Generative engine optimisation
Best GEO tools in 2026
GEO is the work; measuring whether it landed is a separate job. This guide sorts the tools by what each one actually does, including which run competitor intelligence on the rivals winning the answers, with claims taken from each vendor's own pages on a stated date.
The short answer
Which tool should you choose?
GEO means generative engine optimisation: shaping your content, your site's technical access and the sources that talk about you so a generative AI engine can find, trust and cite your business when it writes an answer. For the technical side of that, Otterly AI publishes a GEO audit that tests AI crawlers against your robots.txt and scores pages for AI readiness. For the content side, Surfer SEO and Writesonic pair AI tracking with the writing and fixing work in the same product.
If you are running GEO across several engines, regions and languages, Profound and Scrunch AI are built for that scale, and Scrunch AI can also serve AI retrieval bots a simplified version of your pages. If GEO is one line in an SEO programme you already report on, Semrush adds it beside keywords and backlinks on plans you may already pay for.
GetRanked AI is on this page for a different reason. It does not do GEO work. It measures the outcome GEO is meant to produce: whether leading AI assistants recommend your business when prospective customers are looking for one, who they name instead, and what they could not find out about you. Everything below is dated and sourced, and nothing is ranked with a score we invented.
Start here
Measure the outcome before you choose a tool
Generative engine optimisation is work: content that answers buying questions plainly, technical access for the crawlers, and third-party evidence a model can reach and trust. The tools below help you do that work, and several do it well.
What none of them settles is whether the work is producing the outcome. GEO exists to change one thing: whether an assistant recommends your business when a buyer is deciding. That is a measurement, and it is separate from the execution.
Diagnose before you prescribe. Measure the recommendation outcome, find where the gap actually is, then choose the execution tool that closes it, and re-measure to see whether it moved. GetRanked AI is the measurement in that loop. 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 GEO is, and what it is not
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It describes the work of making a business easy for a generative AI engine to find, understand, trust and cite when that engine writes an answer. In practice it comes down to three things repeated in different orders: the content that describes you, the technical access AI crawlers have to it, and the third-party sources that back it up.
The label is not a standard, and the vendors on this page do not use it consistently. Otterly AI publishes GEO audits and ranks ten GEO recommendation types. Profound describes itself as an answer engine optimisation platform. Conductor pairs AEO with SEO in one enterprise product. Read the words as marketing labels for one broad job, then check what each product actually measures.
Most GEO software follows the same shape. You supply prompts, it records what the engines answered, it reports which sources were cited, and it hands you a queue of content and technical actions. The real differences are scale, how much of the fixing the product does for you, and whether it touches your website at all.
GetRanked AI sits in a different category, which we call AI Recommendation Intelligence. That is our term, not an industry standard. It overlaps with GEO on evidence, because both care about what the engines can find out about a business. It differs on the question being asked. GEO software optimises content so generative engines cite it. GetRanked AI measures whether the assistants recommend one business to its prospective customers, names who was recommended instead, and shows what evidence was missing.
- GEO
- Generative engine optimisation: making a business findable, understandable and citable by generative AI engines.
- AEO
- Answer engine optimisation, used by several vendors for the same broad work. The two labels overlap and are not standard.
- Citations
- The sources an AI answer drew on or linked to, and the main thing most GEO tools measure.
- AI crawler
- A bot an AI platform uses to fetch pages. GEO audits check whether robots.txt and page structure let those bots read a site.
- AI Recommendation Intelligence
- GetRanked AI's 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 and wrote down 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 buy and run every product, and we do not hand out scores. Where a vendor's pages do not mention something, the table says "not publicly advertised", which is a statement about the pages we read and not a claim that the capability is missing.
GEO wording varies a lot between vendors, so we compare what each product measures rather than the label on the box. GetRanked AI is in the table under the same criteria, and every row links to the comparison page that carries the sources.
- 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
Large-scale AI analytics
Monitors in more than 30 languages and more than 150 regions, with prompt demand data and briefs that hand off to agents which research, write and publish into a connected CMS.
Read the Profound comparisonBest for shaping what AI bots readScrunch AITracks share of answer and position by topic, persona, model and region, and its Agent Experience Platform serves AI retrieval bots a simplified version of each page at the CDN layer.
Read the Scrunch AI comparisonLightweight AI monitoring
Content platforms with AI tracking
An AI Search Loop that moves from tracking brand visibility into AI articles, citation outreach, robots.txt and schema audits, and an Action Center of on-page and off-page tasks.
