Best AI Search Visibility Tools in 2026: the buyer's shortlist
We asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews which AI search visibility tools to buy, 12 buyer questions a day for 7 days, and counted who they named. Semrush came first, named in 85.3% of 172 answers. Below are the 8 AI search visibility tools AI recommends most, with the price, platform coverage and rating of each.
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Key Takeaways
- Semrush is the AI search visibility tool AI recommends most, named in 85.3% of 172 answers across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. No other tool came within 20 points.
- Ahrefs, Peec AI and Otterly.AI form the next group, named in 52% to 60% of answers. The gaps between them sit inside what repeat runs move, so treat them as a tie.
- Starter prices run from $29 a month (Otterly.AI) to $295 a month (AthenaHQ), and Conductor and Profound sell only through sales. Prompt limits vary even more, from 5 on Ahrefs Lite to 100 a day on SE Ranking Core.
- Platform coverage is the biggest hidden difference. Semrush and Otterly.AI track 4 platforms on their entry plans, while AthenaHQ tracks 11 on Starter, so check that the tool watches the AI your buyers use.
- Every tool on this list measures whether AI names you, and none of them changes it. Closing the gap takes content, technical fixes and placements on the sites AI already cites.
What an AI search visibility tool actually is (and what it is not)
An AI search visibility tool asks AI platforms the questions your buyers ask, on a schedule, and records what comes back. It tells you whether your company was named, where in the answer it landed, which competitors were named beside you, and which web pages the answer cited. Run that daily across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and others, and you get a trend line for something that used to be invisible.
The category goes by several names. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) tools, generative engine optimization (GEO) tools, LLM visibility trackers and AI rank trackers all describe the same job. Some are standalone products built for it, like Peec AI, Otterly.AI, AthenaHQ and Profound. Others are a module inside an SEO suite you may already pay for, like Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking and Conductor.
A visibility tool is a measuring instrument. It does not change whether AI names you. That depends on what the web says about you, which pages AI can read and cite, and whether your site answers the questions buyers ask. A tool shows you the gap, and closing it is content, technical fixes and placements on the sites AI already trusts.
The measurement is also noisy. AI answers vary from one run to the next, so one day's reading on a handful of questions can swing 15 points. Judge any tool, including the ranking on this page, by how many answers sit behind each number.
How we get B2B companies recommended by AI.
How We Ranked These AI Search Visibility Tools
This list starts with a measurement rather than an opinion. We run a fixed set of buyer questions through five AI platforms every day and record which companies each answer names, the same way these tools measure your brand.
- How often AI names it. The share of 172 AI answers that named the tool, from 12 buyer questions asked daily on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, October 8, 2026 to October 14, 2026. This sets the rank order.
- Starter price for AI tracking. The lowest published monthly price of a plan that includes AI visibility tracking, read on the vendor's pricing page.
- AI platforms covered. How many AI platforms the tool tracks, as the vendor lists them.
- G2 rating and review count. The product's rating on G2 and how many reviews it rests on. A suite's rating covers the whole product rather than its AI tool, so for the four suites we link to G2 instead of quoting it.
Gaps of under about 10 points sit inside what repeat runs move, so read close neighbors as a tie. We left out agencies and general marketing platforms that AI named in the same answers, since they are not visibility tools. Catalyst is an agency and is not ranked. The live board is at AI Search Visibility Platforms.
The Best AI Search Visibility Tools in 2026
Here are the 8 tools AI recommends most, in the order it names them. The share beside each name is our measurement, and the rest comes from the vendor and G2 on October 14, 2026. Every one of them answers the core question of whether AI names you. They differ on price, depth, and which platforms they watch.
1. Semrush, best for teams already running SEO in Semrush
Semrush is the tool AI names most often when buyers ask which AI search visibility tool to use, in 85.3% of the 172 answers we measured. That is a lead of about 25 points over the next tool, the widest gap on the board.
Its AI Visibility Toolkit is sold on its own at $99 a month per domain on the Base plan. That covers 25 custom prompts ranked daily, AI visibility reports for any domain, competitor and prompt research, and a site audit for AI readiness. It tracks mentions in ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, and Semrush says its Enterprise tier covers more models.
