Best AEO Tools: 9 Platforms to Optimize for AI Search in 2026

Your brand's next customer might never see a search result. They'll ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Mode a question — and the answer they get will either mention you or it won't. That shift is why the best AEO tools have gone from "nice to have" to strategic priority in the span of 18 months.

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing your content and digital presence so that AI-powered search engines cite, reference, and recommend your brand in their generated responses. If traditional SEO was about earning a spot on page one, AEO is about earning a spot inside the answer itself. For a deeper dive into the fundamentals, see our guide on What is AEO?.

The challenge? This category is moving fast. New answer engine optimization tools are launching monthly, established SEO platforms are bolting on AI visibility features, and pricing models are all over the map. Sorting signal from noise takes real evaluation.

That's what this guide delivers. We tested and researched nine platforms — spanning dedicated AI citation trackers, full-suite SEO tools with AEO add-ons, and content optimization engines — to help you find the right fit for your team, budget, and maturity level. Here are the best AEO tools for 2026.

What Makes a Great AEO Tool?

Before diving into individual platforms, it's worth defining what separates a genuinely useful AEO tool from one that just slaps an "AI" label on traditional SEO features. We evaluated every tool in this guide against five core criteria.

AI Citation Tracking

The foundation of any AEO platform is its ability to track where and how your brand gets mentioned in AI-generated responses. That means monitoring outputs from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot. The best tools don't just detect a mention — they show you the prompt that triggered it, the context around your brand name, and whether the AI linked back to your content.

AI Search Visibility Monitoring

Beyond individual citations, you need a tool that quantifies your overall AI visibility over time. Think of it as the AEO equivalent of rank tracking: a directional metric that tells you whether your share of voice in AI-generated answers is going up or down relative to competitors. Tools that offer a brand visibility index or share-of-voice scoring stand out here.

Content Optimization for AI Readability

Some tools go beyond monitoring and help you create content that AI engines are more likely to cite. This includes recommendations around structured data, schema markup, entity clarity, factual sourcing, and formatting patterns that align with how LLMs parse and summarize content. If a tool helps you write content that earns citations — not just track them — that's a meaningful differentiator.

Competitive Benchmarking

AEO doesn't happen in a vacuum. You need to know how your brand's AI presence compares to direct competitors. The strongest platforms let you benchmark citation frequency, sentiment, and positioning against a defined competitor set, giving you the context to prioritize efforts.

Reporting and Integrations

Finally, a great AEO tool needs to fit into your existing workflow. That means clean dashboards, exportable reports for stakeholder presentations, and integrations with the tools your team already uses — whether that's Google Search Console, your CMS, or a BI platform. If the insights live in a silo, they won't drive action.

No single tool nails all five criteria perfectly. The platforms below each bring different strengths, and the right choice depends on your team's size, budget, and how far along you are in your AEO journey.

Best AEO Tools for 2026

Checkthat — Best for AI Citation Monitoring & Audit

Checkthat is a brand visibility intelligence platform purpose-built for tracking how your brand appears in AI-generated responses. While many tools in this space started as SEO platforms and added AI features later, Checkthat was designed from the ground up for the AEO use case — and it shows in the depth of its citation monitoring.

Key Features:

• Tracks brand mentions and citations across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity in real-time
• Provides visibility trend analysis with historical tracking to spot directional shifts
• Delivers sentiment analysis for how AI platforms describe and position your brand
• Offers a free baseline tier, with paid upgrades only required for custom prompt monitoring
• Includes AEO audit capabilities to identify gaps in your AI citation profile
• Supports competitive benchmarking to compare your AI presence against rivals

Pricing: Free tier available; paid plans for custom prompt tracking (contact for pricing) Best For: B2B SaaS companies and marketing teams that want a dedicated, low-barrier entry point into AI citation monitoring. Verdict: Checkthat's free tier makes it the easiest way to get baseline AI visibility data without a budget commitment. The platform's singular focus on citation tracking means it goes deeper on that use case than multi-feature suites. If you're early in your AEO journey and want to understand where you stand before investing in a larger platform, start here.

Ahrefs Brand Radar — Best for Enterprise AI Visibility Analytics

Ahrefs Brand Radar extends one of the most trusted names in SEO into the AI visibility space. It monitors brand mentions across six AI platforms — Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot — and layers that data alongside Ahrefs' industry-leading backlink and keyword metrics. For teams already embedded in the Ahrefs ecosystem, Brand Radar offers a unified view of traditional and AI search performance.

