Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—also called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or AI Search Optimization—represents a fundamental shift in how brands are discovered online. As AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek increasingly shape purchasing decisions and answer billions of queries daily, traditional SEO alone is no longer sufficient.
The data is compelling: fewer than half of sources cited by AI engines appear in Google's top 10 results. By 2026, traditional search engine volume is predicted to drop 25%, with AI-driven discovery replacing conventional search as the primary way consumers find brands.
This guide examines 25 leading AEO tools across three categories: Core AEO Platforms, Hybrid SEO + AEO tools, and specialized content optimization platforms. Each tool has been evaluated based on capabilities, enterprise features, pricing transparency, and real-world adoption.
Our assessment focused on six core criteria:
The strongest AEO platforms combine comprehensive visibility with clear action paths—showing not just where you appear in AI Search, but why and what to do about it.
For teams building comprehensive AEO strategies, end-to-end platforms like HeyAmos, Profound, and AthenaHQ offer complete workflows from monitoring to execution. HeyAmos stands out for Asia-Pacific coverage with multilingual support and playbook-driven optimization, while Profound brings enterprise-grade compliance. AthenaHQ leads with Y Combinator pedigree and an AI Copilot for automated recommendations.
Monitoring-focused tools like Peec, Evertune, and Otterly.AI excel at visibility tracking for teams that handle optimization separately. Evertune processes 1M+ monthly prompts for Fortune 500 statistical confidence, while Otterly.AI offers the most affordable entry point at $29/month.
For teams already invested in SEO platforms, Semrush and Ahrefs have added AI visibility features that integrate with existing workflows. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit and Ahrefs' Brand Radar avoid vendor proliferation but offer less depth than dedicated AEO platforms.
The common thread among early AEO leaders: they're not waiting for perfect tools but adopting and acting now while quick wins are still possible.
These platforms are purpose-built for Answer Engine Optimization, offering detailed AI Search analytics, and in some cases end-to-end AEO workflows from monitoring to execution.
Best for: Brands and agencies seeking structured, end-to-end AEO platforms with strong Asia-Pacific coverage and global scalability.
Company Details:
HeyAmos is an Answer Engine Optimization platform that helps brands understand and improve how they appear in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and DeepSeek.
Built around a practical AEO playbook, HeyAmos enables teams to move from visibility insights to prioritized actions. Rather than overwhelming users with raw metrics, the platform focuses on what matters most and what to do next.
Key capabilities:
HeyAmos positions itself as an end-to-end solution supporting the full workflow from discovery to optimization and execution. Headquartered in Singapore with strong JAPAC focus and global coverage, early G2 customer feedback has been positive from brands adopting AEO ahead of the curve. Another validation point for HeyAmos is that they have received funding from Antler, the world's most active Venture Capital firm.
Best for: Marketing and insights teams wanting structured visibility into brand appearance in AI-generated answers.
Company Details:
Peec focuses on tracking brand and competitor mentions across AI-generated responses, helping teams understand where their brand appears and how that presence changes over time.
Key capabilities:
Peec is typically used as a monitoring and benchmarking layer within broader AEO workflows, emphasizing clean data presentation and straightforward metrics.
Best for: Enterprise teams focused on AI-driven brand visibility with emphasis on compliance and security.
Company Details:
Profound helps organizations monitor brand representation in AI-generated answers with enterprise-grade security and large-scale visibility analysis.
Key capabilities:
Profound provides Agent Analytics to track how AI bots interact with websites and Profound Workflows to automate content operations. It offers both SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance.
Best for: Teams wanting comprehensive prompt-level visibility with actionable optimization recommendations.
Company Details:
AthenaHQ focuses on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) with tracking across multiple AI models and an AI-powered action center providing specific improvement recommendations.
Key capabilities:
AthenaHQ offers daily prompt monitoring (up to hundreds of thousands on enterprise tier) with customer case studies reporting 50% demo increases.
Best for: Fortune 500 brands monitoring citations in AI-generated answers at statistically significant scale.
Company Details:
Evertune tracks brand mentions and positioning across AI responses at enterprise scale, with claims that it's providing statistical confidence.
Key capabilities:
Evertune's 1M+ monthly prompt volume per brand provides statistically significant insights supporting major marketing decisions, with comprehensive coverage across major AI models.
