AI Visibility Tracking 2026: Tools, Trackers & Analytics — The Definitive Guide
AI visibility tracking (also called AI visibility tracker, AI brand monitoring, AI brand tracking, or an AI citation tool) monitors how often, how prominently, and how favorably AI engines — ChatGPT (1B+ monthly app users, ~2.5B prompts/day as of June 2026), Google AI Mode + AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, Gemini — mention and cite your brand. An AI visibility tool is the software that automates this: daily prompt runs, citation rate, share of voice, brand mentions, competitor gaps. This guide covers the methodology, KPI framework, 90-day rollout, disambiguation across the category vocabulary, and links to the ranked 10-tool listicle. Category leaders as of 2026-07-20: Profound (sole G2 W26 AEO Leader, $96M Series C at $1B), Peec AI ($10M ARR), TurboAudit (audit-first + lowest entry), Otterly.ai (cheapest continuous monitoring at $29/mo).
68%
Google searches ending without a click (early 2026 — citation IS the click)
1B / 2.5B
ChatGPT monthly app users / daily prompts (June 2026)
38%
AIO citations from top-10 organic (down from 76% year prior)
30–40%
PAWC lift from top-3 Princeton GEO methods (best single method +41%)
The 60-second answer
Definition. AI visibility tracking is the practice of monitoring how often, how prominently, and how favorably AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, Claude) mention and cite your brand in their generated answers. The discipline emerged with Profound's 2024 launch of Answer Engine Optimization; see AEO and GEO for the two optimization disciplines beneath the tracking layer.
Why now. SparkToro 2026: 68% of Google searches ended without a click in early 2026 — citation IS the click. Ahrefs March 2026 (863K SERPs, 4M AIO URLs): only 38% of AIO citations now come from top-10 organic — down from 76% the year prior. The rank-vs-citation decoupling means traditional SEO tools can't see what's happening. Semrush 2026 AI Visibility Index (126M prompts Jan–Apr): ChatGPT averages 15 citations per response; Gemini averages 3; top-5 domains capture 38% of all citations.
Category state (verified 2026-07-20). Profound is the sole G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader with a $96M Series C at $1B valuation (Feb 2026, Fortune / Wilson Sonsini). Peec AI ($10M ARR, $29M funding, 2,500+ customers) leads the mid-market self-serve tier. Scrunch AI was acquired by Sitecore on June 3, 2026 for $225M. Google Search Console added GenAI Performance Reports the same day. FAQPage rich results were retired May 7, 2026 (schema still valid, still parsed). See the ranked 10-tool listicle at /blog/best-ai-visibility-tools-2026. For the broader brand-awareness lens, see brand visibility in AI search.
Why AI visibility tracking matters in 2026
Zero-click is the baseline. SparkToro 2026: 68% of Google searches ended without a click in early 2026. The AI-answer surface is where attention lands — the citation IS the click. Measuring only Google SERP position now measures a shrinking slice of demand capture.
The citation upside is concentrated. Princeton's GEO research (Aggarwal et al., arXiv:2311.09735, KDD 2024) isolated which content edits move the needle: the top-3 methods (Quotation density, Statistics density, Cite Sources) produced 30–40% Position-Adjusted Word Count lift across ~10,000 queries on GPT-3.5-turbo, with the best single method reaching +41% and a +115.1% equalizer effect on position-5 pages. Semrush 2026 AI Visibility Index (Jan–Apr 2026, 126M prompts): ChatGPT averages 15 citations per response, Gemini averages 3; the top-5 domains capture 38% of all citations, top-20 capture 66%.
Traditional rankings no longer predict AI citations. Ahrefs March 2026 AIO study (863K SERPs, 4M AIO URLs): only 38% of AIO citations come from top-10 organic — down from 76% the year prior. The rank-vs-citation decoupling means SEO tools can't see what's happening. Google added AI Overviews and AI Mode impression reporting to Search Console on June 3, 2026 — but only at the impression level, not citation-level. Microsoft Clarity shipped its Citations dashboard ~May 2026.
