Best Apps for Competitor Analysis in AI Search Optimization to See LLM Visibility of Your Brand

Best Apps for Competitor Analysis in AI Search Optimization to See LLM Visibility of Your Brand

Robert Goldenowl

Robert Goldenowl

In the age of generative AI search, brands can be promoted (or overlooked) before a user ever clicks a link. Large language model platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s new AI-powered search results are quickly becoming the first place people turn when researching brands, products, and services. However, most companies have no idea how they’re showing up in these AI-driven answers – a huge blind spot, given that AI-generated responses shape what people believe about your brand before they ever hit your site. ChatGPT alone had over 400 million weekly active users by early 2025, and Google’s AI-generated overviews now appear in nearly half of all searches. At Backlinko, for example, LLM-driven traffic jumped 800% year-over-year, signaling just how rapidly AI answers are influencing web traffic and perception. In short, LLM visibility – how often and how favorably your brand appears in AI-generated search results – has become a critical new front in SEO.

To succeed, SEO specialists and digital marketers need to track their brand’s presence in AI search and compare it against competitors. If your competitors are being recommended by AI assistants while your brand is absent, you risk losing mindshare and clicks. This article will equip you with a solid understanding of why AI search competitor analysis matters and highlight the 10 best tools (with Profound at #1, SE Ranking #2, and Semrush #3) to monitor and improve your brand’s visibility in LLM-driven search results. Each tool is assessed with an eye toward E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) – ensuring you can confidently use these platforms to inform your strategy. Let’s dive in.

Why Competitor Analysis in AI Search Matters

AI-powered search is changing the rules of the game for SEO. LLMs decide which brands to mention based on factors like entity authority – how often a brand appears in trusted sources, the sentiment/context of those mentions, and relevance to the topic. In practice, that means if your competitor’s name keeps popping up in authoritative articles, forums, and databases that AI models train on, the AI is more likely to include them in answers. Meanwhile, a brand with scant online mentions (or negative sentiment) might not get referenced at all. For example, Google’s generative search might answer a query with a synthesized blurb that says “According to Competitor X…” and pulls info from their content. If your brand never gets a nod like that, you’re effectively invisible in the LLM space.

Why is this so important? AI answers are increasingly prominent, and users often trust these answers without ever clicking through to a website. So if a competitor is repeatedly featured by AI assistants while your brand isn’t, they gain significant mindshare with potential customers before you even have a chance to engage them. Early movers are already building authority in AI-generated results – a momentum that can snowball, as AI systems continue citing the same “known” brands unless others overtake their authority. No wonder experts are now talking about “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)” – focusing on tactics to boost brand visibility in AI-driven answers.

Many AI visibility tools now provide dashboards for AI Share of Voice, showing what percentage of industry-related AI answers mention your brand versus competitors. In the sample above, one brand leads with ~68% share-of-voice across AI results, while others lag behind. Such insights help quantify your standing in the AI landscape and identify which rivals are outpacing you.

In essence, competitor analysis in AI search helps you own the narrative in your niche’s AI-driven answers. By monitoring how often and where your rivals show up in ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), and other LLMs, you can spot gaps and opportunities. These tools let you track share-of-voice metrics – what percentage of AI answers in your domain mention you vs. competitors – as well as the sentiment of those mentions. Without such monitoring, you won’t know if competitors are dominating AI results or if negative sentiment is affecting your brand’s mentions. Armed with this intelligence, you can adjust your SEO and content strategy to improve your presence in AI answers (for example, by creating content on topics where competitors’ content is fueling AI responses). The following sections outline what to look for in an AI visibility tool, then break down the 10 best platforms to help you track and optimize your brand’s LLM visibility.

Key Criteria for Choosing LLM Visibility Tools

Not all tools are created equal. When evaluating platforms for AI search competitor analysis, keep the following criteria in mind:

  1. Comprehensive AI Coverage: Look for tools that monitor all major AI answer engines – ChatGPT is table stakes, but top solutions also track Google’s AI Overviews and “AI Mode” (SGE), Bing Chat, Anthropic Claude, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and emerging models. Multi-engine coverage ensures you aren’t missing where a competitor might be slipping in.
  2. Scalability & Realistic Scraping: The tool should handle thousands of prompts and queries at scale, ideally by querying through the actual UI of these AI platforms (not just limited APIs) to capture full results including any lists, tables, or cited sources. This “real-world” approach catches nuances (like how an AI cites sources) that simplistic API checks might miss.
  3. Actionable Insights: Data is only useful if it leads to action. The best tools provide rich analytics such as breakdowns by model and topic, sentiment analysis of how AI describes your brand, and alerts for missed opportunities (e.g. queries where competitors appear but you don’t). They should highlight why a competitor is ahead – for instance, flagging which content pieces or features are earning them mentions – so you know where to focus your efforts.
  4. Fast-Paced Innovation: The AI search landscape is evolving monthly, so choose a provider that’s shipping new features and updates rapidly. A strong roadmap and responsive development team means the tool will keep up as LLMs change or new ones emerge. If the team seems stagnant, that tool may quickly become outdated in this fast-moving field.
  5. Global & Multilingual Support: If your brand operates internationally, ensure the tool can handle multiple languages and region-specific AI results. Some platforms support country-level or language-level tracking (since an AI’s answers can vary by locale). Global support lets you see competitor visibility in all your key markets.
  6. Enterprise-Ready Features: Consider privacy, support, and integration. Enterprise-grade tools offer things like API access for integrating with BI dashboards, robust customer support or onboarding, and compliance with data policies. Even if you’re not enterprise size, these qualities can indicate a higher level of trustworthiness and reliability. Also look at whether the tool provides user management if you have a team, and how it handles data (especially if scraping AI outputs, ensure it aligns with usage policies).