Best for: Mid-market teams tracking AI Search visibility across branded and non-branded prompts.
Company Details:
Goodie monitors how brands appear in AI-generated answers within their category, with focus on category-level visibility and brand positioning.
Key capabilities:
Goodie emphasizes mid-market accessibility with transparent monthly pricing and reporting dashboards designed for marketing teams without dedicated data science resources.
Best for: Teams needing detailed weekly tracking across six major AI platforms with optimization recommendations.
Company Details:
Otterly.AI provides comprehensive visibility tracking across major AI search engines with weekly automated updates and built-in GEO audit capabilities.
Key capabilities:
Otterly.AI stands out for comprehensive prompt monitoring, URL-level link citation tracking, and Brand Visibility Index quantifying brand presence over time. Available as standalone platform and Semrush App Center integration.
Best for: Brands monitoring specific prompts across markets with multilingual AI visibility tracking.
Company Details:
Promptwatch focuses on monitoring of how AI platforms mention brands, with particular emphasis on international and multilingual visibility tracking.
Key capabilities:
Promptwatch provides optimization recommendations through its AI Agent feature, and is suitable for brands needing authentic visibility data across diverse geographic markets.
Best for: Strategic competitive analysis with persona-based visibility tracking and pay-per-report pricing.
Company Details:
Gumshoe AI focuses on how brands and competitors are positioned in AI Search results with synthethic persona-based testing modeling different consumer types.
Key capabilities:
Gumshoe uses dual validation (API connections and native interface testing) for accuracy and provides full conversation transcripts for verification. Particularly strong for brands who want to simulate persona-level insights to guide content and PR investments.
Best for: Small to mid-size brands seeking accessible entry into AI visibility tracking.
Company Details:
Ziptie helps teams understand brand appearance in AI answers with focus on simplicity for teams new to AEO.
Key capabilities:
Ziptie emphasizes accessibility for teams without dedicated AEO resources, offering simplified reporting and actionable alerts when significant visibility changes occur.
Best for: Brand teams seeking pattern analysis across AI-generated answers to inform content strategy.
Company Details:
Scrunch surfaces patterns, themes, and sentiment across AI-generated answers to help brands understand positioning.
Key capabilities:
Scrunch emphasizes thematic analysis, making it suitable for teams focused on brand narrative and positioning rather than technical SEO optimization.
Best for: Enterprise teams tracking AI Search exposure with emphasis on data governance and reporting.
Company Details:
Visibili.ai helps enterprise organizations monitor brand appearance in AI-generated answers.
Key capabilities:
Visibili.ai emphasizes data governance, user permission management, and compliance-friendly reporting suitable for organizations with strict security requirements.
These platforms were originally built for traditional SEO but have evolved to support AI-driven discovery and Answer Engine Optimization workflows.
Best for: SEO teams integrating AI visibility signals into existing organic search workflows.
Company Details:
Quattr is primarily an SEO platform that has extended into AI-driven discovery signals, helping teams understand visibility across both traditional and AI-powered search.
Key capabilities:
Quattr is best suited for teams already using Quattr for SEO who want to add AI visibility monitoring without adopting a separate tool. AI features are newer and less comprehensive than dedicated AEO platforms.
Best for: SEO teams already using Semrush who want to layer in AI visibility monitoring without adopting a separate vendor.
Company Details:
Semrush is an established SEO platform that launched its AI Visibility Toolkit in March 2025, extending keyword and competitive intelligence capabilities into AI Search.
Key capabilities:
Semrush provides signals that teams must interpret for AEO rather than prescriptive optimization recommendations. The platform's strength lies in combining decades of SEO data infrastructure with emerging AI visibility features.
Best for: SEO teams analyzing authority and backlink signals that influence AI citations.
Company Details:
Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO platform known for industry-leading backlink analysis, now extending into AI visibility monitoring with its Brand Radar feature.
Key capabilities:
Ahrefs' backlink data reveals which authoritative sources link to content—a critical signal for AI citation likelihood. Brand Radar provides basic AI visibility tracking but is less developed than dedicated AEO platforms.
Best for: Content teams optimizing on-page elements to improve AI discoverability and SERP performance simultaneously.
Company Details:
Surfer SEO is a content optimization platform helping teams structure content using data-driven guidance from top-ranking pages.