The schema question is more nuanced than vendors say. Ahrefs May 11 2026 DiD schema study (1,885 pages, 4,000 controls, Aug 2025–Mar 2026): adding schema produced AIO −4.6% (statistically notable), AI Mode +2.4% (noise), ChatGPT +2.2% (noise). Big caveat: all study pages already had 100+ AIO citations before schema was added, so this is a ceiling test, not a baseline test. Schema still matters as a signal — just don't expect a citation boost from adding it to already-cited pages.
The forward problem. ChatGPT crossed 1B monthly active app users in June 2026 and processes ~2.5B prompts/day. Google Search Console GenAI Reports launched June 3, 2026. Scrunch AI was acquired by Sitecore for $225M on the same day (Bloomberg / Sitecore) — the first major consolidation event in the category. The ChatGPT-vs-Google surface split is now permanent.
See full source list in Sources below.
Category leaders (see the ranked listicle for full analysis)
The four vendors that anchor each price band. Pricing verified 2026-07-20. For the full ranked 10-tool list with our published 6-criterion weighted rubric, see /blog/best-ai-visibility-tools-2026.
Profound
Enterprise / broadest engine coverage
Starter $99/mo · Growth $399/mo · Enterprise $2K–$5K+/mo (third-party estimate; verified 2026-07-20)
Sole G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader; $96M Series C at $1B (Feb 2026); 700+ enterprise (10% Fortune 500); 400M+ prompts panel
Peec AI
Fastest-growing mid-market self-serve
Starter $95/mo · Pro $245/mo · Advanced $495/mo (verified 2026-07-20)
$10M ARR, $29M funding, 2,500+ customers (Berlin+NYC); 3 engines base with paid 4th add-on
TurboAudit
Audit-first + light monitoring at lowest entry
Free $0 · Starter $39.99/mo · Growth $189.99/mo · Scale $549.99/mo (verified 2026-07-20)
250+ signals, 7-dimension Princeton-anchored audit + 15–150 monitoring prompts × 3 engines
Otterly.ai
Small team + 6+ engines at low cost
Lite $29/mo · Standard $189/mo · Premium $489/mo (verified 2026-07-20)
Gartner Cool Vendor 2025; bootstrapped European vendor (not Otter.ai transcription)
See the ranked list of 10 AI visibility tools with a published 6-criterion weighted rubric → Best AI Visibility Tools 2026
Also covered on the listicle: Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit ($99/mo add-on), Ahrefs Brand Radar ($828/mo all-in), AthenaHQ ($295/mo Self-Serve — Claude in base), Scrunch AI (acquired by Sitecore June 3 2026 for $225M), Frase ($49/mo Starter), SE Ranking / SE Visible ($150–$240/mo bundle).
Compare in depth: TurboAudit vs Profound · TurboAudit vs Peec AI
AI visibility tracking vs traditional SEO tracking
Same goal (be visible to your audience). Different surfaces, signals, statistics, and tools.
| Dimension | Traditional SEO Tracking | AI Visibility Tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Surface | Google SERP ranks (blue links + features) | AI-generated answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO, Gemini, Copilot, Claude) |
| Primary metric | SERP position | Brand Mention Rate + Citation Rate |
| Determinism | Deterministic (rank doesn't shift hourly) | Probabilistic — <1-in-1,000 odds of identical brand list across runs (Fishkin & O'Donnell ~3,000 runs) |
| Volatility | Quarterly algorithm updates | 40–60% monthly URL drift on same query |
| Sample size required | 1 query = 1 rank | Minimum 30 runs per query per platform for 95% CI (Maximus Labs) |
| Tooling | Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, AccuRanker | Profound, AthenaHQ, Peec, TurboAudit, Otterly, HubSpot Grader |
| Cadence | Daily rank checks | Daily prompt re-runs (most enterprise tools) |
| Pricing range | $99–$500+/mo | Free (HubSpot Grader) to $2,000+/mo (enterprise) |
| Coverage | Google + Bing index | 10+ AI engines (varies by tool) |
| What it diagnoses | Why content doesn't rank | Why brand isn't mentioned or cited |
Most teams now run both. Traditional SEO tools (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, AccuRanker) for SERP ranks and backlinks. AI visibility tracking tools (Profound, AthenaHQ, Peec, Otterly, TurboAudit) for citation rate, mention frequency, and Share of Voice. They complement each other; neither replaces the other.