Key Features:

• Multi-LLM monitoring across six AI platforms using 260M+ monthly prompts drawn from real user searches
• Branded search demand tracking alongside web visibility (linked and unlinked citations)
• Competitor benchmarking within the same dashboard as backlink and organic keyword data
• Share of voice and mention history trends over customizable date ranges
• Integrated ecosystem — AI data sits alongside your existing Ahrefs SEO metrics

Pricing: $199/month per individual AI platform index, or $699/month for the all-platform bundle (plus base Ahrefs subscription starting at $129/month) Best For: Enterprise and mid-market teams already using Ahrefs who want AI visibility data without adopting a separate tool. Verdict: Brand Radar's biggest strength is context. Seeing AI citation data next to your backlink profile and organic rankings makes it easier to connect AEO efforts to broader SEO strategy. The tradeoff is cost — a fully loaded setup runs $828–$1,148/month — and independent testing has flagged inconsistencies in ChatGPT and Perplexity mention detection. It's a strong choice for well-funded teams, but verify accuracy for your specific use case before committing.

Profound — Best for All-in-One AI Search Intelligence

Profound is the platform that most directly targets the "full-stack AEO" use case. Named a G2 Winter 2026 category leader, it combines AI search monitoring, agent analytics, prompt volume research, and AI-optimized content creation in a single platform. If you want one tool that handles both the tracking and the doing, Profound is the strongest contender.

Key Features:

• Answer Engine Insights: track AI visibility, brand mentions, and sentiment across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
• Agent Analytics: monitor how AI crawlers access and interpret your content in real time
• Prompt Volumes: discover what millions of people are asking AI platforms, with performance tracking by visibility and rank
• AI-optimized content agents with pre-built templates for listicles, how-tos, and comparison pages
• Shopping module for product visibility optimization in ChatGPT Shopping
• Page-level citation tracking with sentiment scoring

Pricing: Starts at $99/month (Starter); Growth and Enterprise tiers available Best For: Marketing teams that want monitoring and content creation capabilities in one platform, without stitching together multiple point solutions. Verdict: Profound earns its "all-in-one" positioning. The combination of prompt research, citation tracking, and content generation means you can identify opportunities, create optimized content, and measure results without leaving the platform. The Starter tier at $99/month is competitive for the feature set, though teams with complex needs will likely land on Growth or Enterprise pricing. This is arguably the most complete AEO analysis tool on the market today.

Otterly.AI — Best for Affordable AI Search Tracking

Otterly.AI has carved out a niche as the accessible, budget-friendly entry point for AI search visibility monitoring. With a Lite plan starting at $29/month, it removes the financial barrier that keeps many SMBs and startups from tracking their AI presence at all. Don't mistake affordable for lightweight, though — Otterly packs a surprising amount of functionality into its lower tiers.

Key Features:

• Monitors brand and website citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot
• AI Prompt Research tool converts keywords, brands, or URLs into the search prompts your audience actually uses
• Brand Visibility Index tracks your AI search presence over time with weekly domain ranking updates
• GEO Audit conducts generative engine optimization audits with built-in SWOT analysis
• Website Citations Gap Analysis identifies which content AI engines cite most (and what's missing)
• Link Citations Analysis shows which of your pages get referenced and where

Pricing: Lite from $29/month (15 prompts); Standard $189/month (100 prompts); Premium $489/month (1,000 prompts) Best For: Startups, SMBs, and freelancers who need affordable AEO tools without sacrificing core tracking capabilities. Verdict: Otterly.AI is the tool we'd recommend to any team asking, "How do we start tracking AI visibility without a big budget?" The Lite tier is genuinely useful for getting initial benchmarks, and the GEO Audit feature adds strategic value beyond raw monitoring. The main limitation is prompt volume — at 15 prompts on Lite, you'll outgrow it quickly if you're tracking multiple brands or product lines. Plan to move to Standard as you scale.

Semrush AI Toolkit — Best for Teams Already Using Semrush

Semrush's AI Toolkit (also branded as the AI Visibility Toolkit) takes a familiar approach: extend an established SEO platform with AI-specific modules. Launched in early 2025, the toolkit adds AI market share tracking, prompt monitoring, sentiment analysis, and AI search site audits to Semrush's already comprehensive feature set. For teams with existing Semrush subscriptions, it's the lowest-friction path to AEO.

Key Features:

• AI Market Share tracking measures brand appearance in AI-generated search results with competitor benchmarking
• Prompt Tracking monitors visibility for specific prompts on Google AI Mode and ChatGPT
• Prompt Research discovers AI search topics with volume and difficulty metrics
• AI Search Site Audit identifies technical issues blocking AI crawlers from accessing your content
• Brand Performance module analyzes share of voice and narratives driving your reputation
• Sentiment and brand perception analysis across AI platforms

Pricing: Included with Semrush plans (starting at $139.95/month); AI Toolkit includes 100 pages, 25 prompts, and 300 daily queries at base tier Best For: Marketing teams with active Semrush subscriptions who want to add AI visibility tracking without adopting another vendor. Verdict: The AI Toolkit is a natural extension for Semrush loyalists. The AI Search Site Audit is a standout — few competitors offer a dedicated crawl that checks whether AI bots can actually access and parse your content. The main drawback is prompt volume. At 25 tracked prompts on the base tier, serious AEO monitoring will require upgrades. If you're already paying for Semrush, this is worth activating. If you're not, a purpose-built AEO tool likely offers better depth per dollar.

