AI visibility trackers are tools that ask assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity a set of questions on a schedule, then record whether your brand was named, who was named instead and which pages were cited. Choose one on its working: which assistants, memory or live web, how many runs, and whose questions.
In twelve answers we collected on 29 September 2026 (ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, with and without web search), the assistants named Profound and Ahrefs in all 12, Semrush in 11, Otterly in 10, Peec in 8 and Scrunch in 6, with BrightEdge and AthenaHQ appearing less often. Some are standalone tools; some are modules inside larger SEO suites.
The category is young, the names on that list will change, and the scores these tools produce are only as good as the method behind them. So this note spends little time on vendors and most of it on the questions that tell a careful tool from a confident number.
What does an AI visibility tracker actually do?
Underneath the dashboard, every tool in this category runs the same loop: ask, record, count, repeat.
You, or the tool, choose a set of questions a buyer might ask. The tool sends them to one or more assistants, reads each answer and records a few things: whether your brand appeared, where in the answer, which other companies appeared, and which sources were cited if the assistant searched the web. Then it counts, and does it again next week, and draws the change over time.
That is the whole mechanism. What separates one tool from another is not the idea, which is simple, but the choices inside the loop: which questions, which assistants, in which mode, how many times, and what counts as being named. Two tools can report very different numbers for the same brand in the same week, and both can be internally consistent, because they asked different things in different ways.
So the first thing to know about any score is that it is the output of a method. Ask to see the method before you look at the score.
Which tools are in the category?
Two kinds of product answer this question: tools built only for it, and modules inside suites you may already pay for.
The standalone tools were built for AI visibility from the start. The modules sit inside established SEO platforms, next to rank tracking and backlink data. The assistants in our probe named both kinds. If you already pay for an SEO suite, check what it includes before you add another subscription. If you do not, a standalone tool may be simpler.
There is a small irony here worth noticing. When a buyer asks an assistant which tools track AI mentions, the assistant answers with a short list of names. Being on that list is exactly what these tools measure. The category is being shaped by the same answers it sells you the ability to watch.
What should I look for when choosing one?
Eight criteria cover almost every difference that matters. Ask about each, and ask to see it in the product.
| Criterion | Why it matters | Question to ask the vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Which assistants | Your buyers may use one assistant more than another, and each answers differently | Which assistants and which model versions do you query, and do you record the version? |
| Memory or live web | An answer from memory and an answer after a web search fail for different reasons and are fixed differently | Do you run each question with web search off and on, and report them separately? |
| Runs per question | Answers vary from run to run, so one answer per question is a sample of one | How many times is each question asked per period, and is that count shown next to every percentage? |
| Whose questions | Questions that contain your name return your name; buyer questions test whether you are found | Who writes the questions, can I write my own, and do you exclude brand names from them? |
| Raw answers | Without the full answer text you cannot check the tool’s reading of it | Can I read every full answer behind a number, with its date and sources? |
| Accuracy, not just mentions | Being named with wrong pricing or an old product can cost more than not being named | Do you check whether the facts stated about my brand are correct, and how? |
| Cadence | Too rare and you miss changes; too frequent and noise looks like trend | How often do you run, and how do you separate a real change from run-to-run variation? |
| Export | Your history should outlive your subscription | Can I export every question, answer and count, in a plain format, at any time? |
No tool has to be perfect on all eight. But a vendor who cannot answer the questions plainly is telling you something about how the numbers were made.
Which criteria matter most?
If you only ask three questions, ask about runs, questions and accuracy.
Runs per question. Assistants do not give the same answer twice. Ask the same question five times and you may see three different lists. A tool that asks each question once and reports a percentage is reporting an anecdote with a decimal point. Look for the count next to every number: 4 of 10, not 40%.
Whose questions. The easiest way to produce a flattering score is to ask questions that contain your brand, or your product category in your own words. The assistant will oblige. The questions that matter are the ones a buyer types before they have heard of you, in their words, with no names in them. If the tool writes the questions for you, read every one.
Accuracy. Most tools count mentions. Fewer check whether what the assistant said was true: your price, what you do, who you serve, whether a product still exists. An assistant that names you with a confident, out-of-date fact is doing you harm in a calm voice. A tracker that scores that as a win is measuring the wrong thing.
Memory versus live web deserves a fourth place. When an assistant answers from memory, you are reading what it learned in training; when it searches first, you are reading what today’s pages say. Missing from one and present in the other points at a different fix, so a tool that blends the two into one number hides the most useful thing it could tell you.
A tool that asks each question once and reports a percentage is reporting an anecdote with a decimal point.
Can I do it myself in an hour?
Yes, and it is worth doing before you buy anything, because it tells you what to ask a tool for.
Our sibling note, Does ChatGPT recommend my company? A one-hour check you can run today, walks through it in full. The short version is below.
The manual check, in five steps.
- Write ten questions your buyers ask before they know you exist, in their words, with no brand names in them.
- Open ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini in a clean session, logged out or with memory and personalisation off.
- Ask each question twice in each assistant: once with web search off, once with it on.
- For every answer, record whether you were named, whether the facts were right, who was named instead, and which sources were shown.
- Count, write the sample size next to every figure, and date the sheet.
That is about sixty answers. It is a small sample, and you should treat it as one. It is also a sample where you know exactly where every number came from, which is more than many dashboards can say.
A tool earns its cost when the manual version stops being enough: when you want more questions than you can ask by hand, more runs per question, a weekly cadence, several markets or languages, or a history you can compare month to month without re-typing anything. If your hour of checking shows you what you need, you will know which of those you are paying for.
What should make me walk away?
A score with no working is a number someone would like you to act on.
Be careful with any tool, report or agency that shows one of these.
- A single visibility score with no way to see the questions, answers or counts behind it.
- A question set you cannot read, or one that includes your brand name.
- Percentages with no sample size beside them.
- No distinction between answers from memory and answers after a web search.
- Mentions counted as wins without any check on whether the facts were right.
- Month-on-month changes reported without saying how much the numbers move between runs of the same question.
None of these means the tool is useless. Each means you cannot tell from the number alone whether something changed or the method did.
The tool you choose matters less than the working it shows. Ask what was asked, of which assistant, how many times, and whether the answer was true. Then count it and date it.
Questions people ask next
What tools track brand mentions in ChatGPT and other AI assistants?
The category is usually called AI visibility tracking, or AEO or GEO monitoring. In twelve answers we collected on 29 September 2026, the assistants most often named Profound, Ahrefs, Semrush, Otterly and Peec. Some are standalone tools; some are modules in SEO suites.
How do I choose an AI visibility tracker?
Ask which assistants it queries, whether it separates memory from live web, how many runs sit behind each number, who writes the questions, whether you can read the raw answers, whether it checks facts for accuracy, how often it runs, and whether you can export everything.
Why do AI visibility scores differ between tools?
Because each tool asks different questions, of different assistants, in different modes, a different number of times. A score is the output of a method; compare methods before you compare scores.
Can I track AI mentions without a tool?
Yes. Ten buyer questions, asked in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini with web search off and on, with every answer recorded, takes about an hour. Repeat it monthly with the same wording.
Can Throughline track what AI assistants say about my company?
Yes. Its Visibility Report asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews your buyers’ questions for a week, records who is named and which pages are cited, and dates every number. Ongoing tracking of those questions follows.