How AI visibility tracking actually works
Two methods are in use across the category as of mid-2026. Most enterprise tools combine both.
Method 1 — Prompt simulation
Vendor maintains a customer-defined prompt set, re-runs prompts daily through engine APIs or direct interfaces, parses each response for brand mentions, position, sentiment, and cited URLs. Profound publicly emphasizes "direct-interface monitoring" rather than API-only, claiming it captures behavior the API misses.
Used by: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly, AthenaHQ, HubSpot AEO Grader, Semrush, Evertune, TurboAudit.
Method 2 — Server-log agent analytics
Parsing site logs for AI crawler/agent user agents (ChatGPT-User, GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, GoogleOther) to detect when AI engines actually fetch your pages. Tells you who crawled — not whether your brand made the cut.
Used by: Hall AI (lead), Scrunch, Profound (combined).
Both have limitations. Prompt simulation depends on prompt set quality and is API-rate-limited; some tools query through frontend interfaces to avoid sampling bias. Server-log analytics tells you crawler behavior but not citation outcome. Combined approach wins for enterprise reporting. Google Search Console added AI Overviews/AI Mode impression reporting on June 3, 2026 (CMSWire); Microsoft Clarity added AI channel groups on August 29, 2025 — both impression-only, not citation-level.
How to start AI visibility tracking (7 steps)
The end-to-end process — from prompt selection to statistical rigor to tool selection to optimization. Ship the top 3 fixes within a week.
- 1
Define your prompt set
Start with 20–30 priority prompts to baseline; expand to 30–300 for full coverage. Mix branded ("is [your brand] good for X?"), unbranded category ("best [category] tools 2026"), and competitor-vs ("[your brand] vs [competitor]") prompts.
Fix: Document prompt rationale alongside each one. Run a TurboAudit Free audit + monitoring preview (5 audits, 3 engines) to validate prompt selection before committing to paid daily tracking.
- 2
Pick which engines to track
Tier 1 mandatory mid-2026: ChatGPT + ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews + AI Mode (1B monthly users at I/O 2026), Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude. Tier 2 commonly offered: Grok (xAI), DeepSeek, Meta AI. Pick at least 3 — Profound, Peec, and Otterly all start with 3 base engines.
Fix: Confirm vendor pricing scales with engine count (Peec charges €20–30 per added engine). Don't pay for engines you don't sell into.
- 3
Set sampling rigor (the statistical core)
Maximus Labs methodology: minimum 30 sampling runs per query per platform with 95% confidence intervals. The CI is the primary deliverable, not the point estimate, because AI citations vary 40–60% month-over-month. Lighter floor (Averi.ai, LLM Pulse): 3–5 runs per prompt per engine.
Fix: Don't trust any single-run snapshot for SoV reporting. Demand CI bands. Most tools default to under-sampling for cost; this is a vendor-selection criterion.
- 4
Choose your tracking method
Two methods, most enterprise tools combine. Method 1: prompt simulation — re-run prompts daily through engine APIs or direct interfaces, parse responses for brand mentions, position, sentiment, cited URLs. Method 2: server-log agent analytics — parse site logs for AI crawler user agents (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, GoogleOther) to detect actual fetches.
Fix: Prompt simulation alone misses crawler reality; server-logs alone miss whether you made the cut. Profound emphasizes direct-interface monitoring over API-only; Hall AI leads on server-log analytics.
- 5
Define your KPIs — mention vs citation matter
7-metric framework (Averi 2026): Citation Frequency, Brand Visibility Score, AI Share of Voice, Citation Position, AI Referral Traffic, AI-Attributed Pipeline, Branded Search Lift. Critical distinction: Mention = brand named in answer (recognition); Citation = your URL linked (drives referral traffic). They move independently — revenue correlates more with citation.
Fix: Pick 3 primary KPIs for executive reporting: Citation Rate, Share of Voice (with CI), Missed Prompts (queries where competitors appear but you don't).