Read the Writesonic comparisonBest for GEO inside a content workflowSurfer SEOOne prompt tracks a brand across five named models at once, with mention gaps, share of voice, sentiment and cited sources, and the content tools sit in the same product. A standalone AI-only plan is published.
Read the Surfer SEO comparisonThe platforms
What each one is, and who it fits
GetRanked AI
GetRanked AI is AI Recommendation Intelligence: one clear verdict per business, across as many websites as you run. 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 to know whether the GEO work is landing, without setting up prompts, projects or a content pipeline.
Worth knowing: It is not GEO software: it does not write content, audit pages as a product or change your site. Ongoing plans are listed on the pricing page but are not yet open for self-serve purchase.
Otterly AI
Otterly AI is a content intelligence platform for AI search. It tracks brand mentions, share of voice, average rank, net sentiment and every cited URL for the prompts you choose, then produces a queue of on-page and off-page actions per engine with ten GEO recommendation types ranked by impact. Its GEO audit tests 19 AI crawlers against robots.txt and scores pages for AI readiness.
Fits: Site owners, developers and small teams who want the technical GEO checks and a low published entry price.
Worth knowing: Four engines are included on the entry plan and three more are sold as paid add-ons, with the add-on prices only captured as a range.
Writesonic
Writesonic describes an AI Search Loop: track brand visibility across AI platforms, then move to AI articles, citation outreach, robots.txt and schema audits and an Action Center. Its tracker crawls the interfaces of the tracked platforms and reports visibility scores, share of voice, sentiment with themes and prompt-level answers.
Fits: Marketing teams and agencies that want tracking and the GEO execution work in one workspace, across brands, markets and languages.
Worth knowing: The three self-serve tiers track ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews; the full ten platforms, custom regions and languages and the full Action Center are listed under Enterprise.
Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO is a content optimisation platform with an AI Tracker built in. One prompt tracks a brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Gemini, reporting Visibility Score, Mention Rate, Average Position, Share of Voice, sentiment, cited sources and mention gaps. Surfer says it reads the interfaces customers actually see.
Fits: Content teams that publish at volume and want the GEO signal to feed straight back into the writing work.
Worth knowing: Only yearly-billed prices were visible when the pricing page was read, and the page does not say whether Start for Free means a trial or a free tier.
Profound
Profound is an answer engine optimisation platform with marketing agents on top. It reports how often a brand appears in AI answers with citations, sentiment and accuracy checks, monitors in more than 30 languages and more than 150 regions, and hands findings to briefs and agents that draft and publish into a connected CMS.
Fits: AEO, content and PR teams running GEO as a programme across engines, regions and languages.
Worth knowing: Month-to-month prices and trial terms were not visible in the pricing text read, and the entry plan covers one engine.
Scrunch AI
Scrunch AI collects actual responses from major AI platforms and reports share of answer, position, sentiment and citations, filtered by topic, persona, model and region. Its Agent Experience Platform intercepts AI retrieval bots at the CDN layer and serves them a simplified version of each page while Google and Bing crawlers keep seeing the normal site.
Fits: Marketing and site teams that want persona-level measurement and direct control over what AI bots read.
Worth knowing: Its FAQ page and its pricing page disagreed on plan names and trial terms, so the pricing page was treated as authoritative.
Semrush
Semrush is a full SEO platform with an AI Visibility toolkit. It tracks how often a brand is mentioned, cited and recommended across AI platforms, adds prompt research described across more than 40 markets, sentiment, AI-Cited Media and an AI search health audit that produces a prioritised checklist of technical fixes.
Fits: SEO teams and agencies that want GEO reported next to keywords, backlinks and rankings in one subscription.
Worth knowing: Prompts come from a database or are typed in by the user, so the view is of a prompt set rather than of one business's buyers, and whether a standalone AI-only plan exists could not be verified.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly AI | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Writesonic | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Surfer SEO | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Profound | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised |
| Scrunch AI | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised |
| Semrush | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Goodie AI | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Not publicly advertised |
| AthenaHQ | Partial | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Not publicly advertised |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly AI | Different focus | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| Writesonic | Partial | Different focus | Different focus | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Surfer SEO | Partial | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Profound | Different focus | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| Scrunch AI | Different focus | Different focus | Not publicly advertised | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| Semrush | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Goodie AI | Different focus | Different focus | Different focus | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| AthenaHQ | 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 owner who wants to know whether the GEO work landed
Run the free scan, then the Professional AI Report if the answer matters. You get whether the assistants recommend you, which businesses they named instead, and what evidence they were missing, with no platform to learn.
A site or engineering team fixing AI crawler access
Otterly AI tests AI crawlers against robots.txt and the live server and scores pages for AI readiness. Scrunch AI goes further and serves those bots a simplified page at the CDN layer.
