Mentions and citations are both signals AI visibility tools track, but they answer different questions. A mention tells you the model knows your brand exists in this context. A citation tells you which page taught the model. Tools that distinguish the two cleanly let teams diagnose whether the issue is awareness (no mentions) or attribution (mentions but no citations to your domain).
AI visibility glossary
Mention
A mention is any textual reference to a brand inside an AI-generated answer, regardless of whether it is accompanied by a source link.