- 6
Pick a tool that fits scope + budget
Verified 2026-07-20. Free: TurboAudit Free (5 audits + 3-engine monitoring preview) + GSC GenAI Reports + Microsoft Clarity Citations. Budget continuous: Otterly Lite $29/mo, TurboAudit Starter $39.99/mo, Frase Starter $49/mo. Mid-market: Peec Starter $95/mo → Advanced $495/mo; Otterly Standard $189/mo; Profound Growth $399/mo; AthenaHQ Self-Serve $295/mo. Enterprise: Profound $2,000–$5,000+/mo (third-party estimate — verify in demo); AthenaHQ Enterprise $2,000+/mo.
Fix: Pricing scales with prompts, engines, and domains. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is $99/mo standalone (25-prompt cap, 1 domain) or bundled in Semrush One from $199/mo. Ahrefs Brand Radar is $828/mo all-in for full 6-engine tracking (Ahrefs $129 + Brand Radar $699).
- 7
Measure → optimize → re-measure
Average B2B SaaS AI Presence Score: 56.9/100; 44% of 50 firms scored under 50 (DerivateX 2026 benchmark). Top quartile cites at 31×/mo; bottom quartile at 3.7×/mo — an 8.4× gap (Data-Mania 2026). The gap closes with Princeton GEO levers: the top-3 methods (Quotation, Statistics, Cite Sources) produced 30–40% PAWC lift, with the best single method reaching +41% (Aggarwal et al., arXiv:2311.09735, KDD 2024).
Fix: Track monthly. Apply edits weekly. Re-baseline quarterly. The Grüns case study (AthenaHQ, Q3 2025) went 2.0% → 12.6% SoV in 60 days with this loop.
Which AI engines to track in 2026
The mandatory engine list keeps growing. Google AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly users at I/O 2026 — it's no longer optional.
Tier 1 — Mandatory
- ChatGPT + ChatGPT Search
- Google AI Overviews
- Google AI Mode (1B+ users May 2026)
- Perplexity
- Microsoft Copilot
- Google Gemini
- Claude
Tier 2 — Commonly offered
- Grok (xAI)
- DeepSeek
- Meta AI
- Amazon Rufus
Profound and AthenaHQ are the broadest here.
Tier 3 — Regional / emerging
- Mistral Le Chat
- Yandex AI Mode
- Baidu AI
No major Western vendor surfaces these as standard targets as of June 2026.
KPIs and metrics: the 7-metric framework
Averi's 2026 framework is the most cited industry standard. Distill to 3 for executive reporting.
Citation Frequency
How often your URL appears as a cited source in AI answers across the prompt set.
Brand Visibility Score
Composite metric — appearance rate × position × sentiment. Used for trend reporting.
AI Share of Voice
% of mentions your brand gets vs competitors in the same prompt set. See /ai-share-of-voice for full methodology.
Citation Position
Where your URL appears in the cited-sources list (early = stronger signal).
AI Referral Traffic
Sessions tagged as originating from AI engines (UTM tagging + Microsoft Clarity AI traffic detection).
AI-Attributed Pipeline
Pipeline value (B2B) tied to AI-influenced first-touch attribution. Forrester recommends this over click metrics for AI reporting.
Branded Search Lift
Increase in branded Google searches following AI exposure — proxy for unmeasurable AI-driven awareness.
Critical distinction: Mention ≠ Citation. A URL can be cited without the brand being named (recognition gap). The brand can be named without a URL link (referral gap). Revenue correlates more strongly with citation; awareness correlates more with mention. Track both. See /ai-share-of-voice for SoV calculation methodology.
Brand case studies: what good looks like
Five verified public case studies (all AthenaHQ, 2025–2026). Common thread: daily measurement + targeted content edits + dedicated team.
Grüns
AI Share of Voice 2.0% → 12.6% in 60 days (6×); citation rate 0.3% → 7.0% (23×); brand mentions 4% → 25%. ~70% of citations from Athena-created content.
Source: AthenaHQ public case studies, Q3 2025
Lago
AI Overview impressions 3% → 33% (11×); ~50% of booked demos influenced by Athena GEO work.
Source: AthenaHQ public case studies, 2026
Rootly
10× citation growth across AI engines.
Source: AthenaHQ public case studies, 2026
AutoRFP.ai
10× ChatGPT traffic.
Source: AthenaHQ public case studies, 2026
Popl.co
38% MoM lead growth from AI search.