With these criteria in mind, let’s explore the 10 best apps for competitor analysis in AI search optimization. These tools will help you track your brand’s LLM visibility, benchmark against competitors, and discover opportunities to boost your presence in AI-generated results. (Note: The list is ordered with the most specialized AI-focused tools first. Profound, a leading AI visibility platform, takes the #1 spot, followed by SE Ranking’s new AI toolkit and the well-known Semrush in #3. The remaining tools (4–10) are other top platforms you should consider.)

1. Profound

Profound is an AI-native specialist platform built exclusively for tracking brand and competitor visibility in LLM outputs. Launched in 2024, Profound has gained buzz for its laser focus on AI search and rapid innovation (backed by a recent $20M funding round). It’s designed to give enterprise-level insights into how brands appear across AI answers – from ChatGPT and Google’s SGE to newer models. Profound provides a depth of data and features that traditional SEO tools don’t, making it a powerful addition to your toolkit if maximizing AI visibility is a priority.

  • Prompt-Level Tracking & Analysis: Profound lets you input a wide range of prompts/questions and see exactly how different phrasings surface your competitor versus you. It tracks results at the prompt level, so you can identify which queries you win and where rivals are getting mentioned more. This helps pinpoint specific topics or keyword niches where competitors have an edge in AI answers.
  • Platform-by-Platform Visibility: The tool breaks down your brand’s presence across each AI platform individually. You might discover, for instance, that a competitor dominates on Perplexity but not on Claude – revealing where you need to improve. Profound currently covers ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews, Microsoft/Bing’s AI, Perplexity, and more (with new engines like Gemini in beta).
  • In-Depth Citation Analysis: One standout feature is Profound’s ability to show which URLs and domains are being cited by LLMs when they mention you or your competitors. This reveals whose content the AI is relying on. For example, you might learn that a competitor’s blog post is frequently fueling ChatGPT’s answers on a key topic – intel you can use to create better content on your own site. Profound essentially shines a light on the content sources underpinning AI recommendations.
  • Share of Voice by Topic/Region: Profound tracks your Share of Voice (SOV) – the percentage of AI responses in your category that mention your brand – and lets you segment it by topic or region. You can see if, say, you have 30% SOV in “analytics tools” queries on ChatGPT but only 10% in that category on Bard. These granular insights help target your generative SEO (GEO) efforts. The platform also provides sentiment scores, so you know not just how often you’re mentioned, but in what tone (positive, neutral, negative).
  • LLM Crawl Logs & Alerts: A unique perk for the technically inclined – Profound offers real-time logs of AI “crawls” hitting your site. You can actually monitor when and how often ChatGPT or others are indexing your content. It also supports alerting, so you get notified when your or a competitor’s visibility shifts significantly (e.g. if a rival suddenly gains citations due to a viral event).
  • Rapid Innovation (But New Market Player): Profound is iterating quickly with new features and improvements – they are often first to support new AI models or capabilities. However, being a newer entrant, it doesn’t yet have the same breadth of historical data or long-term track record as older SEO platforms. It’s something to keep in mind – large enterprises may still supplement with traditional tools for legacy SEO metrics. Profound’s pricing starts around $499/month for a standard plan, reflecting its enterprise orientation.

Why Profound is #1: If your goal is to double down on AI search optimization, Profound offers the most specialized, cutting-edge toolkit for it right now. It was built from the ground up for Generative Engine Optimization, so it delivers comprehensive GEO metrics (Visibility Scores, LLM Citation Share, Competitive Presence%) that you won’t find in standard SEO suites. Large brands and agencies focused heavily on AI visibility will find Profound’s deep insights worth the investment. Just be aware that you’ll still need your usual SEO tools for traditional SERP tracking – Profound is a complement focusing on the new frontier of AI-driven search.

2. SE Ranking (AI Search Toolkit)

SE Ranking is a well-known all-in-one SEO platform, and it has recently introduced an AI Search Toolkit that brings competitor analysis into the LLM era. This AI Visibility Tracker is built into SE Ranking’s suite and is geared towards what many are calling “Generative Engine Optimization.” SE Ranking’s tool lets you track your brand’s presence across all the top answer engines – Google’s AI Results (SGE), Google’s “AI Mode”, ChatGPT, Perplexity (soon), and the upcoming Gemini – all in one place. It’s a convenient choice if you already use SE Ranking or want an integrated approach combining traditional SEO and AI visibility.

