About Prompt Volumes

Overview

Prompt Volumes give you direct access to Profound's dataset of real prompts submitted to AI answer engines by actual users. Use it to discover what questions people are actually asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity about topics relevant to your business, so you can validate your tracking strategy, understand user language, and prioritize content based on real signal.

The problem with traditional keyword research

When someone wants to find the best corporate credit card option, they used to Google "best corporate credit card." Now they ask their preferred AI chat: "What's the best corporate credit card for small teams?"

Traditional keyword research tools capture what people type into search bars, not how they hold conversations with AI. The language is different, the intent is different, and the questions are longer and more specific.

Without visibility into real AI prompting behavior, teams face three compounding problems:

• Misdirected tracking: monitoring prompts that reflect SEO assumptions, not actual user questions.

• Misaligned content: writing for search engines while users are talking to AI assistants.

• Missed opportunities: finding out about rising topics only after competitors have already moved on them.

The Profound solution

Prompt Volumes is a proprietary dataset built by aggregating, cleaning, and modeling real conversations between users and AI answer engines. It transforms raw AI conversation data into structured, searchable insights about what your market is actually asking, so you can:

• Validate whether the topics you're tracking reflect real user demand

• Discover the exact phrasing people use when asking about your category

• Understand user intent across informational, commercial, generative, and conversational queries

• Identify which demographics and regions are driving specific queries

• Prioritize content and tracking strategy on signal, not assumption

How Prompt Volumes work

Prompt Volumes is a dataset built by licensing AI answer engine conversations, cleaning the data, applying probabilistic modeling, and visualizing the results as intuitive charts and tables your team can act on.

Data sources: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.

Key features

Keyword search and Bulk Analysis

Enter a short, broad keyword to query the dataset and see how often that topic appears across real AI conversations. You can also compare multiple keywords at once using Bulk Analysis, which ranks topics by volume and helps you prioritize what to track before you invest in it.

Keywords can be searched using phrase match (any word order) or exact match (specific word order). Start broad and use the results to narrow down into more specific language.

Volume and trend visualization

The Overview tab shows how prompt volume for your keyword changes over time, alongside the actual prompts users submitted and a list of related terms worth exploring. Use it to spot rising topics and understand the specific language your audience is using.

Intent analysis

The Intent tab breaks down why people are asking about a topic, classifying prompts into informational, commercial, generative, and conversational categories. This helps you match content to where users are in their journey.

Demographics

The Demographics tab shows who is asking about your keywords, broken down by region, age, and income. Note that coverage is strongest in the US, UK, and select European markets. 

Keyword lists

Organize related keywords into named lists to track topic clusters over time and keep your research organized by project or audience segment.

Relevant prompts sample

Discover a sample of real user prompts that caused an AI answer engine to cite a specific page on your (or a competitor's) domain in its response. Compare your citations with competitors and explore which exact URLs on your site are being cited and for what kinds of questions.

Prompt Research Reports

Prompt Research Reports provide data-driven gap analysis, comparing what real users are asking AI engines against what you're currently tracking in Answer Engine Insights. Use them to get a data-backed starting point, surface what you may be missing, or understand where your customers are in their purchasing journey.

Historical data

Prompt Volumes historical data availability depends on your region and model. For the US, data goes back to January 2025. For all other regions Profound currently tracks, it's available from July 2025. The same applies to platforms: ChatGPT data is available from January 2025, and all other platforms from July 2025.

This means you can query any keyword (even one you just added) and view historical volume trends from January or July 2025 onward.