Source: AthenaHQ public case studies, 2026
The pattern. Generic content doesn't move AI visibility. Differentiated content with high citation density (Princeton: top-3 methods — Quotation, Statistics, Cite Sources — delivered 30–40% PAWC lift; see the 7 AI search ranking factors) plus daily measurement and tight iteration produces the multipliers above. None of these brands achieved this on a quarterly check-in cadence.
The 90-day rollout: from zero to measured
How a team that has never tracked AI visibility gets to a defensible Day-90 baseline with confidence intervals.
Days 1–30 · Foundation
- Define 20–30 priority prompts (branded + unbranded + competitor-vs)
- Pick 3+ engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO / AI Mode at minimum)
- Start free: TurboAudit Free (5 audits + 3-engine monitoring preview) + GSC GenAI Reports + Microsoft Clarity Citations
- Pair with a page-level AI search visibility audit to diagnose citation gaps
- Pick your paid tier when ready: Otterly $29 / TurboAudit $39.99 / Peec $95 / Profound $99 → mid-market → enterprise
Days 31–60 · Measurement
- Daily tracking begins with 30+ runs per query per platform for 95% CI
- Compute baseline AI SoV with confidence intervals
- Identify Missed Prompts (queries where competitors appear but you don't)
- Set executive reporting cadence (weekly Citation Rate, monthly SoV + CI)
Days 61–90 · Optimization
- Apply Princeton GEO levers: Quotation density, Statistics density, and Cite Sources — the top-3 methods produced 30–40% PAWC lift band in the benchmark
- Schema content-match validation (Ahrefs May 2026: schema alone is NOT a citation signal — content-match matters)
- Close citation gaps on Missed Prompts via dedicated content
- Re-baseline at Day 90; compare to Day 1 with CI overlap test
Frequently asked questions
What is AI visibility tracking?+
AI visibility tracking is the practice of monitoring how often, how prominently, and how favorably AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini, Claude) mention and cite your brand in their generated answers. The category took shape in 2024 alongside Profound's launch of Answer Engine Optimization and grew from 7 to 150+ tools in G2's AEO category through 2026.
How is it different from AI brand monitoring?+
Mostly overlapping but with a slight emphasis difference. AI brand monitoring tends to emphasize mention frequency and sentiment. AI visibility tracking is the broader umbrella, covering both mentions and URL-level citations across AI surfaces. In practice the same tools (Profound, Peec, Otterly, AthenaHQ, TurboAudit) sell both labels.
How is it different from rank tracking?+
Rank tracking measures SERP position in deterministic search engines. AI visibility tracking measures probabilistic appearances in AI-generated answers. The Fishkin & O'Donnell study (~3,000 runs, 2026) found less than 1-in-1,000 odds of two AI runs producing the same ordered brand list. AI citations also shift 40–60% month-to-month for identical queries (ASEO Hosting / Profound 2025–2026). Different measurement discipline required.
Why can't I just use Google Search Console?+
Google added AI Overviews and AI Mode impression reporting to Search Console on June 3, 2026 — but only at the impression level. You see that your URL appeared, not whether your brand was mentioned in the answer, the position of the mention, the sentiment, or what other sources were cited alongside. For citation-level intelligence and cross-engine coverage, dedicated AI visibility tracking is still needed.
What KPIs should I track?+
The Averi 2026 7-metric framework: Citation Frequency, Brand Visibility Score, AI Share of Voice, Citation Position, AI Referral Traffic, AI-Attributed Pipeline, Branded Search Lift. For executive reporting, distill to 3: Citation Rate, Share of Voice (with confidence intervals), and Missed Prompts. Critical: distinguish Mention (brand named) from Citation (URL linked) — revenue correlates with citation.
How often should I track AI visibility?+
Daily. AI citations shift 40–60% month-to-month for the same query (ASEO/Profound 2025–2026). Weekly cadence misses the majority of drift between checkpoints. Most enterprise tools default to daily re-runs; Hall AI Lite is the rare exception at weekly. Manual monitoring is too sparse to be reliable.
