If you’ve tried to figure out how your brand shows up in ChatGPT or Gemini, you aren’t alone – and you’ve probably realized there’s no easy answer.
With new AI visibility tools hitting the market, knowing which one to trust is half the battle.
Vetting AI visibility platforms: Trial, error, and endless demos
As AI search becomes a growing part of how consumers find information, brands face a new challenge: understanding and managing their presence in these AI answer engines.
Unfortunately for marketers, many tools promising to help are as new as the challenge itself.
Information is sparse, comparison is tricky, and reliability with many of these tools is a big question mark.
Whether you’re a business owner, marketing agency, or in-house team, choosing which AI visibility tool to onboard (assuming you aren’t building one on your own) may be daunting.
Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time:
Researching different tools.
Sitting in demos.
Facilitating security and compliance reviews with our legal and operations teams.
Negotiating pricing.
Trying to select the best option.
Many of these platforms don’t offer free trials, are adding new features quickly, and are pushing for longer-term contracts, so committing to the wrong one could be an expensive and frustrating mistake.
“The hardest part of the process is understanding whether there is something better out there. There are so many AI visibility software tools, and even more keep popping up. I have done over 15 different demos with different AI visibility software tools. I need to take it month by month and continue to demo others to ensure I made the right decision,” said Cassandra Gucwa, CEO and founder of Menerva Digital.
What makes things even more difficult is that each tool collects data in vastly different ways.
Some employ their own prompt engines and scrape model outputs, others use APIs, and some features rely on purchased third-party panel data sets.
This variation leads to inconsistent data and makes it hard to compare all the tools.
Given the number of tools to choose from, many agency and in-house teams have been:
Submitting endless Contact Us forms and trapped in a demo nightmare.
Scheduling tons of meetings.
Going back and forth with sales reps to try and understand which tool might fit their needs.
Amanda Valle, global director of organic search at Liquid Web, said:
“Overcoming vendor sales talk to evaluate actual output was one of the most challenging parts of the selection process.”
Manual checks won’t cut it
Many people I’ve spoken with are relying on manual checks to evaluate AI visibility:
They type a prompt into ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.
Then, screenshot the results showing whether or not a brand is present.
But this doesn’t represent how the average user interacts with these tools.
LLMs are probabilistic. Outputs change based on prompt phrasing, timing, user behavior, and other variables. They are also highly personalized.
Even if a brand appears for one prompt, that doesn’t mean it shows up consistently or to other users.
Manual checks just can’t replicate the volume or variation of prompts needed to gauge visibility accurately.
A proper AI visibility tool uses scaled prompting to generate reliable, repeatable insights across time and use cases.
Dig deeper: How to monitor brand visibility across AI search channels
There are an overwhelming number of players in the space, and things are changing rapidly.
I’ve done my best to keep the below up to date as I’ve demoed tools, talked with people across the industry, and dug around.
Built for AI, or adapted for revenue?
This is a crucial distinction when choosing a tool.
Some platforms were built for the purpose of AI search.
Others, like Semrush’s ChatGPT search engine targeting (a new platform feature, different from the AI toolkit and Enterprise offering) and Nightwatch, are traditional SEO tools that have tacked on ChatGPT “rank tracking” to stay relevant.
Legacy SEO platforms with new ChatGPT functionality may be helpful in pulling some quick data in a pinch.
Still, they might fall short in truly assessing visibility, sentiment, and AI search opportunities.
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What to look for when selecting a vendor
Scaled prompting
A good platform should be able to run thousands of prompts per brand, consistently, and over time.
This ensures data isn’t skewed by random anomalies or personalization.
“Some tools don’t run their prompts often enough to get to a statistically significant dataset, so the visibility insights are shaky at best,” explained Daniel Drabo, co-founder of Peec AI.
“A lot of people overlook the difference between using the API vs. the ChatGPT user interface. But the UI has lots of user-facing elements like maps and tables that just don’t show up via API. So if a tool isn’t scraping from the actual UI, you’re missing a big part of the picture.”
Robust reporting and insights
If you want the highest return on your investment, look for a platform that has:
Competitive insights.
