How AEO reports are made
Where does my AEO report come from, and why is there no Generate button?
You don't generate an AEO report — Synup does. Every active location is refreshed automatically on the 1st of each month, and a location that has never been measured is queued the first time someone opens its AEO page. There is no Generate or Refresh button anywhere in the product, and that is deliberate.
What "generating" actually does
Behind that one word, Synup puts a set of discovery questions to each answer engine you have configured and reads what comes back.
Synup writes the questions
A short list of natural discovery questions for your category and city — "best auto repair shop in Balmorhea", "where should I go for a bed & breakfast in Fairbanks". Your business name never appears in them; the whole point is to see whether the assistant volunteers you.
Each engine answers, one question at a time
ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity each answer every question independently. Synup keeps the answer text and any sources the engine cited.
Synup scores what came back
Each answer is scored on whether you were named and how near the top. Those scores become the grid, the score, the competitor table and the citation list.
This takes a few minutes and runs in the background. You can leave the page — the report is written whether you wait or not.
Reading the status line
The line beside the page title tells you exactly where the report stands.
| What it says | What it means |
|---|---|
Updated 16d ago · auto-refreshes 1 Sept | A finished report, with the date the next one lands |
Generating… | A run is in flight right now |
Refreshes automatically | No report yet, and none queued |
While a refresh is running you'll also see a blue banner confirming the numbers will update on their own. Nothing is lost if you navigate away.
Opening a new location starts a real, billable run
This is the part worth knowing before you go exploring. Landing on the AEO page for a location that has never been measured queues a generation immediately — no button, no confirmation. Each answer engine query is metered, so a location you opened out of curiosity is a location you have paid to measure.
Browsing a client's locations one by one through the AEO tab will start a paid run for every unmeasured location you land on. If you only want to see who already has data, use the all-locations roll-up, where locations without a report are shown as Awaiting first report and opening nothing.
That behaviour also explains an empty-looking page: No AI visibility yet with "A report is generated automatically for this location — it'll appear here shortly" means the queue has your location and the answer is minutes away.
Why last month's numbers don't move
Reports are monthly snapshots. Once a location has a report for the current month, it is skipped until the next monthly run — so a listing you fixed on the 3rd will not show up in AEO until the 1st of the following month.
That lag is normal and it is worth setting expectations around it internally. Nothing you change in Listings, Reviews or Posts will move an AEO number the same day.
Questions people ask
Can I force a refresh after fixing something?
Not from the product. There is no manual trigger, by design — a regeneration re-queries every engine across every prompt and costs real money each time. Wait for the monthly run.
Why is one engine missing from my report?
Only engines with a configured API key are queried. An engine with no key is not scored and the report says so rather than showing a zero. A zero means the engine answered and did not name you; an absent engine means it was never asked.
Where to go next
- What does my AI Visibility score actually measure? — how the answers become a number
- How do I compare AI visibility across all my locations? — the safe way to see who has data