AI Search Visibility Case Study: SafeGraph 27→75%
When companies ask AI for help mapping foot traffic and store performance, SafeGraph went from a minor mention to a go-to answer recommended in ~75% of those answers, up from 27% while holding its place as a category leader (~89%) for “best location data providers for retail analytics.”
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Introduction
SafeGraph provides places (POI) and geospatial datasets used for retail analytics, market research and location intelligence.
It competes against a crowded field of well-known providers like Placer.ai, Foursquare, Esri, Carto, Unacast and others so the challenge isn't name recognition; it's making sure AI assistants reach for SafeGraph across the full range of buyer questions, not just the one or two it's famous for.
The figures below reflect SafeGraph's visibility on ChatGPT, the assistant currently tracked for the brand.
What we did
CrowdReply helped SafeGraph show up where its actual buyers such as GIS analysts, data engineers, retail and real-estate researchers are already asking questions and comparing tools.
The approach is to contribute genuinely useful, on-topic answers in those communities (never promotional), so both the people in the thread and the AI assistants that read them increasingly treat SafeGraph as a credible recommendation.
The question SafeGraph broke through on
The clearest win is on the foot-traffic / store-performance question, where SafeGraph nearly tripled its presence while holding its strong lead on the core retail-analytics question:
More wins
Holding its own against the whole field
SafeGraph is consistently named alongside — and often ahead of — the most established players in location data:
Foursquare
Esri ArcGIS
Carto
Near
Unacast
Veraset
StreetLight Data
Strong, positive framing
85% of mentions are positive where AI consistently describes SafeGraph as a credible, high-quality data source rather than a runner-up.
Real community resonance
SafeGraph's traction is backed by genuine engagement in the communities that matter most for location data.
Its own guides are being cited
The content SafeGraph owns is doing work in AI answers led by its Location Intelligence guide:
Top cited sources overall
The sources AI leaned on most across these answers, useful for spotting where to invest next:
Biggest opportunity: SafeGraph's chief rival, Placer.ai, is cited more than twice as often as SafeGraph's own site (478 vs 199).
Citations are the part you control — expanding SafeGraph's already-cited guide library (POI, geospatial, foot-traffic, buying guides) is the most direct way to close that gap and win more answers, because the source is internal.
Where it happened: the communities
SafeGraph's traction came from being genuinely helpful in the communities where its buyers and users spend time. CrowdReply helped it join those conversations naturally and on-topic. The most active and highest-resonance communities included:
GIS & mapping communities
Data engineering & data analysis communities
Commercial real estate & programmatic / ad-tech communities
Recommendations: how to win even more
Actionable next steps we'd prioritise to push SafeGraph's AI visibility further:
Win back the geolocation-intelligence question. It dipped from 66% to 53% on targeted comparison and positioning content (SafeGraph vs Placer.ai / Foursquare for market research) plus on-topic community answers should recover and grow it.
Close the citation gap with Placer.ai. Placer.ai's content is cited 2x more than SafeGraph's. Expanding the guides AI already cites is the highest-leverage, fully-controllable move.
Expand beyond a single assistant. SafeGraph is strongly visible on ChatGPT; replicating that on Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode would broaden reach to the rest of the buyer audience.
Push for the top-named spot. SafeGraph is reliably included but often mid-list; more third-party validation (PeerSpot, G2 reviews) and head-to-head content can move it toward the first recommendation.