Surfer SEO — Best for AI-Optimized Content Creation

Surfer SEO approaches AEO from the content side. Rather than starting with citation monitoring, Surfer focuses on helping you create content that AI engines are more likely to surface and cite. Its Content Editor 3.0 analyzes over 500 on-page signals, and the Gen-3 AI Writer optimizes for E-E-A-T signals rather than keyword density. In 2026, Surfer added AI Search Tracking to monitor brand visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.

Key Features:

• Content Editor 3.0 with real-time feedback on semantic saturation, NLP entities, and structural hierarchy
• Surfer AI Writer (Gen-3) generates content optimized for E-E-A-T and AI readability
• SERP Analyzer examines top 50 results for speed, schema, media usage, and backlinks
• Keyword research with topic clustering to build topical authority — critical for AI citation eligibility
• AI Search Tracking monitors brand visibility across major AI platforms
• Integrations with Google Docs and WordPress; supports 40+ languages

Pricing: Essential $99/month; Scale $219/month; Enterprise from $999/month (20% savings on annual billing) Best For: Content teams that want to produce AI-citation-worthy content at scale, with monitoring as a secondary capability. Verdict: Surfer's strength is on the creation side of the AEO equation. If your bottleneck is producing enough high-quality, well-structured content to earn AI citations, Surfer is hard to beat. The AI Search Tracking addition makes it a more complete AI SEO optimization tool than it was a year ago, though dedicated monitoring platforms still offer deeper citation analytics. Think of Surfer as your AEO content engine, paired with a separate monitoring tool for full coverage.

Peec AI — Best for Agency-Scale AI Monitoring

Peec AI is built for teams managing AI visibility across multiple brands — making it a natural fit for agencies and in-house teams overseeing a portfolio. With unlimited seats and unlimited country support on every plan, Peec removes the per-user pricing friction that makes other tools expensive at scale. Over 1,500 marketing teams trust it for daily AI search monitoring.

Key Features:

• Tracks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews with daily data updates
• Custom prompt setup with daily tracking intervals for granular monitoring
• Competitive benchmarking and citation analysis with rank position tracking
• Visibility score trends show directional movement over time
• Unlimited seats and unlimited countries on all plans — no per-user surcharges
• Additional AI model tracking (Gemini, Claude) available as add-ons

Pricing: Starter €89/month (25 prompts); Pro €199/month (100 prompts); Enterprise custom (300+ prompts). Up to 15% savings on annual billing. Best For: Agencies and multi-brand teams that need scalable AI monitoring without per-seat pricing eating into margins. Verdict: Peec AI's unlimited seats model is the headline differentiator. For agencies billing clients for AEO reporting, the math works out significantly better than platforms charging per user. The Pro tier at €199/month with 100 tracked prompts offers solid value for mid-sized agencies. The limitation is that Peec is purely a monitoring and analytics platform — it won't help you create or optimize content. Pair it with a content tool like Surfer for a complete workflow.

SE Ranking — Best for SMBs New to AEO

SE Ranking has evolved from a straightforward rank tracker into a comprehensive AI SEO optimization platform. Its AI Search Toolkit includes an AI Overviews Tracker, AI Mode Tracker, and a Unified AI Visibility Tracker spanning ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. For SMBs that want traditional SEO and AEO capabilities in one affordable platform, SE Ranking offers the most balanced feature-to-price ratio in this list.

Key Features:

• AI Overviews (AIO) Tracker monitors AI-powered snippets in Google search results with geographic coverage
• AI Mode Tracker designed for Google's conversational AI Mode with link prominence analysis
• Unified AI Visibility Tracker extends monitoring to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini
• GEO Research module for analyzing domains and building AI-optimized content strategy
• Full traditional SEO suite: rank tracking, backlink monitoring, website audits, and content marketing tools
• Competitor benchmarking across both traditional and AI search surfaces

Pricing: Core $129/month; Growth $279/month; Enterprise custom. AI Search module add-on: $71–$276/month. Best For: SMBs and growing teams that want a single platform for both traditional SEO and emerging AEO capabilities. Verdict: SE Ranking is the best option for teams that aren't ready to invest in a dedicated AEO tool alongside their existing SEO platform. The integrated approach means you get rank tracking, site audits, backlink analysis, and AI visibility monitoring under one subscription. The AI Search module is an add-on, which keeps base pricing accessible, but total cost can climb once you layer in the AI features. If you're an SMB choosing your first all-in-one SEO-and-AEO platform, SE Ranking deserves serious consideration.