The case for Semrush is that the AI data sits next to the keyword, backlink and traffic data most SEO teams already use, so one login answers both the Google question and the AI question. Semrush is now part of Adobe, which completed the acquisition in April 2026, and the company cites 28 million users.
The limit on the Base plan is 25 prompts on one domain. That is enough to watch a core set of buyer questions, and thin for a company selling into several categories.
SEO and content teams that already live in Semrush and want AI visibility in the same dashboard. A company tracking several product lines will outgrow 25 prompts quickly.
2. Ahrefs, best for researching how AI talks about a brand at scale
AI named Ahrefs in 60.4% of the answers we measured, second on the board. Its AI visibility product is Brand Radar, built on a database Ahrefs puts at more than 475 million prompts, and Ahrefs says more than 3,000 companies use it.
Where most tools only track the prompts you enter, Brand Radar also lets you search how AI platforms describe a brand across that prompt index. That makes it strong for research, such as finding the questions where a competitor is named and you are not.
Pricing has several layers. The Lite suite plan at $129 a month includes 5 tracked prompts checked daily. Custom prompt packages start at $50 a month for 2,500 checks, roughly 80 prompts a day on one platform, and the full Brand Radar AI index starts at $199 a month. Annual billing saves up to 17%. Ahrefs lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Copilot, with Claude on the all-platforms tier, though its pricing page and its Brand Radar page do not list exactly the same set.
SEO teams already on Ahrefs, and anyone who wants to research AI answers across a huge prompt set rather than only track their own list. Budget for the prompt packages, since the base plan tracks only 5.
3. Peec AI, best for a dedicated tool at a mid-market price
Peec AI is the standalone tool AI names most, in 57.8% of the answers we measured, inside the margin of Ahrefs above it. The Berlin company was founded in 2025, raised a $21 million Series A in November 2025, and says more than 3,500 brands and agencies use it.
The Starter plan is $95 a month and tracks 50 prompts. On Starter, Pro and Advanced you pick 3 platforms from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI, and each extra model costs $30 a month on annual billing. Enterprise reaches 13 platforms, adding Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, Perplexity and others. Check the platform list before you buy, because on the plan table Perplexity sits with Enterprise and the add-ons.
Peec is built only for this job, so the reports go further into prompts, sources and competitors than a module inside an SEO suite usually does. Its G2 rating is 4.7, on 21 reviews.
SEO and content managers who want a dedicated AI visibility tool without an enterprise contract. Teams that need many platforms from day one should price the add-ons first.
4. Otterly.AI, best for small teams on a tight budget
Otterly.AI is the lowest priced tool on this list and AI names it often, in 52.1% of the answers we measured. Gartner named it a 2025 Cool Vendor in AI in Marketing, and it lists Roche, Avis Budget Group and AUTO1 among its customers.
The Lite plan costs $29 a month, or about $25 a month billed annually, and tracks 15 prompts. Every plan includes ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. AI Mode and Gemini are $9 a month each on Lite and Claude is $29, with the add-ons priced higher on bigger plans.
Fifteen prompts is a small sample, so treat Otterly on Lite as a way to watch your most important buyer questions rather than a full picture of your category. Its G2 rating is 4.7, on 54 reviews.
Solo marketers and small teams that want to start tracking AI visibility this week. Add Gemini and Claude as soon as those platforms matter to your buyers.
5. Conductor, best for enterprise SEO programs
AI named Conductor in 30.3% of the answers we measured. It is an enterprise SEO platform based in New York that has added AI search tracking, and it names Verizon, Microsoft, American Express, Adidas and PayPal as customers.
Conductor tracks 9 AI platforms, the widest coverage among the suites here, including ChatGPT in both its standard and search modes, Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Copilot and Perplexity. It does not publish prices. There is a free Essentials tier, and the Growth and Enterprise plans are sold through a demo.
Usage runs on credits, and a response costs between 0.1 and 2.0 credits depending on the platform, so its cost per prompt cannot be compared directly with a flat plan.
Large companies with an established SEO program that want AI visibility inside the platform their team already reports from. Smaller teams will find the sales process heavy for what they need.
6. SE Ranking, best for SEO and AI tracking in one mid-priced plan
SE Ranking sits level with Conductor, named in 30.2% of the answers we measured. It is an SEO suite that now includes AI visibility tracking in its main plans and also runs a standalone AI visibility product called SE Visible.
