Which AI visibility tools do AI assistants themselves recommend?

In our September 2026 measurement of 80 AI answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, the most-named tools were Otterly (83.8% of answers), Semrush (71.3%), Peec AI (70%), Profound (63.8%), and Ahrefs (52.5%).

Is there a free way to check AI visibility?

Yes. OTW Signal offers a free preview that shows your AI visibility score and the competitors AI names instead of you, plus a free technical AI-readiness checker. HubSpot also offers a free AI Search Grader. Full measurement with repeated sampling requires a paid report on most platforms.

Comparison · Measured, not opinionated

The best AI visibility tools in 2026, compared

Q: What is an AI visibility tool?

An AI visibility tool (also called a GEO tool, AI brand monitoring tool, or LLM visibility tracker) measures whether AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity mention or recommend a brand when users ask for suggestions, and which competitors get named instead.

Last updated: September 2026 · Measurement data collected September 2026

An AI visibility tool (also called a GEO tool, for generative engine optimization) measures whether AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity recommend your business when buyers ask for options, and which competitors get named instead. This comparison covers 10 tools in the category, and we did it the only way we know how: we measured it.

Which AI visibility tools does AI itself recommend?

In September 2026 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews the questions a real buyer asks ("What are the best tools to check if AI recommends my business?" and three variants), 16 times per engine, 80 answers total, every engine answering from the live web. We then counted how often each tool was named. Each overall rate carries its 95% confidence interval, the same standard we apply in customer reports. The results:

Tool	Named in AI answers	95% CI	ChatGPT	Gemini	Claude	Perplexity	AI Overviews
Otterly.AI	83.8%	73–91%	81.3%	93.8%	75%	100%	68.8%
Semrush (AI toolkit)	71.3%	60–81%	75%	100%	56.3%	56.3%	68.8%
Peec AI	70%	59–79%	62.5%	93.8%	37.5%	93.8%	62.5%
Profound	63.8%	52–74%	50%	93.8%	56.3%	75%	43.8%
Ahrefs (Brand Radar)	52.5%	41–64%	75%	93.8%	62.5%	18.8%	12.5%
SE Ranking	51.3%	40–62%	6.3%	62.5%	56.3%	43.8%	87.5%
HubSpot AI Search Grader	30%	21–41%	6.3%	50%	0%	68.8%	25%
Scrunch	16.3%	9–27%	31.3%	31.3%	12.5%	0%	6.3%
AthenaHQ	12.5%	6–22%	0%	31.3%	31.3%	0%	0%
OTW Signal (that's us)	0%	0–6%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%

Overall rates whose intervals overlap are statistically indistinguishable at this sample size; adjacent rows are not rankings.

Yes, we published our own zero. OTW Signal launched in July 2026, and AI assistants don't recommend tools they haven't seen cited anywhere yet. That's exactly how AI visibility works, and it's the problem every new or under-cited business has. We'll re-measure and update this page quarterly, in public, using the same method. Measuring our own number the same way we measure yours is the product demo.

Why one answer can't be trusted

Comparing against Semrush specifically? We wrote a dedicated, honest breakdown, including what Semrush does better: Semrush AI toolkit vs OTW Signal.

Before comparing tools, know the trap in this category: AI answers are non-deterministic. Ask the same question twice and the list of recommended businesses changes. In our own measurements, a business named in 5 of 8 answers is reported with a 95% interval from 26% to 90%: that is how much uncertainty the observations actually support, which means a single check returns "you're visible" or "you're invisible" on what is statistically a coin flip. Cross-engine it gets worse: in our Index data, Wrike was named in 0% of ChatGPT answers but 75% of Claude answers. Any tool (or manual check) that samples once, on one engine, will confidently tell you something wrong.

That is the difference to shop for: checking vs measuring. A check is one sample. A measurement is repeated samples with an error bar and the raw answers as evidence. Of the tools below, most monitor trends in aggregate; OTW Signal is built specifically around per-question repeated sampling with confidence intervals, because we think a number you can't trust is worse than no number.

This applies to the subscription platforms too, and you can check it in their own documentation. Profound's public glossary states that prompts run once per day per configured model, and its plan quotas confirm the arithmetic: 50 prompts tracked daily on one engine is exactly the 1,500 responses a month its Starter plan lists. Peec's documentation defines an AI answer as "one chat result per model", one per prompt per model per day. Semrush and Otterly describe daily tracking without stating a per-day count. Across everything the four publish (August 2026), nothing describes asking a prompt more than once a day: each documented reading is a single sample of a system that answers differently run to run.