  • Multi-Engine AI Monitoring: SE Ranking’s tracker provides full visibility into how your brand (and competitors) appear in each major LLM platform. You can monitor results in Google’s AI overviews, ChatGPT’s answers, Bing’s AI chat (via “AI Mode”), Perplexity (soon), and more. The interface lets you switch between these engines to compare where you’re performing best. Having this centralized is a big time-saver for marketers.
  • Competitive Query Analysis: The tool is built with competitor analysis in mind. It will show you which queries trigger AI results where your competitors are mentioned but you aren’t. This directly flags content gaps – for example, if many AI answers for “best marketing automation tools” cite Competitor X and not you, that’s a prompt for you to create better content or optimize for that query. SE Ranking even breaks down which parts of an AI answer contain your content vs. a rival’s, and whether those answers included links back to the source.
  • Rival Domain Tracking: A particularly useful feature is the ability to input a competitor’s domain and monitor their visibility in AI search side-by-side with yours. In practice, you can select a competitor and see all the prompts where the AI mentions them, along with context like what was said and if your brand also appeared or not. This gives a clear “competitive visibility” dashboard. You can effectively run an AI search audit on a competitor to learn why the AI might favor them.
  • Historical Trends & Share-of-Voice: SE Ranking’s AI tracker logs data over time, providing historical charts of your AI visibility. You can track if a competitor’s presence is trending up or down in AI results month over month. It also quantifies share-of-voice, showing what percentage of monitored AI answers feature each brand (you vs. competitors). These trends help you measure the impact of your optimizations and PR efforts on AI over time.
  • Integrated with SEO Suite: Because it’s part of SE Ranking, the AI toolkit benefits from integration with your existing SEO data. For example, you can correlate if pages that rank well on Google also get cited in Google’s AI answers. The UI is user-friendly (true to SE Ranking’s style) and aims to provide actionable data without a steep learning curve. Users can quickly move from insight to strategy, using the familiar SE Ranking interface.
  • Track Mentions, Links & More: The feature set includes tracking of brand mentions and linked pages in AI results, so you can see not only if you’re mentioned but if the AI is actually linking to your site (valuable for traffic). You can analyze the sources and content that AI is referencing for each brand – essentially merging classic keyword rank tracking with AI citation tracking. And because SE Ranking covers traditional SEO too, you get a holistic view of your search visibility across both organic results and AI answers.

Why SE Ranking’s AI Toolkit is #2: SE Ranking’s solution is the up-and-comer in this space – it brings powerful competitor-focused features while remaining accessible to a broad range of users (including small teams). It’s ideal if you want to bridge traditional SEO competitor analysis with AI search tracking in one platform. The emphasis on “discover how you and your competitors appear in leading LLMs and turn those insights into strategy” is exactly what many marketers need. Plus, if you’re already using SE Ranking for rank tracking, adding AI visibility is a no-brainer. This toolkit helps ensure you’re not flying blind as search moves beyond just blue links. (And yes, SE Ranking offers a free trial of the AI features, so you can experiment with tracking a few keywords and competitors in AI mode to see the insights firsthand.)

3. Semrush (AI Optimization Tools)

Semrush is a heavyweight in the SEO world, and it’s brought that expertise into AI search with its Semrush AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization) platform and AI SEO Toolkit. Semrush’s offering is geared toward enterprise and advanced marketing teams, leveraging the company’s massive data infrastructure to provide robust AI visibility tracking. In fact, Semrush has extended its powerhouse SEO platform into AI search tracking so effectively that it’s often considered “the enterprise all-rounder” in this space. If you want a comprehensive solution that ties AI insights into your broader SEO strategy, Semrush is a top choice.

  • Unparalleled Scale & Data Depth: Semrush has spent over a decade building one of the most robust search visibility databases, and now they’re applying that to AI. It can scrape and analyze AI results at scale across multiple platforms thanks to its infrastructure. This means you get very comprehensive coverage – Semrush monitors ChatGPT, Google’s AI snapshots/SGE, Bing Chat, Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s various GPT modes, Perplexity, and more. It automates hundreds of relevant queries in your industry to capture where and how your brand appears.
  • Competitor Share-of-Voice Dashboards: Semrush AIO’s standout feature is its Competitor Rankings and Share-of-Voice dashboards. It clearly shows which domains dominate answers on each AI platform. For example, you might see that Competitor X gets cited in 20% of AI answers about “CRM software,” while you’re at 10%. Semrush lets you drill down into these numbers for each platform (maybe you lag on ChatGPT but fare better on Google’s AI) and even per specific query. This level of competitive intelligence is extremely actionable – you can identify precisely where a rival is beating you in AI presence and why.
  • Content & Source Analysis: Beyond percentages, Semrush will also reveal which specific content pieces or sources are being referenced by AI for each competitor. In one use case, users found that a competitor’s guide or tool comparison page was frequently cited by ChatGPT – highlighting content that needed to be countered. Semrush’s tools integrate with its content analysis features, so you can immediately audit your content versus that high-performing competitor piece. Essentially, Semrush ties AI visibility back to content marketing by showing what content drives those mentions.
  • Sentiment and Reputation Monitoring: Semrush doesn’t stop at whether you’re mentioned; it also tracks how AI describes you. It includes sentiment analysis across AI platforms, flagging if an AI assistant tends to speak positively or negatively about your brand. This is key for online reputation management – you might appear often, but if the tone is lukewarm or based on negative info, that’s a problem to fix. Semrush’s sentiment trends can alert you if, say, a new negative review or news piece is affecting how AIs talk about you.
  • Real-Time Updates & Alerts: With Semrush, you get frequent (often daily) updates on AI visibility metrics. It can send alerts if a competitor suddenly gains traction or if your share-of-voice drops, so you can react quickly. One benefit of Semrush’s enterprise focus is that it’s built for real-time monitoring at scale, which large teams need. They also offer an AI Visibility Score and trendline, showing your overall progress in AI search over time.
  • Integration with Broader SEO Suite: Since Semrush’s AI tools are part of its broader SEO and marketing platform, you can seamlessly integrate findings. For example, you can push a list of content gaps (queries where you lack presence) into your content strategy or use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to further expand on topics where AI mentions competitors. The AI SEO Toolkit (starting at $99/month per domain) is aimed at business leaders and marketing teams who need strategic insights and is more accessible for smaller teams, whereas the full Semrush Enterprise AIO is a custom-priced solution with all the bells and whistles for large organizations.

