AI search software
Best AI search optimisation software in 2026
This category spans content tools, technical checkers and analytics platforms. This guide sorts them by the job, including which run competitor intelligence on the rivals winning the answers, with claims taken from each vendor's own pages on a stated date.
Last reviewed: Vendor pages checked
Illustrative. Not a screenshot and not real data.
The short answer
Which tool should you choose?
If you want AI search reported beside the keywords, rankings and site audits you already run, the quickest route is the platform you are probably paying for. Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro and SE Ranking all sell AI visibility inside an SEO subscription, with per-plan prompt limits printed on their pricing pages. Surfer sits next to them for content teams, pairing prompt tracking with the writing workflow. Conductor and BrightEdge are the enterprise bracket, priced by enquiry.
If the software should start from AI answers rather than from search rankings, Profound and Peec AI are the AI-native contrast: platforms built around tracked prompts, cited sources and competitor benchmarking across engines and regions, with nothing borrowed from a keyword index.
And if the question you actually need answered is whether leading AI assistants recommend your business when a customer is choosing one, GetRanked AI is built for that single outcome. Everything below is dated and sourced from each vendor's own pages, and nothing is ranked with a score we invented.
Start here
Measure the outcome before you choose a tool
AI search optimisation software spans a wide range: content platforms that improve the pages, technical tools that check crawler access, analytics platforms that track prompts, and SEO suites that now report on AI answers too.
Every one of them is an execution or reporting tool for a goal that mostly goes unmeasured, which is whether the assistants recommend your business when a buyer asks.
Measure the outcome first, then buy the tool that moves it. Otherwise you are optimising toward a number nobody has checked. Where GetRanked AI differs is the competitor intelligence: the GetRanked Algo names the businesses the assistants recommended in your place through Competitor Capture, builds a dossier on each with Competitor Radar, and prints the reason and sources with Decision Trace, all from the answers themselves rather than a list you supply. Staying ahead is the ongoing half: tracked competitors are re-read on the ongoing plans and Recommendation Delta measures which answers you gained and lost between two comparable readings, so you can see whether the gap to the businesses AI names is widening or closing. Those plans are listed on the pricing page and are not open for self-serve purchase yet.
The category
What changes when the result is an answer
An SEO buyer thinks in positions. You pick a keyword, you measure where a page sits for it, and you work the page up the list. The measurement is stable enough to chart, and the same query on the same day usually returns the same ten results to everyone.
An AI assistant does not hand back a list. It writes a short answer, names a few businesses inside it, and cites a handful of sources it drew on. There is no position one. A brand is present in the answer, placed somewhere in the order the assistant chose, or not there at all, and the same question asked twice can produce different answers. That is why the products on this page report things like mention rate, share of voice, position within an answer and cited sources, rather than a single rank.
The category has picked up several names. AI search optimisation is the broadest. GEO, generative engine optimisation, and AEO, answer engine optimisation, are used by different vendors for overlapping work: Profound describes itself in answer engine terms, Otterly AI labels its recommendation types GEO. Neither is a standardised discipline with an agreed syllabus, so read the feature list rather than the label.
One practical consequence for a buyer: the SEO suites measure a prompt set you assemble, in the same way you assemble a keyword list. That is a familiar workflow, and it puts the choice of question in your hands. It also means the picture you get is a picture of the prompts you thought to add.
- AI search optimisation
- Work aimed at how a brand appears inside the answers AI assistants write, rather than at where a page ranks in a list of links.
- Prompt tracking
- Running a chosen set of questions through AI platforms on a schedule and recording what comes back.
- Share of voice
- A brand's share of mentions in AI answers compared with named competitors.
- GEO and AEO
- Generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation: overlapping vendor terms for the same broad work, not standardised disciplines.
- AI Recommendation Intelligence
- Our term for measuring whether assistants recommend a specific business to its prospective customers, who they recommend instead, and what evidence was missing.
How we evaluated
What we looked at, and what we did not
We read each vendor's own website on the date shown at the top of this page and recorded what it advertises: what the product is for, which AI platforms it names, what it measures, who it says it is for, and whether prices are published. We did not run paid trials of every product and we do not hand out scores of our own. Where a vendor's pages do not mention a capability, the table says "not publicly advertised", which is a statement about the pages, not about the product.
Because this page is written for SEO buyers, the table keeps the traditional SEO row in view. A tool that does no keyword research is not worse; it is a different purchase.
- Principal purposeWhat the product is built to do, in its own terms.
- Recommendation outcomeWhether it tells a business that AI recommends it, rather than counting mentions.
- Starts from your businessWhether you can begin with your website instead of building a prompt project.
- Recommendation GapWhether it shows the buying questions where a business could be named and is not.
