Free tools / AI Query Fan-Out
See what AI searched before it answered
Before answering, AI assistants run their own web searches. Type a buyer question and see the real searches it ran, and the sites it cited. Not a simulation.
By Raphaël Aubry, founder of Howseen AI · Updated
Free, no signup. Your result shows right here.
How it works
The tool finds the closest buyer question Howseen has already measured on ChatGPT and shows the web searches ChatGPT actually ran to answer it, plus the sites it cited. With no close question, it asks Gemini live with Google Search on. The question it answers from is always shown. Nothing is simulated or guessed.
“OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT’s search features.”
OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers
Type a buyer question
The way your customer would ask it.
We match a real AI answer
The closest question already measured on ChatGPT, with the searches it ran.
Target the searches
The queries and the cited sites are where your brand needs to appear.
FAQ
Short answers to the questions people ask most before they run the ai query fan-out, based on what the tool actually checks.
What is query fan-out?+
When an AI assistant answers with web search, it splits the question into several searches (brand comparisons, pricing, official pages) and reads the results. Those searches are the fan-out.
Is this real or simulated?+
Real. The searches come from a real ChatGPT answer recorded on the closest buyer question Howseen already measured (shown with the results), or from a live Gemini answer with Google Search on. Other AI engines can run different searches for the same question.
How do I use the results?+
Each search is a page you need to rank for or be mentioned on. The cited sites show which publishers already shape the answer in your category.
Why do the searches change?+
AI answers are not fixed: the searches and sources can change from one run to the next. Tracking them over time shows which ones keep coming back.
Go further: Why AI recommends your competitors, not you
More free tools
Each free tool answers one question about how AI assistants see your brand. Together they cover visibility, crawling, llms.txt, searches and schema.
Sources
The official documentation this tool follows, from the companies that run the AI crawlers and the standards it checks against.