Why Semrush is #3: Semrush is a trusted name with extensive features and data reliability. It’s ranked just slightly behind the AI-specialists above because it’s a broader platform (and its enterprise tier comes at a premium cost), but in terms of capabilities it’s second to none. Think of Semrush as the “all-rounder” that does everything well: brand vs competitor tracking, sentiment, content recommendations, and integration with your whole SEO workflow. Large enterprises or agencies already using Semrush will find its AI modules a natural expansion. For others, if budget allows, Semrush provides an authoritative one-stop solution to ensure you benchmark your AI visibility against competitors and stay ahead in this new era of search.

4. Peec AI

Peec AI is one of the new players dedicated to LLM monitoring and brand visibility. Founded in 2025 and backed by a €5.2M seed round, Peec AI focuses on giving marketing teams a clear view of how their brand and competitors show up in AI-generated responses without unnecessary complexity. It’s a great mid-market solution if you need more than a basic tool but aren’t ready for enterprise-level software.

  • Dedicated AI Brand Monitoring: Peec AI tracks your brand mentions across multiple AI platforms, running frequent queries throughout the day. It specifically monitors platforms like ChatGPT, Google’s AI results (SGE), Perplexity, and (optionally) premium models like Claude or Google’s Gemini via add-ons. This ensures you catch shifts in visibility as they happen – e.g., if an AI model update suddenly starts mentioning a competitor more, Peec will likely catch that with its multiple checks per day approach.
  • Competitive Share-of-Voice: The platform provides straightforward competitor benchmarking. Peec’s dashboard will show how often your brand vs. key competitors appear for the set of prompts you’re tracking. In tests, this clarity was a highlight – for instance, when tracking various SaaS tool queries, Peec clearly showed which brands dominated certain question types and which barely appeared. Such visualization helps you immediately see “who’s winning” in AI answers for your space.
  • Sentiment Analysis: Peec AI includes basic sentiment analysis of how the AI describes each brand. You can see if the mentions are in a positive context (e.g., “Brand X is a top solution”) or more neutral/negative. Interestingly, some early users noticed that certain competitors had frequent mentions but not always positive tone – a nuance that pure mention count would miss. With Peec, you can identify if a rival is mentioned only to be critiqued by the AI, which is a different competitive dynamic than being praised.
  • Trends and History: The tool logs historical data, so you can observe trends in your AI visibility over time. Did your share-of-voice improve after a content push or PR campaign? Is a competitor steadily gaining mentions quarter over quarter? Peec’s trend charts help answer these. It’s like having a rank tracker, but for AI answer presence. Such history is vital given how quickly AI answers can evolve with new training data or algorithm tweaks.
  • Simple, Clear Reporting: One of Peec AI’s goals is to keep the interface clean and focused. You won’t find overly complex menus; instead, it offers easy-to-read dashboards showing key metrics (visibility %, sentiment, ranking of brands by mentions). It’s built for marketing teams who want dedicated AI monitoring without needing technical AI expertise. The clarity and focus means even non-SEO colleagues (like PR or product marketing teams) can understand the reports at a glance.
  • Cost-Effective for Mid-Size Teams: Pricing for Peec AI starts around €89/month for a starter plan (with options to scale up for more prompts or countries). This makes it accessible to mid-sized companies and agencies. You can choose add-ons for extra LLMs as needed. It’s a nice modular approach – you pay for what you need in terms of coverage.

Why consider Peec AI: If you’re looking for a no-nonsense AI visibility tracker that covers the basics really well, Peec AI is a strong contender. It provides many of the same core insights as the bigger tools – brand vs competitor mentions, sentiment, trends – but in a streamlined package. It may not have advanced features like content optimization suggestions or API integrations, and it doesn’t monitor technical LLM performance (it’s squarely focused on marketing metrics, not developer metrics). But for many SEO and marketing teams, that’s perfectly fine. Peec AI helps you keep a pulse on the competitive landscape in AI search without heavy lift. As one user noted, it’s great to quickly see “which brands are getting love from AI this week” and react accordingly.

5. Writesonic (AI Search Visibility Tool)

Writesonic is known for its AI writing and content generation platform, but it also offers an AI Search Visibility tool (sometimes called the GEO Tool) as part of its suite. This makes Writesonic a unique entry on this list – it’s essentially a hybrid that combines AI content creation with brand visibility tracking. For content marketers and SEO teams, this one-two punch can be very powerful: you monitor how your brand appears in AI answers and simultaneously get suggestions (and even generate content) to improve those appearances.