- Competitor CaptureWhether it names the businesses the assistants recommend instead.
- Competitor discoveryWhether competitors surface from the answers, or must be known and added first.
- Evidence CoverageWhether it shows which sources shaped the answer and what was missing.
- What to do firstWhether it produces a prioritised list of things to change.
- Plain-English verdictWhether the output is a decision a business owner can act on, not only analytics.
- Try before committingWhether a business can learn something real before paying for a subscription.
- Traditional SEO suiteKeyword research, rank tracking, site audits, backlinks.
- Keyword researchA keyword database and research workflow.
- Backlink databaseA link index and link analysis.
- Content productionWriting, briefs and on-page optimisation.
- Technical auditingCrawling and technical site health.
- Multi-client dashboardsManaging many sites or clients in one place.
- Enterprise integrationsAPIs, warehouses and BI connectors.
- Prompt managementBuilding and maintaining a tracked prompt set at scale.
- Intended customerWho the vendor says the product is for.
- Public pricingWhether prices are published, so a buyer can size a plan before a sales call.
The shortlist
Grouped by what each one is, not by a score
These products are not substitutes for each other. They are grouped by the kind of tool they are, so you can see which group you are actually shopping in. There is no ranking, no rating and no paid placement.
Recommendation-first intelligence
SEO suites with AI visibility added
AI visibility lines appear on every plan card with a stated prompt limit, alongside prompt research, sentiment, cited media and an AI search health audit that produces a prioritised checklist.
Read the Semrush comparisonBest for working from a large prompt corpusAhrefsBrand Radar offers a pre-collected AI Visibility Index that needs no setup plus Custom Prompts you configure yourself, on top of Ahrefs' own web index.
Read the Ahrefs comparisonBest for a small team adding AI tracking to SEOMoz ProAI Visibility is included from the Standard plan upwards, with dashboard and prompt counts printed on each card and a view of whether you are the first recommendation or behind competitors.
Read the Moz Pro comparisonBest for per-engine trackers with a no-card trialSE RankingSeparate trackers for AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, prompt quotas inside the base plans, and a 14-day trial with no card required.
Read the SE Ranking comparisonLarge-scale AI analytics
Content platforms with AI tracking
The platforms
What each one is, and who it fits
Semrush
Semrush is a full SEO platform with an AI Visibility toolkit inside it. It tracks how often a brand is mentioned, cited and recommended across AI platforms, adds prompt research drawn from a large prompt database, and reports sentiment and AI-cited media. An AI search health audit produces a prioritised checklist of technical fixes.
Fits: SEO teams, agencies and marketers who want search and AI reporting from one login, with public per-plan limits and a seven-day trial.
Worth knowing: Prompts come from the database or from you, so the view is of a prompt set rather than of one business's buyers. Whether a standalone AI-only plan exists could not be verified.
Ahrefs pairs its data platform with Brand Radar, which reports mentions, citations, AI Share of Voice and estimated impressions across AI platforms. It offers both a pre-collected index built from a very large search-backed prompt corpus and Custom Prompts you set yourself, with Bot Analytics showing AI crawlers hitting your site.
Fits: Teams already living in Ahrefs who want AI answers measured beside keywords, backlinks and site audits.
Worth knowing: Prompt checks are metered, with larger packages and a Brand Radar AI add-on priced separately from the plans. Prices rendered in pounds to a UK visitor while other pages showed other currencies.
Moz Pro
Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO toolkit whose AI Visibility dashboard tracks prompts across four named AI models. Prompt Performance shows which tracked brands are mentioned and in what order, along with the response the model wrote and the pages it referenced, and Prompt Suggestions tie prompts back to organic search metrics for the topic.
Fits: Small and growing businesses that want SEO and AI prompt tracking in one subscription with the limits printed on the plan card.
Worth knowing: AI Visibility needs the Standard plan or higher, and the pricing page lists the prompt tracking frequency as once a week rather than more often.
SE Ranking
SE Ranking combines rank tracking, keyword research, audits and backlinks with an AI Search Toolkit. It lists dedicated trackers for AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, maps the domains and URLs that appear in AI answers, and states that it retrieves results through direct interface monitoring rather than APIs.
Fits: Agencies and SEO teams that want AI tracking inside a familiar SEO subscription, with a 14-day trial and no card.
Worth knowing: AI capability is split between the base plans and a priced AI Search add-on, and the engines named on the homepage and on the add-on card are not the same list.
Surfer SEO
Surfer frames content work and AI tracking as one loop. Its AI Tracker reports Visibility Score, Mention Rate, Average Position and Share of Voice, states that one prompt tracks a brand across five named models at once, and identifies the sources the models pull from. Surfer says it reads the interfaces customers actually see.