The Core plan is $129 a month, or $103.20 billed annually, and includes AI tracking across 5 platforms for 100 prompts daily. A separate AI Search add-on costs $89 a month and covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity and ChatGPT for 200 prompts. SE Ranking does not name the 5 platforms on Core, so ask before you buy.
For a team that needs rank tracking, audits and AI visibility together, it is one of the cheapest ways to get all three.
Marketing teams and agencies that run SEO and AI visibility reporting together and want both in one mid-priced plan. Confirm which AI platforms Core covers before you commit.
7. AthenaHQ, best for the widest AI platform coverage on a self-serve plan
AI named AthenaHQ in 28.1% of the answers we measured. The San Francisco company came out of Y Combinator and builds only for AI search.
Its Starter plan is $295 a month, with 17% off for annual billing, and it covers 11 AI platforms. That list includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, which is the broadest coverage on a published self-serve plan here. Usage runs on credits, 3,600 a month on Starter, where one credit is one AI response. A free Essential tier covers 5 platforms.
Its G2 rating is 4.9, the highest on this list, on 39 reviews.
Marketing teams and agencies whose buyers use more than the big four AI platforms. Teams that only care about ChatGPT and Google can start cheaper.
8. Profound, best for large brands running AI search at scale
AI named Profound in 22.6% of the answers we measured. The New York company builds for large brands and lists Ramp, DocuSign and Figma among its customers.
Profound no longer publishes a self-serve price. The page offers a free trial of 50 prompts for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, and an Enterprise plan sold through its team that covers up to 9 platforms, including Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude and Exa Search. Agencies can add client workspaces at $399 a month each. Older comparisons that quote a $99 or $499 Profound plan are out of date.
Its G2 rating is 4.5 on more than 1,100 reviews, the largest review base among the dedicated AI visibility tools here.
Enterprise marketing teams with a dedicated AI search program and the budget for a sales-led contract. Smaller teams can use the trial to see the data before talking to sales.
Side-by-Side Comparison
The same four criteria as the ranking. The rank comes from our measurement, and the other three columns are what you are buying.
| # | Tool | Named in AI answers | Starter price for AI tracking | AI platforms covered | G2 rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Semrush | 85.3% | $99/mo per domain (AI Visibility Toolkit, Base) | 4 (ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity) | Suite rated on G2 |
| 2 | Ahrefs | 60.4% | From $129/mo (Lite, 5 tracked prompts) or a $50/mo prompt package | Up to 7 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Claude) | Suite rated on G2 |
| 3 | Peec AI | 57.8% | $95/mo (Starter, 50 prompts) | 3 of 6 on Starter, up to 13 on Enterprise | 4.7 (21 reviews) |
| 4 | Otterly.AI | 52.1% | $29/mo (Lite, 15 prompts) | 4 included (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot), 3 more as add-ons | 4.7 (54 reviews) |
| 5 | Conductor | 30.3% | Not published (free Essentials tier, then sales) | 9 (ChatGPT standard and search, Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Copilot, Perplexity) | Platform rated on G2 |
| 6 | SE Ranking | 30.2% | $129/mo (Core, AI tracking included), or a $89/mo add-on | 5 on Core, 4 named on the AI Search add-on | Suite rated on G2 |
| 7 | AthenaHQ | 28.1% | $295/mo (Starter), free tier available | 11 on Starter | 4.9 (39 reviews) |
| 8 | Profound | 22.6% | Sales only (free 7-day trial) | 3 on the trial, up to 9 on Enterprise | 4.5 (1,137 reviews) |
Which AI search visibility tool fits your use case
Match the tool to the team that will use it.
| Use case | Team | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Add AI tracking to an existing SEO stack | SEO team on Semrush or Ahrefs | Semrush or Ahrefs |
| Start tracking this week on a small budget | Solo marketer or startup | Otterly.AI |
| Dedicated AI visibility tool, mid-market | Content or SEO manager | Peec AI |
| Buyers use many AI platforms | Marketing team or agency | AthenaHQ |
| SEO and AI reporting in one plan | Agency or in-house generalist | SE Ranking |
| Enterprise program with a sales-led contract | Large brand, Fortune 500 | Profound or Conductor |
What results look like
A tool shows you where you stand. These are results from the work that moves the number, measured in each client's own Google Search Console. See every case study.