  • AI Visibility Monitoring: Writesonic’s GEO tool tracks your brand’s presence across major AI models including ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google’s generative search, Perplexity, and more. It operates similarly to other monitoring tools – logging when and how often your brand or competitors are mentioned in AI responses, and capturing share-of-voice metrics. The interface includes a visibility leaderboard so you can see which competitor is currently “winning” in AI mentions.
  • Content Optimization Suggestions: What sets Writesonic apart is that it doesn’t just show you the data – it also suggests how to improve. Based on what it finds working in AI results, Writesonic will recommend content optimizations and new content ideas. For example, if AI answers about “project management tools” keep citing a competitor’s guide on a specific topic, the tool might prompt you to create a similar or better piece. It essentially bridges the gap between insight and action by leveraging its content generation AI.
  • Competitor Appearance Analysis: Writesonic’s tool also analyzes how competitor brands appear in AI-generated responses. You can see if competitors are mentioned along with certain features or selling points. This insight helps tailor your messaging. (E.g., if AI often says “Competitor X is known for its affordability,” you might emphasize your value in your content so the AI picks it up too.)
  • Integration with AI Writing Tools: Because Writesonic is first and foremost a content creation platform, their visibility tracker integrates with the writing workflow. As you identify topics or prompts where you lack visibility, you can jump straight into using Writesonic’s AI writer to create targeted content. The integration is seamless – for instance, after noting that competitors are mentioned for “best CRM for nonprofits” and you are not, you could use Writesonic’s blog post generator or article writer to craft a high-quality piece on that subject. The tool can guide the content with SEO and GEO best practices.
  • Track Content Performance: Writesonic closes the loop by tracking how content created on their platform performs in AI search. If you publish a piece through Writesonic, you can monitor if that piece starts getting cited by ChatGPT or others. This feedback helps you fine-tune content creation – doubling down on content types that successfully increase AI visibility.
  • User-Friendly for Content Teams: Writesonic’s interface is geared toward content marketers, not just technical SEOs. It’s easy to understand for writers or content strategists who might not be deeply technical. This lowers the barrier for cross-functional teams (SEO + content) to collaborate on improving AI presence. Also, Writesonic’s pricing for the visibility tool is relatively affordable (starting around $39/month for basic tracking), since it’s part of a broader package that includes the writing tools.

Why choose Writesonic: If your approach to SEO and AI visibility is heavily content-driven (which it should be – content is what fuels AI answers), Writesonic offers an attractive all-in-one solution. It’s like having an SEO content strategist built into your AI monitoring tool. You not only see what’s happening, but you get help in doing something about it immediately. This aligns perfectly with the needs of content marketing teams and SEO writers who want to proactively influence AI search results. The trade-off is that Writesonic’s focus is split – it may not go as deep into analytics as a dedicated tool (its insights might be a bit less granular or “too generic” for very niche industries, as some note). But for many, the convenience outweighs that. In short, Writesonic simplifies the cycle of monitor → create → monitor → improve, which is at the heart of staying visible in AI-driven search.

6. Otterly AI

Otterly AI is a newer tool purpose-built for measuring share-of-voice in AI search. It emphasizes straightforward competitive metrics and is especially useful in crowded industries where multiple brands vie for attention in AI-generated answers. If you want to know, at any given time, what percentage of the AI conversation your brand has captured and how that stacks up against competitors, Otterly makes it easy.

  • Share-of-Voice Focus: Otterly tracks how often your brand is mentioned across AI platforms relative to others, and it presents this as clear share-of-voice percentages. The tool aggregates data from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and more, showing you things like “Your brand appears in 25% of AI answers for [category], vs Competitor A 40%, Competitor B 15%, etc.” This focus on SOV (Share of Voice) gives a direct measure of competitive standing. As one case study, Otterly showed a client that one competitor captured ~40% of mentions while another had only 15% in their niche – a striking visualization that prompted immediate strategy changes.
  • Competitor Comparison Dashboards: You can use Otterly to build side-by-side competitor dashboards. For instance, select a group of key competitors and get a dashboard of metrics: how many prompts each appears in, average position if listed, sentiment of mentions, etc. This is great for reporting to stakeholders – in one view you can communicate which players are leading in AI visibility. It’s like a leaderboard for AI mentions.
  • Historical Trends & Tracking: Otterly stores historical data, allowing you to see trends over weeks or months. If you initiate an AI-focused campaign (like optimizing content for AI answers), you can track if your share-of-voice increases over time. Conversely, you’ll see if a competitor is steadily encroaching on your visibility, giving you a chance to respond. Many users appreciate this for validating their GEO efforts – improvements in Otterly’s charts mean their tactics are working.
  • Sentiment and Context: The tool also analyzes the sentiment of each brand’s mentions in AI outputs. You might find, for example, that you have 25% SOV but mostly neutral sentiment, whereas a competitor with 15% SOV has highly positive sentiment. This adds context: not all mentions are equal, and Otterly helps identify if a competitor is being framed as a “leader” or “top choice” versus just being listed among others.
  • Prompt-Level Insights: Otterly includes query-level analysis as well. It can show which prompts drive the most mentions for each brand. Perhaps “best email marketing tools” is responsible for a big chunk of your AI mentions. Knowing that, you could focus efforts on owning that query across AI and traditional SEO. Otterly highlights such key prompts so you know where gains or losses in SOV are coming from.
  • Easy-to-Understand UI: The interface is relatively simple, with charts and graphs that are digestible even to non-SEO folks. Otterly’s data-heavy approach means there’s a lot of information, but they strive to make SOV understandable at a glance. It’s particularly useful for marketing managers who need quick snapshots for reports or meetings.