Robust reporting breakdowns by:
AI model.
Topic category or theme.
Sentiment.
Visibility over time.
For example, many platforms, like Profound and Scrunch, also offer deeper insights and recommendations.
Profound has a full section of insights and recommendations, including an impact and effort categorization.
Scrunch specifically calls out missed content opportunities that you can take immediate action on.
“At the enterprise level, reporting is everything. Profound has the strongest reporting, and they are rapidly adding additional features like their conversation explorer and bot tracker that help you understand what’s going on.” said Michael King, founder and CEO of iPullRank.
If your agency is looking for a tool that works across dozens or even hundreds of clients you’re managing, then you want to ensure the platform has the right UI and features.
“Profound offers agency users a ‘god-view’ which allows agencies to seamlessly switch between client pages. In addition, we have full export capability and will soon be introducing an API + cross functionality with GSC,” said James Cadwallader, co-founder at Profound.
Answer engine coverage
As you saw above, not all tools cover all answer engines.
Most of our agency clients gain the lion’s share of their LLM traffic from ChatGPT.
That said, volume and insights may differ by industry.
Things can change quickly, and many of us in the search community need deeper AI Overview insights.
Tools focusing only on one engine or platform might be an easy way to save money.
However, given the search direction, it is recommended that you invest in a platform that can garner insights across multiple answer engines.
Product roadmap
AI search is evolving rapidly. As you’re doing demos, ask about what’s coming next.
Look at their blog or press releases to see if they’ve announced new features.
Is the team planning to add new LLMs and platforms?
Are they working on deeper analytics, UI improvements, or features like email alerts?
A stagnant product roadmap is a huge red flag in this space.
“This is a very new space,” noted Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications at Wix.
“I think it’s very important to work with builders and people who are constantly improving their tech stack. Our team is incredibly innovative and works around the clock to create new products all the time.”
“When I see that in a tool provider it reassures me that they are iterating and learning from what their customers are saying and that they will be able to create a fantastic product now and in the future.”
International capabilities
Not all tools work outside U.S. English.
This is critical if your brand or clients operate in multiple regions or languages.
Look for tools that support multi-language prompts and can localize data insights by market.
“Profound offers functionality such as multi-region prompting and 20+ languages, which is extremely important to agencies and global brands alike. Being able to see brand visibility change based on where the prompt has been sent from and the language it is sent in is invaluable for global brands,” Cadwallader said.
Competitor tracking and identification
The ability to monitor your brand, competitors, and adjacent players is key.
You want a benchmark and to uncover which brands LLMs may be favoring in your category.
Dig deeper: How to track visibility across AI platforms
Customer service
The quality of support is crucial in a category this new.
Will someone respond if you have an urgent question or bug?
Is there onboarding support, live chat, and account management?
Thought leadership
Is the company publishing articles, research, and insights about AI search?
Do they have case studies?
Are they educating the market?
I’ve had multiple colleagues send me various blogs and case studies from Profound recently.
Platforms that are shaping the conversation are more likely to offer long-term value beyond just access to data.
Security and terms of service
Lastly, review (or have your experts review) each vendor’s data handling practices.
Do they meet SSO and SOC2 compliance?
What happens to the data they collect?
Can you export it?
Do you retain full ownership?
Do they follow your company’s security requirements or enterprise standards?
Planning for the future
For brands and agencies taking AI search as seriously as they should, this process should be less about selecting a tool and more about finding a partner.
Search as we know it has changed.
While a tool can provide data, a partner can help you navigate the complexities of the evolving landscape.
“All of search is becoming AI search. Whether it’s an AI Overview from Google, an answer from Siri, or a direct interaction with ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, the customer journey has permanently changed. Humans have outsourced browsing to AI,” said Chris Andrew, co-founder and CEO of Scrunch AI
The brands and agencies that are proactive with onboarding the right tools today will lead in this new era of search.
AI visibility tools are a window into how AI understands, interprets, and recommends brands.
Getting visibility and optimization strategies dialed in now could mean everything for growth in the years ahead.
Dig deeper: Why SEO is still key to visibility on search, social, and AI platforms
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