What's the cheapest AI visibility tracking tool? (verified 2026-07-20)+
Free tier: TurboAudit Free ($0, 5 audits/mo, 1 domain, no credit card) plus Google Search Console GenAI Performance Reports (impressions, free since June 3 2026) plus Microsoft Clarity Citations (~May 2026, AI referral traffic). Cheapest continuous paid monitoring: Otterly.ai Lite at $29/mo (15 prompts). Next up: TurboAudit Starter $39.99/mo, Frase Starter $49/mo, Peec Starter $95/mo, Profound Starter $99/mo (ChatGPT-only, 50 prompts), Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit $99/mo add-on. See /blog/best-ai-visibility-tools-2026 for the full ranked list with verified pricing.
What's the difference between AI visibility tracking and AI brand monitoring?+
In 2026 vendor practice, mostly interchangeable — the same platforms (Profound, Peec, Otterly, AthenaHQ, TurboAudit) sell both labels. The subtle difference: 'AI visibility tracking' is the umbrella term used more by SEO/growth buyers, covering both brand mentions and URL-level citations across AI surfaces. 'AI brand monitoring' emphasizes brand mention frequency and sentiment specifically, and tends to attract brand/comms buyers. Look at the KPIs the vendor foregrounds — mention rate + sentiment = brand monitoring lean; citation rate + share of voice + missed prompts = visibility tracking lean.
How do I track brand mentions in AI answers?+
Three-step process. (1) Define a prompt set: 20–30 branded, unbranded category, and competitor-vs prompts. (2) Pick a tool: for free, combine TurboAudit Free (5 audits/mo + 3-engine monitoring preview) with GSC GenAI Reports and Microsoft Clarity Citations. For paid, start with Otterly Lite ($29/mo) or TurboAudit Starter ($39.99/mo); scale to Peec ($95/mo) or Profound ($99+/mo) when you need more prompts or engines. (3) Run the prompts daily with 3+ samples per prompt per engine — AI answers are probabilistic, so a single-shot snapshot is noise. See the 90-day rollout section above.
Can GA4 track AI referral traffic?+
Partially, and getting better. Out of the box, GA4 buckets ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot referrals under 'Referral' or 'Direct' depending on the click's referrer header — not as a dedicated channel. To track properly: (1) add UTM parameters where you can (Perplexity often preserves them, ChatGPT often strips them); (2) build a custom channel group in GA4 that maps chatgpt.com, chat.openai.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, and copilot.microsoft.com to a new 'AI Search' channel; (3) supplement with Microsoft Clarity's Citations dashboard (shipped ~May 2026), which detects AI-referred sessions more reliably; (4) use Google Search Console's GenAI Performance Reports (June 3, 2026) for the AIO + AI Mode impression layer. None of these is citation-level — they measure the click after the citation. For citation-level data you still need a dedicated AI visibility tool.
Is the TurboAudit free tier enough to start?+
For validation, yes. TurboAudit Free ($0, no credit card) includes 5 audits/mo (250+ signals across 7 dimensions) and a 3-engine monitoring preview (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini). Combine with Google Search Console GenAI Performance Reports (impressions, free since June 3, 2026) and Microsoft Clarity Citations (~May 2026, AI referral traffic detection) for the strongest free stack in the category. Upgrade to Starter $39.99/mo when you need more audits, 15 monitoring prompts × 3 engines daily, or the 20-page site-wide crawler. See the ranked 10-tool listicle for paid alternatives.
How many prompts do I need?+
Industry consensus mid-2026: 20–30 priority prompts to baseline; 30–300 for full coverage daily. Sample size per prompt is more important than count: Maximus Labs methodology requires 30+ runs per query per platform with 95% confidence intervals because 40–60% monthly drift makes single-shot measurements noise.
How is AI Share of Voice calculated?+
There is no industry-standard formula as of mid-2026. HubSpot AEO Grader: SoV = 10/100 of overall AEO score, computed as % of 100 test queries where your brand appears vs competitors. Semrush Enterprise AIO: SoV = mention count + position within response, aggregated across prompts, weighted by prompt volume since Oct 2025. Profound: visibility score + SoV across 11 platforms using direct-interface (not API) responses. Generic industry formula: (Your Mentions ÷ Total Mentions in same prompt set) × 100. See /ai-share-of-voice for full methodology.