That covers the execution. Measure the recommendation outcome first so you know which of it is worth doing.
A content team doing GEO through writing
Both put the tracking and the content work in one product, so a mention gap leads straight into a draft. Writesonic adds citation outreach and an action queue; Surfer SEO publishes an AI-only plan for teams that want the tracker alone.
Diagnose before you prescribe: the free scan shows where the gap actually is before you commit to a GEO programme.
A marketing team running GEO across engines and markets
Profound monitors across many languages and regions and produces briefs. Goodie AI runs a research, monitor, act and measure loop with a monthly action quota on every plan and attribution back to traffic and revenue.
Use GetRanked AI to re-measure afterwards. Otherwise you are shipping work nobody has checked the effect of.
An SEO team adding GEO to existing reporting
Semrush prints AI visibility lines on every plan card, with an AI search health audit and a prioritised checklist beside the keyword and backlink tools. For a team already reporting from there, that is the path of least friction.
That covers the execution. Measure the recommendation outcome first so you know which of it is worth doing.
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 measures the result, not the work
GEO software optimises content so generative engines cite it. GetRanked AI reports whether the assistants recommend your business when your customers are looking for one, which is the outcome that work is meant to buy.
Competitor Capture is discovered, not configured
You do not enter a competitor list. The report names the businesses the assistants recommend instead of you.
Evidence Coverage sets the GEO agenda
The report shows what the assistants could and could not find about your business, so the fixes are about the missing evidence rather than a generic AI readiness checklist.
Start free, buy once
A free scan and a one-off Professional AI Report for one website. No subscription is needed for either.
Questions
Questions buyers ask about this category
Why is GetRanked AI on a list it publishes?
Because we own this site and you should know that before you read the table. GetRanked AI appears in the shortlist and the comparison under the same criteria as everyone else, and every row links to a comparison page that carries the vendor's own sources so you can check us.
What is GEO?
GEO is generative engine optimisation: the work of making a business easy for generative AI engines to find, understand, trust and cite when they write an answer. In practice it covers the content that describes you, the technical access AI crawlers have to your site, and the third-party sources that back you up. It is a young label rather than a settled discipline.
Is GEO the same as AEO or SEO?
GEO and AEO overlap heavily and are used interchangeably by vendors, so treat both as labels for the same broad work. Profound calls itself an answer engine optimisation platform while Otterly AI publishes GEO audits and GEO recommendation types, and the two products measure similar things. SEO is different: it is about where pages rank in search results, not about what an assistant writes in an answer.
What is the best GEO tool?
It depends on the job. For technical crawler and readiness audits, Otterly AI. For GEO joined to writing, Surfer SEO or Writesonic. For scale across engines and markets, Profound or Scrunch AI. For GEO beside an existing SEO programme, Semrush. For a plain-English read on whether the assistants recommend your business, GetRanked AI.
Do GEO tools change my website?
Most of them do not; they measure and recommend. Scrunch AI is the exception on this page: its Agent Experience Platform intercepts AI retrieval bots at the CDN layer and serves them a simplified version of each page. GetRanked AI does not change your site either.
Does GetRanked AI do GEO?
No, and it is honest about that. It does not write content, run site audits as a product or change what your pages serve. It measures whether leading AI assistants recommend your business, names who they recommend instead, and shows what evidence was missing, which is what you would use to decide where GEO effort should go.
Do any of these tools guarantee AI will recommend my business?
No. Nobody can guarantee what a model will say. Every product here measures, recommends or helps produce content, and the recommendation itself is still earned by the business.
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 did not hand out scores and we did not run paid trials of every product. Where a page does not mention something, the table says not publicly advertised.
How current is this guide?
The vendor pages were read on the date shown at the top. Plans, prices and platform coverage change often in this category; confirm on the vendor's 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. Nothing here is a paid placement 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: Otterly AI, Writesonic, Surfer SEO, Profound, Scrunch AI, Semrush.
What this guide deliberately leaves out
- Any ranking of GEO tools against each other: they do different jobs and we did not test them all under one protocol.
- Effectiveness claims about GEO itself, including vendor statements about how much more likely optimised content is to be cited: none could be checked, so none are repeated.
- Engine coverage per plan for most vendors: several sell engines as paid add-ons and the pages name engines unevenly.
- Customer counts, logos, case study figures and review ratings printed on vendor sites.
- Goodie AI and AthenaHQ detail beyond the comparison table: both are covered on the AEO guide and their own comparison pages, because their pages lead with answer engine wording rather than GEO.
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