Fits: Content teams and agencies that publish at volume and want mention gaps to point straight at the next piece of work.
Worth knowing: Only yearly-billed prices were visible when checked, and the plans differ in how often prompts refresh, with the entry tier listing no AI tracking on its card.
Conductor
Conductor is an enterprise platform that measures AI and search visibility and connects it to traffic, conversions and revenue. It tracks mentions, citations and sentiment in answer engines, monitors sites for issues that cost AI citations, and exposes data through an AgentStack of APIs, an MCP server and turnkey agents.
Fits: Enterprise content, SEO and IT teams that need governance, security certifications and one contract more than a low entry price.
Worth knowing: No numeric prices are shown for any tier, and what one AI Search Credit buys is not defined on the pricing page.
Profound
Profound is an answer engine optimisation platform with an execution layer on top. Answer Engine Insights reports how often a brand appears in AI answers, with citations, sentiment and accuracy checks, Citation Authority shows which websites drive those answers, and Prompt Volumes offers demand data drawn from AI conversations.
Fits: AEO, content and PR teams running a programme across many engines and markets who want briefs and content agents attached to the tracking.
Worth knowing: Month-to-month prices were not visible in the pages read, and the entry tier is described as covering ChatGPT only.
GetRanked AI
GetRanked AI is AI Recommendation Intelligence: one clear verdict per business, across as many websites as you run. You enter a website and it measures how leading AI assistants respond when prospective customers are looking for a business like yours, then reports an AI Trust Score, the Recommendation Gap, Competitor Capture and Evidence Coverage with a prioritised list of fixes in plain English.
Fits: Owners and marketing leads who want a verdict rather than a dashboard, and who do not want to assemble a prompt list or name their competitors first.
Worth knowing: It is not an SEO suite: no keyword research, rank tracking, backlinks or traffic estimates. Ongoing monthly plans are listed on the pricing page but are not yet open for self-serve purchase.
The buying question
Which of these is built around the recommendation outcome?
Read from each vendor's own pages on the date shown on its comparison page. "Not publicly advertised" means the pages we read do not mention it, not that the capability is absent.
| Product | Recommendation outcome | Starts from your business | Recommendation Gap | Competitor Capture | Competitor discovery | Evidence Coverage | What to do first | Plain-English verdict | Try before committing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Ahrefs | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial |
| Moz Pro | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial |
| SE Ranking | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial |
| Surfer SEO | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Conductor | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised |
| BrightEdge | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised |
| Profound | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised |
| Peec AI | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| GetRanked AI | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Everything else
Broader platform capabilities
Broader does not mean better for every job. Several of these platforms are far wider than GetRanked AI, and where they are, this table says so plainly. GetRanked AI deliberately does not recreate an SEO suite: it specialises in the measurement above.
| Product | Traditional SEO suite | Keyword research | Backlink database | Content production | Technical auditing | Multi-client dashboards | Enterprise integrations | Prompt management |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Ahrefs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Moz Pro | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| SE Ranking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Surfer SEO | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Conductor | Yes | Partial | Not publicly advertised | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| BrightEdge | Yes | Yes | Not publicly advertised | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Profound | Different focus | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| Peec AI | Different focus | Different focus | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| GetRanked AI | Different focus | Different focus | Different focus | Different focus | Different focus | Yes | Different focus | Different focus |
Which fits which buyer
Match the tool to the situation
An SEO manager adding AI to an existing report
Both put AI mentions, citations and share of voice beside keywords and backlinks, and both print the prompt allowance on the plan so you can size the spend before you trial it.
That is the optimisation work. Measure the recommendation outcome first so the work has a target.
A small team already paying for one SEO tool
Both include AI tracking inside plans aimed at smaller budgets, with the dashboard, prompt and engine limits printed on the card. Check the refresh frequency, because it differs between them.
Run the free scan alongside it and you will know which pages are actually worth optimising.
A content team that wants citations, not rankings
Surfer connects the mention gap to the piece of content that closes it, and sells the tracker on its own if you do not want the writing tools with it.
Use GetRanked AI to re-measure once the work ships, so you can tell whether it moved anything.
An enterprise that needs governance and one contract
Procurement, security posture and integrations decide this bracket rather than the entry price. Both are priced by enquiry. BrightEdge states that its AI Catalyst module is included in all BrightEdge SEO Platform subscriptions, while Conductor meters AI search as credits a year on its higher tiers, so ask what a credit buys before you sign.
That is the optimisation work. Measure the recommendation outcome first so the work has a target.
A team that wants an AI-native platform, not an SEO suite
These start from AI answers rather than from a keyword index: tracked prompts, cited sources, competitor benchmarking, exports and agency workspaces. Peec AI publishes plans in euros, Profound in yearly-billed tiers.
