What belongs in a content brief for an AI answer?
Broadcastwell measures and fixes whether AI search engines name B2B software companies.
Run the free checkA content brief for an AI answer covers one buyer question: its exact wording, what five engines answer today with counts and bases, who they name instead, the page to build, the facts it must state and who approves them, and when the same question will be checked again. Our free content brief template has 18 fields and comes as Markdown and CSV.
Updated 11 November 2026.
We write one brief per question because a page that tries to answer several questions answers none of them well. The engines are ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode; the brief records which of them named you and on what base.
Download the template
| File | Format |
|---|---|
| Content brief template | Markdown |
| Content brief template | CSV |
| Filled fictional Kalvenor example (Sample data, fictional company) | Markdown |
| Filled fictional Kalvenor example | CSV |
Both formats carry the same fields in the same order, so a brief can move between a document and a spreadsheet without losing a row. The template is free to copy and adapt under CC BY 4.0.
The fields and why each one is there
| Field | What to enter | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Brief date | The date the brief was agreed. | Ties the brief to the evidence it was written from. |
| Buyer question | The exact wording, frozen before capture. | A reworded question is a new measurement. |
| Category, in the buyer's words | How the buyer names the category. | The page should use the buyer's term, not yours. |
| Evidence today | Named count with its base, the engines and the capture dates. | The starting point for the re-check. |
| Named instead | Rivals named in the same answers, each with its count and base. | Shows what the page has to answer for. |
| Sources the answers cite | Pages the engines cited for this question. | An outside page may matter more than your own. |
| Page to build or change | The URL on your own site, or the outside page to correct. | One target per brief. |
| Answer in the first 60 words | The direct answer the page opens with. | Readers and engines meet the answer first. |
| Facts the page must state | Each fact with its source and its approver. | Nothing goes live unchecked. |
| Claims the page must not make | Anything the approved facts do not support. | Keeps the page within its evidence. |
| Sources to cite on the page | Public sources a reader can check. | Lets a reader verify each fact. |
| Internal links | Pages that link to this one, and pages it links to. | A page nobody links to is hard to find. |
| Structured data | The schema.org types the page carries. | Declares what the page is. |
| Owner | The person who writes the page. | One name, not a team. |
| Approver | The person who checks every fact before publication. | Separate from the owner. |
| Due date | The date the page goes live. | Starts the clock for the re-check. |
| Re-check | The same question, engines and method version, and the date. | The only fair comparison with the evidence today. |
| Outside source action | A correction or listing request to a page the engines cite. | Some answers change only when a cited page does. |
A filled example: fictional Kalvenor sample
Fictional sample. Kalvenor Systems is a fictional field service software company. The counts below come from our published fictional findings sample, captured 8 to 12 July 2026; the page plan is illustrative. No client is represented.
| Field | Value (fictional sample) |
|---|---|
| Brief date | 13 July 2026, the day the fictional findings were delivered |
| Buyer question | How does field service management software differ from general work order software? |
| Evidence today | Kalvenor Systems named in 0 of 15 valid answers across the five engines, captured 8 to 12 July 2026 |
| Named instead | Northvale FSM 11 of 15; Asterforge 9 of 15; Cindermark 9 of 15 |
| Sources the answers cite | hvacoperations.example |
| Page to build or change | A new page at kalvenor.example/resources/fsm-vs-work-orders |
| Facts the page must state | Offline mobile work, sourced to kalvenor.example/platform/mobile-offline and approved by the product marketing lead |
| Claims the page must not make | No ranking claim, no customer result, no feature without an approved source page |
| Owner and approver | Content lead (sample); product marketing lead (sample) |
| Re-check | The same question on the same five engines, three runs each, at the next scheduled check |
| Outside source action | Ask hvacoperations.example to list Kalvenor Systems on the page it cites for this question, with a current description |
The downloads hold all 18 fields filled for this fictional example.
How the brief connects to the rest of the work
A brief is the unit of work in Answer Repair, $490 once, and each of the six pages in a Fix Sprint, $3,900 ($3,410 after the $490 credit), starts from one. Our content strategy template groups briefs into a plan for a whole category. The stages a brief passes through are set out in our operating framework, and our guide to choosing buyer questions helps with the first field.
Sources
- Broadcastwell, fictional Kalvenor findings sample, captured 8 to 12 July 2026 (read 9 November 2026).
- Broadcastwell, Methodology, method v1.1, on frozen question wording and bases (read 9 November 2026).
Related: the RFP guide and the completed-case format.