Why Otterly AI: This tool is best for mid-size to large companies that want to measure their AI presence in detail, especially in relation to competitors, but may use other means to improve it. Otterly excels at telling you what’s happening – e.g., “Competitor X has 2x your share-of-voice on ChatGPT this quarter” – and it does so in a very accessible way. If you combine it with a good content strategy, those insights are gold. One limitation to note is that Otterly is more about tracking than prescribing solutions. It won’t tell you how to increase your visibility (no prompt suggestions or content tips). And the wealth of data can be a bit overwhelming initially. But if you’re data-driven and want a clear competitive lens on AI search, Otterly is a strong addition. Bonus: it’s quite affordable to start – plans begin around $27/month for basic tracking, scaling up for enterprise needs.

Authoritas is an established SEO and digital marketing platform that has added AI brand monitoring features as an extension of its core tools. The idea is to give users a unified place to track traditional SEO metrics and AI visibility. For SEO professionals who prefer an integrated toolkit, Authoritas offers a familiar interface to see how your brand appears in LLMs alongside your search rankings, backlinks, etc.

  • Combined SEO + AI Dashboard: Authoritas allows you to track your brand’s mentions in AI search engines (ChatGPT, Google’s AI, Claude, etc.) right alongside your regular SEO analytics. This is useful because you can correlate data: for example, if a page ranks #1 in Google and also is frequently cited in Google’s AI answers, that’s a double win you’d want to maintain. Conversely, if a page ranks well but isn’t showing up in AI summaries, you might investigate why (maybe the content needs tweaking for AI).
  • Brand Mentions and Citations: The tool tracks how often your brand is mentioned across major LLM platforms. It also digs into which sources the AI is citing when mentioning your brand. This is similar to the citation analysis mentioned earlier, although likely not as in-depth as specialist tools. Still, it’s helpful to see, for example, “ChatGPT often cites your company’s TechCrunch article when mentioning your product” – a sign that piece is influential.
  • Competitive Benchmarking: Authoritas includes competitor benchmarking for AI visibility as well. If you’re already using it to monitor competitors’ SEO (backlinks, rankings, etc.), you can now also see how those competitors fare in AI answers. It might show, for instance, “Competitor A is mentioned in 15% of AI answers for [topic], you’re at 10%”. Having all this data in one platform can streamline reporting and analysis.
  • Integration with Keyword & SEO Data: One advantage here is integration. Authoritas can link AI visibility data with your keyword research and content performance data. For example, you could filter to see if the keywords you target in SEO are yielding AI mentions. Or see if pages that you optimized for Featured Snippets are getting picked up by LLMs (since often, snippet content feeds AI answers). This cross-channel insight helps ensure your content strategy is aligned for both search paradigms.
  • Single Platform Convenience: If you’re an agency or team that already uses Authoritas, adding AI monitoring means one less separate tool to log into. It’s convenient to have a single dashboard for “all things visibility.” The learning curve is minimal because it’s an extension of the platform you know. This can be particularly appealing for teams that are already juggling many tools and want to consolidate.
  • Getting Started & Pricing: Authoritas typically works on a custom pricing model, especially for enterprise packages, so you would likely get the AI features included in whatever tier you choose. This could be cost-efficient if you were considering a standalone AI tool – you might get what you need within your Authoritas subscription.

Why Authoritas: For those who value integration and simplicity, Authoritas is compelling. It’s not the most specialized AI tool, but it covers the bases of AI visibility pretty well while tying into traditional SEO metrics. It’s an ideal choice if you’re an SEO professional or digital marketer who wants to monitor AI and SEO in tandem without hopping between different services. The trade-off is that Authoritas’s AI capabilities might not be as deep or cutting-edge as something like Profound or Semrush AIO – think of it as “AI visibility lite” but within a powerful SEO platform. It assumes you have some SEO knowledge, and you’ll likely use the data to draw your own conclusions and actions (the tool isn’t going to spoon-feed optimizations). But as part of a holistic approach, it’s extremely useful to ensure you’re not missing the AI angle in your regular SEO monitoring routine.

8. Scrunch (GEO Tool by Scrunch AI)

Scrunch is an interesting entrant because it originally started as an influencer marketing analytics tool, but the company pivoted to the AI search space. Now Scrunch offers an LLM monitoring and optimization platform geared towards Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategies. It’s positioned for content and SEO teams who are actively trying to improve their presence in AI results, not just measure it.

