs: volume of mentions, reach amplification, positive sentiment, negative sentiment and overall reputation. We also analyzed Duke’s visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, examining how frequently Duke appeared in AI-generated answers, the sources being cited and its visibility relative to competing universities.
Volume of Mentions
How loud the conversation is: raw share of voice.
Reach Amplification
How far it travels: the audience those mentions reach.
Positive Reactions
What's working in each school's favor.
Negative Reactions
The risks and friction to get ahead of.
Overall Reputation
The four KPIs wrapped in one benchmarked score, plus AEO visibility.
#1 with people. #1 with AI.
The analysis provided Duke with a benchmarked view of its competitive position across both conversational data and AI-generated answers. Duke ranked #1 overall for brand presence within its competitive set, supported by strong reach amplification, lower negative sentiment and a high overall reputation score. Duke also ranked #1 in overall AEO visibility, achieving 30% AI visibility and a 33% competitive share while revealing specific opportunities to strengthen its authority and citations across priority academic and research topics.
The findings established a measurable baseline Duke can use to track how its brand is perceived by both people and AI answer engines and to guide future communications, content and visibility strategies.
“Metric Centric helps us to become more informed about top issues regarding our university before we make any decisions on how and where to act.”
AVP of Marketing & Brand Strategy, Duke University