Key capabilities:
Surfer supports content workflows relevant to AEO by emphasizing clear structure, comprehensive topic coverage, and entity optimization. Integrates with Google Docs and WordPress for seamless workflows.
Best for: Creating content aligned with common questions and answer-focused queries that AI systems surface.
Company Details:
Frase supports research and content creation specifically for answer-driven topics, naturally aligning with AEO principles of answering user questions concisely.
Key capabilities:
Frase emphasizes leading with clear, concise answers – a critical AEO principle since AI models extract direct responses from well-structured content. Integrates FAQ schema generation, making content machine-readable.
Best for: Improving content relevance, clarity, and entity coverage that AI models use for comprehension.
Company Details:
Clearscope helps teams optimize content around key topics and entities using insights from top-performing pages.
Key capabilities:
Clearscope's entity-based optimization helps content include concepts and relationships AI models use for comprehension. Integrates with Google Docs and content management systems.
Best for: Large organizations combining traditional SEO with emerging AI visibility monitoring at enterprise scale.
Company Details:
BrightEdge is an enterprise SEO platform supporting large-scale content and search workflows with emerging AI Search features.
Key capabilities:
BrightEdge's strength lies in managing complex, multi-team SEO operations with governance, compliance, and reporting needs. AI visibility features are newer additions layered onto established SEO infrastructure.
Best for: SEO and content teams aligning traditional search with AI-influenced discovery workflows.
Company Details:
Conductor provides research and optimization tooling for content-driven SEO strategies with growing attention to AI-powered discovery.
Key capabilities:
Conductor emphasizes content marketing ROI measurement and workflow integration. The keyword explorer surfaces question-based queries aligning with AEO's focus on answering user intent.
Best for: Producing AI-assisted content at scale optimized for both search engines and AI answer engines.
Company Details:
Writesonic supports content creation aligned with search and answer intent using generative AI.
Key capabilities:
Writesonic's AI generation is trained on SEO best practices, making output naturally structured for both traditional search crawlers and AI comprehension. Best for teams prioritizing content velocity.
Best for: Scaling AI content workflows with orchestration, data integration, and output standardization.
Company Details:
AirOps helps teams operationalize AI-driven content production with workflow orchestration and quality controls.
Key capabilities:
AirOps supports AEO indirectly via content operations excellence, enabling teams to produce high volumes of optimized content efficiently. Emphasizes repeatability and quality control.
Best for: Optimizing content specifically for AI-driven discovery and answer extraction.
Company Details:
Rankscale focuses on aligning content with how AI systems interpret and extract information, with simulation tools for testing optimization changes.
Key capabilities:
Rankscale's /simulate module allows users to test how content changes affect AI-generated answers across GPT-4o, Claude 3, Gemini 2.5-Flash, and Perplexity – providing delta scores showing before/after impact.
Best for: Improving content credibility, source attribution, and citation-readiness for AI models.
Company Details:
GetCito focuses on content clarity, sourcing standards, and authority enhancement—all critical factors in AI citation decisions.
Key capabilities:
GetCito addresses a specific AEO gap: many content teams focus on keywords and structure while neglecting trust and authority signals determining whether AI models consider content citation-worthy.
The AEO landscape in 2026 offers solutions across three distinct categories, each serving different strategic needs:
Core AEO Platforms provide dedicated AI visibility tracking and optimization workflows. These tools are essential if AI Search is a primary channel or if you're building AEO capabilities from scratch.
Hybrid SEO + AEO Tools extend traditional SEO foundations into AI visibility. These platforms make sense if you already use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Surfer and want to layer in AI monitoring without vendor proliferation.
Key Selection Criteria:
The brands succeeding in AI Search aren't waiting for perfect tools—they're adopting AEO now with available platforms while the strategy remains relatively uncrowded. As AI-powered discovery continues displacing traditional search traffic, early movers who establish citation patterns and topical authority will compound advantages over time.
Oliver Pechter is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at HeyAmos, an Answer Engine Optimization platform helping brands get visible in AI Search across Asia and globally. With over a decade of experience building marketing functions at B2B SaaS companies including Digify, boost.ai, and All Ears, Oliver specializes in growth marketing and emerging digital channels. HeyAmos was founded as part of Antler's 2025 cohort in Singapore.
Last Updated: January 15, 2026
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