Run the free scan alongside it and you will know which pages are actually worth optimising.
An owner who wants the answer, not another dashboard
Run the free scan, then the one-off Professional AI Report if the answer matters. You get whether the assistants recommend you, who they name instead and what to fix, with no platform to learn.
Where GetRanked AI differs
Built for the moment a customer asks AI
AI Recommendation Intelligence is our term for measuring whether the assistants recommend one business when its customers are looking for one.
It starts from your business, not a prompt list
You do not assemble questions the way you assemble a keyword list. GetRanked AI measures how leading AI assistants respond when prospective customers are looking for a business like yours.
Competitor Capture is discovered, not configured
There is no field where you type your rivals. The report names the businesses the assistants recommend instead of you.
Evidence Coverage explains the why
The report shows what the assistants could and could not find about your business, so the fixes address the evidence behind the answer rather than only the site.
Start free, buy once
A free scan and a one-off Professional AI Report for one website. No subscription is needed for either, and ongoing monthly plans are listed on the pricing page but are not yet open for self-serve purchase.
Questions
Questions buyers ask about this category
What is AI search optimisation software?
It is software that measures how a brand appears inside the answers AI assistants write, and points at what to change. Some products are SEO platforms that added the capability, such as Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro and SE Ranking. Others were built for AI answers from the start, such as Profound and Peec AI. GetRanked AI sits in a narrower place again, reporting whether assistants recommend one specific business.
Is this just SEO with a new name?
No, although the two overlap. SEO measures where a page sits in a list of links, which is stable enough to chart. AI search optimisation measures whether a brand is present inside a written answer, where it sits in the order the assistant chose, and which sources the answer rested on. The same question can produce different answers, so the metrics are rates and shares rather than a single position.
Do I need to replace my SEO tool?
Usually not. Every SEO platform on this page sells AI visibility inside the subscription you may already hold, which makes adding it the cheapest first step. Buy a second product when you need something the suite is not built to do, such as an AI-native view across many engines and regions, or a verdict on whether assistants recommend your business.
What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
They are vendor terms for overlapping work. GEO stands for generative engine optimisation and AEO for answer engine optimisation, and different vendors pick different labels for broadly the same activity. Neither is a standardised discipline, so compare the feature lists rather than the acronyms.
Do these tools cover the same AI assistants?
No, coverage varies by vendor and by plan. Semrush names ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity and Gemini on its pages, Moz Pro names four tracked models, and Ahrefs, Surfer and SE Ranking each name their own lists, with several vendors selling extra engines as add-ons. Each comparison page linked from this guide records what that vendor's pages state.
Does any of this software guarantee AI will recommend my business?
No. Nobody can guarantee what a model will say. Every product here measures and reports; earning the recommendation is still your work.
How did you evaluate the tools?
We read each vendor's own pages on the date at the top of this guide and recorded what they advertise against nine buyer-relevant criteria. We gave no scores and we did not run paid trials of every product. Where a page does not mention something, the table says not publicly advertised, which describes the pages we read rather than the product.
Why is GetRanked AI in its own comparison?
Because we own this site and you should know that before reading further. GetRanked AI appears in the table under exactly the same criteria as everyone else, and every comparison page linked from this guide carries its sources so you can check us.
How current is this guide?
The vendor pages were read on the date shown at the top of this page. Plans, prices and engine lists in this category change quickly, so confirm on the vendor's own site before buying.
Keep reading
Related guides and comparisons
Sources and trust
Every third-party claim on this page comes from the vendor's own website, read on the date shown, and is repeated with its sources on the linked comparison page. No vendor has paid for a place here and no vendor has been scored. GetRanked AI's own method is set out on the methodology page.
Vendor sources for every product on this page are listed on its comparison page: Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, SE Ranking, Surfer SEO, Conductor, Profound.
What this guide deliberately leaves out
- Any overall ranking or score across the products: they do different jobs and we did not test them all under a single protocol.
- Traffic or citation performance claims printed on vendor sites, including Surfer's claim about content being more likely to be cited: we could not check them.
- Engine coverage per plan for most vendors: several name different engine lists on different pages, and several sell engines as add-ons, so the comparison pages record what each page said rather than one tidy list.
- Customer counts, review ratings and self-descriptions such as leading or number one, which several vendors print on their pages.
- Writesonic, Similarweb, AthenaHQ and Goodie AI: they are covered on their own comparison pages rather than here, to keep this page to the products an SEO buyer shortlists first.
Find out for free
See what the assistants say about you.
Choosing a tool is the easy part. Enter your website and see whether the assistants recommend you, and who they name instead.
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