  • Prompt Performance Testing: Scrunch allows you to test and manage prompts to see how different queries perform for your brand. You can input a variety of prompts (questions users might ask) and Scrunch will fetch the AI responses to check if you’re mentioned and in what context. It’s like doing manual prompt testing at scale, directly within the tool. This helps you identify which prompts you need to create content for or optimize.
  • Persona-Based Insights: A unique feature Scrunch offers is persona-based query analysis. It can simulate different user personas (with roles or intents) and see how AI might answer for each. For example, a “CTO looking for cybersecurity solutions” might ask questions differently than a “small business owner looking for antivirus.” Scrunch can help ensure your brand is visible to multiple personas’ queries, which is great for targeted marketing.
  • AI Visibility Audits: Scrunch includes tools to audit your webpages for AI optimization opportunities. It scans your content and compares it to what AI tends to cite or favor. For instance, if AI is often listing bullet-point answers and your content lacks a concise list, Scrunch might flag that as an opportunity to add one. These audits bridge technical SEO with content tweaks specific to AI consumption.
  • Share-of-Voice and Competitor Comparisons: Like others, it provides share-of-voice data and competitor comparisons so you know where you stand. It will show if Competitor Y consistently outranks you in AI answers for a set of prompts. But more than that, Scrunch tries to tell you why. It might highlight that Competitor Y’s content has schema markup or a specific section that AI loves, nudging you to emulate similar strategies.
  • GEO Strategy Emphasis: Scrunch is very much about improving your generative search performance, not just tracking. The platform is structured around an active GEO strategy: identify gaps, fix content, monitor results, repeat. They use the term GEO a lot, aligning with forward-thinking SEO practitioners. If you’re implementing a GEO plan (which might include things like ensuring your site is easily crawlable by AI, feeding LLM-friendly content, etc.), Scrunch is built to assist that process.
  • Team Collaboration: The tool is also set up for teams – multiple users can collaborate, assign tasks (like “create content to target Prompt X where we’re absent”), and share reports. It caters well to content teams, SEO teams, and even PR working together.

Why Scrunch: Choose Scrunch if you view AI search optimization as an ongoing, proactive project. It’s best for teams that will actively use the data to tweak content and want a more guided approach to doing so. The persona insights and page audit features are particularly useful to uncover non-obvious reasons your content might not be surfacing. The downside is that Scrunch is a heavier investment – plans start around $300/month and up, reflecting its more comprehensive toolset. Also, note that Scrunch no longer focuses on things like influencer marketing; it’s all-in on AI search now. If GEO is on your 2025 roadmap, Scrunch can be something of a one-stop shop to plan, execute, and measure your AI visibility strategy.

9. XFunnel

XFunnel takes a slightly different angle: it connects AI search visibility with your marketing funnel and ROI. In other words, it not only tracks if you’re being mentioned, but also analyzes how those AI-driven mentions (or lack thereof) are impacting your traffic, leads, and conversions. This is a great tool for more advanced marketing teams (especially in B2B) who want to quantify the business impact of AI search presence.

  • Traffic & Lead Tracking from AI: XFunnel monitors which AI platforms are driving traffic to you or your competitors. For example, if ChatGPT’s answers are referring people to your site, XFunnel will track that downstream traffic and even leads if integrated with your analytics/CRM. Conversely, it will show if an absence in AI results is causing you to lose potential visitors to competitors. This feature essentially ties AI visibility to web analytics.
  • Identify Funnel “Leaks”: By analyzing queries and responses, XFunnel helps find high-value prompts that you’re missing out on – these are points in the “funnel” where potential customers ask AI for recommendations and you’re not present. For instance, if many buyers ask “What’s the best project management tool for construction?” and your competitor is always in the answer while you’re not, XFunnel flags that as a funnel leak. It quantifies how many potential clicks or leads you might be losing by not appearing for that query.
  • Link to Sales Funnel & Conversions: The platform goes beyond just traffic by attempting to map AI visibility to your sales funnel performance. Suppose AI mentions (or lack thereof) correlate with a dip in demo requests or sign-ups; XFunnel will highlight that. It can integrate with tools like Google Analytics, CRM systems, etc., to see if people who engage with certain AI-sourced content become customers. This is powerful for making the case to executives why investing in GEO is important – it’s not just abstract visibility, it’s leads and revenue.
  • ROI Measurement for GEO Efforts: Ultimately, XFunnel aims to measure the ROI of improving your AI search presence. If you undertake an initiative to get mentioned more often (maybe through content or PR), XFunnel can track if that led to increased site traffic from AI sources and whether those visitors converted. In one example, marketers discovered via XFunnel that not being included in a specific AI query was costing them a significant number of trial sign-ups monthly – a clear ROI opportunity if they could capture that spot.
  • Suited for Growth Marketers: This tool is particularly useful for growth and performance marketers who are metrics-driven. It provides the data needed to justify budget and resources for AI optimization (e.g., “By getting our brand into AI answer X, we can potentially gain Y more customers, which is worth Z dollars”). It aligns AI visibility with business KPIs like CAC (customer acquisition cost) and LTV (lifetime value), which is relatively novel in this space.
  • Integration & Setup: Note that to get the most from XFunnel, you’ll need to integrate it with your analytics and possibly do some configuration (defining your funnel stages, etc.). It’s not as plug-and-play as some pure monitoring tools, because it’s combining external data. But once set up, it yields highly tailored insights. They offer a free basic version for simple analysis and then custom pricing for the full suite depending on lead volumes and complexity.

Why XFunnel: If your team constantly asks “So what does this mean for our leads and sales?” about SEO efforts, XFunnel is the tool that answers that for AI search. It’s a more advanced, analytical platform that will translate AI visibility into business impact terms. For B2B companies or any business with a clear funnel, this is incredibly valuable. It essentially closes the loop from visibility → traffic → conversion. However, smaller teams or those without complex analytics might find it more than they need. It’s best for organizations that have a handle on their analytics and want to layer AI search into that. In summary, XFunnel helps ensure your LLM optimization efforts are not just boosting vanity metrics, but are actually driving results you can show on the bottom line.

