The AI Visibility Index: Which GEO Tools Do AI Assistants Actually Recommend? (2026)
KAVIO · July 6, 2026 · 4 min read
We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek which generative engine optimization (GEO) tools they recommend — and measured every answer. Profound leads as the only tool cited across all five engines. Here is the full ranking, our methodology, and what it takes to get recommended by AI.
When you ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude or DeepSeek to recommend a generative engine optimization (GEO) tool, Profound comes up most often — it is the only platform cited by all five major AI assistants, holding roughly half of all tool mentions in our measurement. Below is the full ranking, how we measured it, and what it actually takes to get recommended by AI.
Key takeaways
- Profound leads the GEO/AEO tool category in AI answers — the only tool cited across all five engines we tested.
- Peec AI and Scrunch are the closest challengers, but each appears on far fewer engines.
- Breadth beats volume. The leaders win by being recommended consistently across engines, not by dominating any single one.
- Southeast Asia is underserved — few tools surface for SEA and multilingual GEO queries. That gap is an opening.
- We are publishing this transparently, including our own starting position: GEO Studio, our platform, is a new entrant that does not yet rank. We built the index; we play the same game.
How we measured it
We used our own platform, GEO Studio, to probe the five most-used AI assistants — ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek — with real buyer questions people ask when choosing a GEO/AEO tool (for example, "What are the best AI visibility platforms?" and "What are good Profound alternatives?"). For every answer, we recorded which brands the engine named and cited. "Share of AI mentions" below is a brand's share of all tool mentions across those answers.
This is a snapshot (early July 2026) over a defined query set — not a universal, final ranking. AI answers shift with time and phrasing, so we re-run this continuously and the numbers move.
The ranking
| Rank | Tool | Share of AI mentions | Engines cited on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Profound | ~52% | All 5 |
| 2 | Scrunch | ~18% | 1 |
| 3 | Peec AI | ~18% | 1 |
| 4 | Otterly AI | ~7% | 2 |
| 5 | Goodie | ~5% | 1 |
| — | GEO Studio (new entrant) | not yet ranked | — |
Why Profound wins: breadth, not just volume
The real story is not that Profound is mentioned more on any single engine — it is that Profound is the only tool recommended consistently across all five. Scrunch and Peec AI each have genuine presence, but concentrated on a single engine. In AI search, breadth compounds: a brand cited everywhere becomes the "safe default" that answer engines reach for. A tool cited on one engine is a strong niche player; a tool cited on five is the category answer.
What it takes to get recommended by AI
Getting cited by an AI assistant is not the same as ranking on Google. From what wins in our data, four things matter most:
- Answer the exact question, first. Pages that open with a direct, quotable answer get lifted into AI responses. Bury the answer and you lose the citation.
- Be the source, not just a page. Original data, benchmarks and frameworks get cited far more than restated explainers. (This index is an example — it exists because we measured something no one else published.)
- Earn corroboration. Engines triangulate across independent sources — reviews, directories, comparisons, community threads, and a clean entity in knowledge bases like Wikidata.
- Cover every engine, not your favourite. Because breadth compounds, visibility on one assistant is a start, not a finish line.
Where the gap is: Southeast Asia
Across our SEA and multilingual queries, few tools surface at all — most GEO tooling is built US-first. For brands operating in Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, Vietnamese or Singapore-English markets, that is an opening: the tool that earns citations in those languages owns a category no incumbent is defending.
Frequently asked questions
How do AI assistants decide which tools to recommend? They draw on what they can retrieve and what they were trained on, favouring sources that directly answer the question, are well-structured, and are corroborated across multiple independent places. Consistency across those signals is what turns a brand into a default recommendation.
Is being cited on one AI engine enough? No. Our data shows the category leader wins by being cited across all five engines, while single-engine tools stay mid-pack. Breadth is the differentiator.
How often does this ranking change? Continuously. AI answers vary by day and by phrasing, which is why we measure on an ongoing basis rather than once.
How can I see where my own brand ranks? Run a free AI Visibility Snapshot — it checks whether the major AI engines recommend you, and who they name instead.
See where you rank
The brands that win AI answers are not guessing — they measure, then fix the gaps. You can start with a free AI Visibility Snapshot: see which engines recommend you today, and who they pick instead. Then decide where to compete.