The Fathom This Discovery Matrix™
A Research Framework for Measuring AI Search Visibility in Higher Education
The Fathom This Discovery Matrix™ is a structured research method for measuring how colleges and universities show up inside AI-generated answers, where discovery increasingly happens without a click. Instead of focusing on rankings alone, it evaluates whether an institution appears in the conversation at all, which programs and questions trigger visibility, how often peers are recommended instead, and which website pages AI systems treat as authoritative sources. The result is a defensible, repeatable way to turn “Are we visible in AI?” into measurable benchmarks—and a clear roadmap for content and technical improvements that increase AI-driven discovery.
The Four Dimensions of the Discovery Matrix
AI Visibility
Measures how often an institution appears at least once when AI systems answer common student questions.
Answers a simple, important question: Is your institution part of the conversation?
Program Discovery Coverage
Evaluates AI visibility at the academic program level using a standardized set of high-intent student questions.
Because students typically search by academic interest first, this reveals:
- which programs are consistently recognized
- which programs are underrepresented
Competitive Presence
Measures how often an institution appears at least once when AI systems answer common student questions.
This shows:
- whether the institution is visible outside its own branding
- how often it is implicitly suggested alongside peers
- where competitive positioning is strong or weak
Authority Alignment
Measures whether the pages AI systems should use are the same pages AI systems actually use.
Two signals we compare:
- Semantic match: which pages most closely align with the answer
- Observed citations: which pages Google AI Overviews actually reference
See where your college or university shows up in AI answers.