Profound vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit — which? (verified 2026-07-20)+
Profound is the enterprise pick: sole G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader, $96M Series C at $1B valuation (Feb 2026, Fortune / Wilson Sonsini), 700+ enterprise customers (10% of Fortune 500). Enterprise covers 10 AI engines; Starter $99/mo (ChatGPT-only, 50 prompts); Growth $399/mo (3 engines, 100 prompts); Enterprise $2,000–$5,000+/mo (third-party estimate — verify in demo). Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is the 'stack, don't switch' pick if you're already on Semrush: $99/mo add-on (1 domain, 25 prompts), or bundled inside Semrush One (Starter $199/mo, Pro+ $299/mo, Advanced $549/mo — annual pricing available). Reviewer consensus: Semrush's bolt-on is weaker than dedicated tools on citation-graph depth, but the workflow convenience is real if you're already in the Semrush ecosystem.
How do I get started with TurboAudit?+
Start with the free plan: 5 audits, 1 domain, AI monitoring preview. The audit identifies the citation-eligibility gaps (250+ checks across 7 AI-specific dimensions). The monitoring preview shows the 12-section dashboard (Brand Visibility Index, Competitor Share, Trend, Brand Perception, Source Ecosystem, Cited URLs, Third-Party Citations, Authoritative Sources, Link Opportunities, Missed Prompts, Top Prompts, Priority Actions). Upgrade when you need higher audit volume or production monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Sources
- Profound — $96M Series C at $1B valuation (Fortune / Wilson Sonsini, Feb 2026); sole G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader; 700+ enterprise; 400M+ prompts panelfortune.com
- Peec AI — $10M ARR, $29M funding, 2,500+ customers (Berlin+NYC); pricing verified 2026-07-20peec.ai
- Scrunch AI — Acquired by Sitecore for $225M on June 3, 2026 (Bloomberg / Sitecore press release)bloomberg.com
- Ahrefs March 2026 AIO study — 863K SERPs, 4M AIO URLs; 38% of AIO citations from top-10 organic (down from 76% year prior)ahrefs.com
- Ahrefs May 11 2026 schema DiD study — 1,885 pages, 4,000 controls, Aug 2025–Mar 2026; AIO −4.6% (notable), AI Mode +2.4% NS, ChatGPT +2.2% NS; 100+-citation caveatahrefs.com
- Princeton GEO paper — Aggarwal et al., arXiv:2311.09735, KDD 2024 (top-3 methods 30–40% PAWC lift; best +41%; +115.1% pos-5 equalizer; GPT-3.5-turbo tested; ~10,000 queries)arxiv.org
- Semrush 2026 AI Visibility Index — 126M prompts Jan–Apr 2026; ChatGPT avg 15 cites/response, Gemini avg 3; top-5 domains 38% of all citationssemrush.com
- Datos/SparkToro 2026 AIO click distribution — 1st citation 47%, 2nd 23%, 3rd 14%sparktoro.com
- SparkToro 2026 — 68% of Google searches ended without a click (early 2026)sparktoro.com
- Perplexity avg citations — MarGen 2026 = 8.2 unique sources; Discovered Labs / Whitehat SEO 2026 = 21.9 total; 5–12 range covers 81% of answersmargen.io
- ChatGPT — crossed 1B monthly active app users June 2026; processes ~2.5B prompts/dayopenai.com
- Google Search Console — GenAI Performance Reports launched June 3, 2026 (AI Overviews, AI Mode, generative AI in Discover)developers.google.com
- Microsoft Clarity — Citations dashboard shipped ~May 2026 (AI referral traffic signals)clarity.microsoft.com
- FAQPage rich results retired May 7, 2026 (Google Search Central; attribution Ryan Levering / abuse concerns) — schema still valid, still parseddevelopers.google.com
- AthenaHQ Grüns case study — 2.0% → 12.6% SoV in 60 days (Q3 2025)athenahq.ai
- TurboAudit pricing verified 2026-07-20 (Free $0 / Starter $39.99 / Growth $189.99 / Scale $549.99)turboaudit.ai/pricing
All pricing, funding, and category-leader claims verified 2026-07-20. Where evidence depends on a single vendor benchmark or study, that limitation is flagged in-line (see Ahrefs May 2026 schema DiD 100+-citation caveat). Enterprise price bands for Profound and AthenaHQ are third-party estimates unless explicitly labeled otherwise — verify in the vendor demo.
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