Schema App — Best for Structured Data at Scale

Schema App takes a fundamentally different approach to AEO. Instead of tracking AI citations after the fact, it focuses on the upstream problem: making your content machine-readable so that AI engines can accurately understand and cite it. Through advanced schema markup deployment and knowledge graph management, Schema App helps ensure your entities and content relationships are clearly defined for both traditional search and AI platforms.

Key Features:

• Schema App Editor for building and deploying structured data markup without developer resources
• Entity Hub for managing and optimizing your brand's knowledge graph to improve AI and search accuracy
• Schema Performance Analytics to measure the impact of structured data on visibility
• CMS integrations for automated markup deployment across your site
• Support for complex, nested schema types that go beyond basic organization and article markup
• Enterprise option includes dedicated Customer Success Manager and quarterly business reviews

Pricing: Pro from $50/month (1 domain); multi-domain plans up to $638/month (50 domains); Enterprise custom. Best For: Enterprise and mid-market teams with complex sites that need structured data deployed at scale to improve AI readability and citation eligibility. Verdict: Schema App is the only tool on this list that attacks AEO from the structured data angle — and that makes it a powerful complement to any monitoring platform. Well-implemented schema markup helps AI engines understand your content's entities, relationships, and authority signals, making citations more likely. The Pro tier is reasonably priced for single-domain sites, though multi-domain and enterprise deployments get expensive. If your schema is a mess (or nonexistent), fixing it with Schema App may yield more AEO impact than any amount of monitoring.

Comparison Table

• Tool: Checkthat | Best For: AI Citation Monitoring & Audit | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — trend analysis + sentiment | Pricing Starts At: Free tier available
• Tool: Ahrefs Brand Radar | Best For: Enterprise AI Visibility Analytics | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — 6 AI platforms | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — share of voice + benchmarking | Pricing Starts At: $199/mo (+ Ahrefs base)
• Tool: Profound | Best For: All-in-One AI Search Intelligence | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — visibility index + agent analytics | Pricing Starts At: $99/mo
• Tool: Otterly.AI | Best For: Affordable AI Search Tracking | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — 6 AI platforms | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — Brand Visibility Index | Pricing Starts At: $29/mo
• Tool: Semrush AI Toolkit | Best For: Teams Already Using Semrush | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — Google AI Mode, ChatGPT | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — market share + site audit | Pricing Starts At: $139.95/mo (Semrush plan)
• Tool: Surfer SEO | Best For: AI-Optimized Content Creation | AI Citation Tracking: Added in 2026 | AI Visibility Monitoring: Basic monitoring | Pricing Starts At: $99/mo
• Tool: Peec AI | Best For: Agency-Scale AI Monitoring | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — visibility scores + daily updates | Pricing Starts At: €89/mo
• Tool: SE Ranking | Best For: SMBs New to AEO | AI Citation Tracking: Yes — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | AI Visibility Monitoring: Yes — AIO + AI Mode trackers | Pricing Starts At: $129/mo (+ AI add-on)
• Tool: Schema App | Best For: Structured Data at Scale | AI Citation Tracking: No — upstream optimization focus | AI Visibility Monitoring: No — focuses on markup/readability | Pricing Starts At: $50/mo

How to Choose the Right AEO Tool for Your Team

The right tool depends less on which platform has the most features and more on where your team sits today. Here's how to think about it by segment.

Startups and SMBs should prioritize accessibility and value. If you're exploring AEO for the first time, start with Checkthat's free tier to establish a baseline, or Otterly.AI's Lite plan at $29/month for prompt-based tracking. These are genuine affordable AEO tools for startups — not watered-down demos. SE Ranking is the pick if you also need traditional SEO capabilities in the same platform and want to avoid managing multiple subscriptions.

Agencies and consultancies managing multiple client brands should look at Peec AI's unlimited-seats model or Otterly.AI's Standard and Premium tiers. The economics of per-seat pricing break down quickly when you're staffing across accounts. Peec's daily tracking intervals and competitive benchmarking also map well to client reporting workflows.

Enterprise and mid-market teams with established SEO programs are best served by Ahrefs Brand Radar (if already in the Ahrefs ecosystem), Profound (for the most comprehensive standalone AEO platform), or Semrush's AI Toolkit (for Semrush-native teams). These are the best AI platforms for answer engine optimization at scale, with the depth and integrations that larger organizations need. Layer in Schema App if your structured data needs attention — it's the foundation that makes everything else work harder.

Regardless of team size, the most effective approach combines a monitoring tool with a content creation or optimization tool. No single platform does both perfectly yet.