What are the best AI visibility tools in 2026?
The AI visibility tools most often compared in 2026 are Profound (enterprise, $1.8B valuation, a third of the Fortune 100), Peec AI (volume leader from $95, 3,000+ brands), Otterly ($29 entry), Scrunch (acquired by Sitecore), AthenaHQ (free audit, $295), Semrush's AI toolkit, and New Map ($299, measurement plus the fixes and placements). The right one depends on whether you need a meter, a meter plus on-site work, or the work that changes the answer off-site.
Three kinds of tool
Meters measure how often the engines name a brand and who they name instead: Otterly, Peec, Scrunch and Semrush are meters at different depths and prices. Meters with on-site execution add drafts of the pages and fixes: Profound rewrites pages with citation decay and stages them in the CMS; AthenaHQ sells a content agent. New Map is the third kind: it measures seven engines weekly, ships the on-site fixes as deliverables in strategic order, and places the brand in the third-party sources the engines cite through its PR, SEO and creator network.
How to choose
Start from the outcome. If you want to know where you stand, a meter at $29 to $95 is enough. If your branded answers are wrong (price, team, safety), you need the fixes shipped, not flagged. If you are absent from the category questions, the sources the engines cite decide the answer, and no meter changes those: that needs placements, which is where agencies or New Map's Amplify come in. Compare price per answer (prompts x engines x frequency), check whether trust and visibility are measured separately, and ask what happens after the reading.
What no tool guarantees
AI answers are a sampled distribution, not a ranking. No vendor can guarantee a citation, and none of the six publishes a free-to-paid rate or a lift benchmark. Judge a tool on the depth of its measurement and the work it ships, and treat any guarantee as a warning sign.
Frequently asked
Which AI visibility tool is best for a startup?
For measurement alone, Peec at $95 or Otterly at $29. For measurement plus the work done, New Map's Foundation plan at $299 includes 100 questions on seven engines weekly and the deliverables. Profound is built for enterprise.
Do these tools track Claude and Grok as well as ChatGPT?
Not all of them. Check the engine list on the pricing page; New Map tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Claude and Grok.
Is Semrush's AI toolkit enough?
It is a meter inside an SEO suite at $99 a month with no trial. Good if you already pay for Semrush and want the number; it does not do the work.
Published by New Map — the AI visibility OS. Updated 2026-09-16.