10. ZipTie.Dev

ZipTie (at ziptie.dev) is one of the simplest and most straightforward tools for checking your brand’s AI search visibility – and that’s exactly why many early-stage teams and solo marketers like it. In Backlinko’s evaluation, it was noted as a refreshingly no-frills solution that “just works” for quick insights. If you don’t need all the bells and whistles, and prefer a plug-and-play tool to see where you stand, ZipTie could be a great fit.

  • Plug-and-Play Simplicity: ZipTie requires minimal setup – you essentially input your brand (and optionally a few competitors) and it starts tracking how you show up in AI answers. There’s no complex configuration of prompts or scenarios. This makes it perfect for quickly getting a baseline. Within moments, you get a snapshot of “Brand X is mentioned in Y% of tracked AI queries” on platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI, etc.
  • Core AI Platforms Covered: Despite its simplicity, ZipTie covers the key ground: it checks top AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Perplexity for your brand mentions. These are the places most users currently encounter AI-driven answers, so ZipTie focuses on them. (It may add others over time, but it targets the big ones first.)
  • Clear Dashboard with Essentials: The dashboard is clean and shows all essential metrics in one view. You’ll see where your brand appears, how often, and any citations (like which sources were linked). It also has a prompt-based monitoring section where it lists the queries checked and whether you appeared or not. Everything is designed to answer two basic questions: “Are we showing up in AI answers?” and “What are we missing?”.
  • Quick Competitive Snapshot: While not a deep competitor analysis tool, ZipTie does let you add competitor names to compare presence. You might see something like “Your brand: 5 mentions, Competitor A: 8 mentions, Competitor B: 2 mentions, over the last 100 queries tested.” It’s a rough gauge of who’s ahead in AI visibility. The simplicity here means it won’t break down sentiment or give share percentages, but you’ll get the raw counts which are often enough to flag an issue.
  • Fast Insights, No Bloat: The mantra of ZipTie is essentially “fast answers, no bloat”. Early users have praised how quickly they can get actionable info – for instance, noticing immediately that their brand wasn’t showing up in a popular “best X tools” AI list while a competitor was. That insight can then be acted on (maybe you need to publish content about that topic or improve your existing page). ZipTie won’t tell you how, but it alerts you to the problem in seconds.
  • Affordable Entry Point: ZipTie is also budget-friendly. Plans start at around $99/month which includes a generous number (e.g. 400) of AI search checks. This is great for startups or consultants who just need the basics without breaking the bank. And because it’s simple, you don’t spend much time learning the tool – time is money too, and ZipTie saves both.

Why ZipTie: Use ZipTie if you want to get up to speed on your AI search presence immediately, with minimal hassle. It’s especially fitting for early-stage companies, solo SEO consultants, or small business marketers who need insights but don’t have the bandwidth for a complex platform. It tells you where you stand so you can prioritize further action. The trade-off for simplicity is depth – you won’t get fancy analytics or strategy tips. But many users pair a tool like ZipTie with their own expertise or other content tools. Think of ZipTie as your quick diagnostic check. Once you spot an issue (e.g., “we’re missing in these 3 key AI questions where competitors appear”), you can then deeper dive using other means or just fix the obvious content gap. It’s the perfect “start here” tool for LLM visibility, proving that sometimes, simple is all you need to get actionable competitive insights in the AI search arena.

Conclusion: Take Charge of Your Brand’s AI Visibility

The rise of AI-driven search isn’t a future trend – it’s here now, and competitors are already being discovered through AI interactions whether you’re measuring it or not. Incorporating LLM visibility into your SEO strategy is no longer optional; it’s become a key part of maintaining digital competitiveness. The good news is that the tools we’ve discussed can save you from guesswork and keep you informed in this new landscape.

Whichever tool you choose, the important step is to start tracking. As experts recommend, begin by picking one platform and monitor a set of 10-20 relevant prompts for at least a few weeks. Include your brand and 3-5 of your top competitors in the tracking. Very quickly, you’ll start to see patterns – maybe a competitor consistently outshines you on one type of query, or perhaps none of you are showing up for a valuable question (an opportunity for whoever acts first). Use those insights to guide your content and PR efforts: create high-quality resources on topics where you’re absent, optimize pages that AI might be drawing from, and get your brand mentioned in authoritative sources that feed the LLMs.

Remember, gaining AI search visibility is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t be discouraged if changes aren’t immediate; this is akin to early-stage SEO all over again, where you’re building a foundation for long-term authority. Monitor your progress month by month. Celebrate incremental gains in share-of-voice or new positive mentions. And keep an eye on competitors – if you notice one of them suddenly getting a lot of AI attention (maybe from a viral article or a new partnership), analyze it and adjust your strategy.

In summary, AI search optimization (or Generative Engine Optimization) is now an essential extension of SEO. By using the right competitor analysis tools and staying proactive, you can ensure your brand isn’t just present, but prominent, in the conversations AI assistants are having with your customers. The companies that act now – leveraging data to fine-tune their content and build AI-oriented authority – will be the ones LLMs confidently cite in the years to come. So take charge of your brand’s AI visibility today, and position yourself to outshine the competition in the next phase of search. Your move!

Sources: The insights and data points in this article were drawn from industry-leading research and expert analyses on LLM visibility and AI search optimization, including Backlinko, Semrush, Writesonic, SE Ranking, Profound, Peec AI, Otterly AI, Authoritas, Scrunch, XFunnel, ZipTie. These sources provide further reading on how AI is reshaping search and how you can adapt your strategy accordingly.