To be fair, Profound has published a considered answer to this: pooling one daily run across thousands of prompts approximates repeated runs at the portfolio level, and at that level the math holds. What pooling cannot tell you is whether the one question your buyers actually ask is stable or swings run to run, because that takes repeated samples of that question. Portfolio averages and per-question denominators answer different questions. We built for the second one: each buyer question is asked 8 times per engine, and the result is a count like "named in 3 of 8 answers", never a lone yes or no.

You can test the premise yourself in under a minute: open two fresh chats, ask the same buying question twice, and compare which businesses get named. If the two lists differ, you have just seen the coin flip. The free preview is that same experiment run the measured way on your own business: your buyer questions asked repeatedly per engine, reported as a rate with the competitors AI names instead of you. No card needed.

How the tools differ

Mention rate tells you who AI knows about. It doesn't tell you which tool fits your job. The honest differences:

Tool	Best for	Engines	Methodology	Pricing
Profound	Continuous monitoring at scale	ChatGPTPerplexity+more	Dashboard	Subscription
Semrush AI toolkit	AI visibility inside your SEO workflow	Multiple engines	Continuous tracking	Add-on
Otterly.AI	Ongoing content monitoring	ChatGPTGoogle AIPerplexityCopilot	Scheduled monitoring	Subscription
Peec AI	Continuous AI visibility tracking	Multiple engines	Continuous tracking	Subscription
Ahrefs Brand Radar	AI tracking inside your Ahrefs workflow	AI OverviewsChatGPT+	Aggregate indexCustom prompts	Included in plans
HubSpot AI Search Grader	One-time AI visibility check	ChatGPTPerplexityGemini	One-time check	Free
OTW Signal	Statistically grounded baseline measurement	ChatGPTGeminiClaudePerplexityAI Overviews	Repeated samplingConfidence intervalsEvidence-linked	Free previewOne-time reportWeekly dashboard

What the other tools do better, stated plainly. The platforms we verified track more prompts than we measure: 15 on Otterly, 25 on Semrush, 50 on Profound, against our 4 buyer questions, so if breadth across a large prompt set is what you need, they are the better buy. Showing you the raw AI answers is not unique to us either: Peec displays full answer text in-app, and Otterly exports raw responses. The enterprise platforms also carry team and workflow features we do not have. Where we differ is depth per question: fewer questions, asked many more times each, with a denominator on every number, and that measurement is not one-time-only: it runs weekly on the Signal Console, and the numbers are reachable over our Data API.

Competitor details were checked against each vendor's public pages and documentation in August 2026 and may change; check each vendor's site for current pricing. Our measurement method is documented on the methodology page, and the same method powers the public AI Visibility Index.

How to choose

Need enterprise scale: large prompt sets, team seats, and workflow integrations? Profound, Semrush, and Ahrefs are built as ongoing platforms for exactly that.
Already pay for an SEO suite? Semrush sells its AI toolkit as an add-on, and Ahrefs includes Brand Radar in its plans, so everything stays in one place.
Want a free instant sanity check? HubSpot's AI Search Grader, or the free AI-Readiness checker here.
Want your AI visibility measured properly, then watched? That's what OTW Signal was built for. Repeated sampling with confidence intervals, the competitors AI names instead of you, the sources AI cites, and prioritized recommendations, in a one-time report starting at $3.99 with a free preview. No subscription required to get your first answer, and when you want the number watched, the Signal Console re-measures it weekly.

FAQ

What is an AI visibility tool?
A tool that measures whether AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity) mention or recommend a brand in their answers. Also called GEO tools, LLM visibility trackers, AI brand monitoring, or AEO (answer engine optimization) tools.

Why do results differ between AI engines?
Each engine searches and weighs sources differently. In our project management Index, one tool was named in 100% of Gemini answers but 21.9% of ChatGPT answers. Measuring one engine tells you almost nothing about the others, which is why single-engine checks mislead.

How often should you measure?
AI answers shift constantly as models and their sources update. A one-off check is a snapshot; weekly tracking (what our Signal Console does) is how you catch a competitor overtaking you.

See your own number in two minutes

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