What are the best AEO tools?
The best AEO tools, by what AI engines themselves answer, are Profound and Semrush1: New Map's measurement2 found each named in 5 of 5 answers to this question. Ahrefs3, 4 followed in 4. Before you buy any of them, check what the engines say about your own brand.
Which AEO tools do the engines name most often?
Judge an AEO tool on three things: what it measures, which engines it covers, and whether it helps you fix what it finds. The table below shows engine mentions, not a test of the tools on those criteria.
New Map's measurement counted 5 answers to "Best AEO tools" across Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT over 2 weekly readings. Profound and Semrush were named in all 5. Ahrefs appeared in 4, and Otterly, Peec AI and Scrunch AI in 3 each. That is 5 answers only, so it shows who the engines reach for, not who is better.
| Company | Named in (of 5 answers) | Source and date | What the measurement shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | 5 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in every answer |
| Semrush | 5 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in every answer |
| Ahrefs | 4 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in most answers |
| Otterly | 3 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in 3 answers |
| Peec AI | 3 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in 3 answers |
| Scrunch AI | 3 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in 3 answers |
| Athena | 1 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in 1 answer |
| Brandlight | 1 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | Named in 1 answer |
| New Map | 0 of 5 | New Map's measurement, 19 October 2026 | AI visibility software that measures engine answers, drafts fixes and places brands in cited sources; named in 0 answers |
The chart below shows the same counts, so you can see how fast the list thins out.
Which sources do the engines cite when they name these tools?
New Map's measurement found reddit.com and tryanalyze.ai each cited in 2 of the 5 answers to "Best AEO tools". Six other domains were cited once each, among them g2.com, seranking.com and conductor.com.
A wider set gives context, not an answer to this question. It covers 68 different questions about AI visibility tools, so it is not specific to "Best AEO tools". New Map's measurement found reddit.com cited in 20 of 146 answers (13.7%) and youtube.com in 16 (11%). That is one week's reading of 68 questions about AI visibility tools on 3 engines (146 answers), not a trend: Perplexity cited a source in only 7 of its 68 answers, and Claude Code's 10 answers are too few to read alone. Method: how New Map measures.
Vendor sites also appear: dageno.ai and tryprofound.com were each cited in 11 answers. The data shows reddit.com and vendor sites cited often; our read is that they matter, so treat any ranked list as a shortlist to test, not a verdict.
Does the same tool list appear on every engine?
Not measured by engine yet: the 5 answers are too few to compare tool lists per engine. Citation habits do differ, which is a separate point about sources, not tool lists.
New Map's measurement found Gemini citing 9.3 sources per answer across its 68 answers. Claude Code cited 7.3 per answer, and Perplexity 0.3.
Other research shows the same split in sources. Omnia data reported by Kevin Indig in May 2026 found 2.37% of cited URLs appeared in all of ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews for the same prompt, across 3.7M citations. Semrush reported in October 2026 that any two platforms share 70 to 78 of their top 100 brands, with the method undisclosed.
So engines disagree on pages and agree more on brands. Check each engine separately.
What should you check before choosing one of the best AEO tools?
Use four checks, in this order:
- What it measures. Semrush stated in October 2026 that Google Search Console's Generative AI report shows impressions only, with no prompt-to-click attribution. A tool that fills that gap with prompts and answers does something Google does not.
- Which engines it covers. Ahrefs reported Forrester finding 94% of business buyers use AI search when buying (date and sample not stated).
- Whether it measures retrieval, not only formatting. Chen et al.5 (a preprint, October 2026, 158,099 answers) found where a page came back in ChatGPT's own search explained 32% of which pages it cited, against 2.8% for all page features combined.
- Repeated runs. SparkToro found in January 2026, across 2,961 runs, that ChatGPT and Google AI repeated the same brand list in under 1 in 100 runs.
Ask any vendor for repeated runs, not one screenshot.
How does measuring answers differ from fixing them?
Measuring shows what engines say. Fixing means changing what the cited sources say about you. The diagram shows the loop.
Ahrefs found in October 2026 that 82.91% of US desktop branded searches showed an AI Overview as of 29 September 2026. In those, Wikipedia made up 71.9% of external citations. A dashboard can show that pattern; work on the cited sources is a separate step.
Our guide on how a brand's visibility in AI answers is measured sets out the method.
New Map was named in 0 of the 5 answers in its own measurement. It is AI visibility software that measures engine answers, drafts the fixes and places brands in the press and creator sources engines cite. See plans and pricing.
What to do
- Run "Best AEO tools" yourself on Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT several times, and record which companies and which sources appear, before you shortlist anything.
- Shortlist Profound, Semrush and Ahrefs first, since New Map's measurement named them most often, then test each against your own brand's questions.
- Look at reddit.com and review sites cited for your category, and read what they say about your brand, because the engines cite them often.
Frequently asked
Which AEO tool did engines name most often?
Profound and Semrush were each named in 5 of 5 answers in New Map's measurement. Ahrefs followed in 4 of 5. The sample is only 5 answers across 3 engines, so treat it as a snapshot.
Was New Map named as one of the best AEO tools?
No. New Map's measurement found New Map named in 0 of the 5 answers to "Best AEO tools" on Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT. The sample is small, so read it as a snapshot.
Do all engines cite the same sources for AEO tools?
No. New Map's measurement found Gemini citing 9.3 sources per answer, Claude Code 7.3 and Perplexity 0.3, across 146 answers on 68 questions about AI visibility tools, a wider set than this question.
Sources
- Semrush, How to build an AI visibility dashboard with Semrush, semrush.com, 12 October 2026
- New Map measurement, How we measure, 19 October 2026
- Ahrefs, AI Search ROI Is Messy. Here’s How to Measure It Anyway, ahrefs.com, 6 October 2026
- Ahrefs, AI Overviews Currently Appear for 83% of Branded Searches, ahrefs.com, 2 October 2026
- Chen et al. (arXiv), What Drives AI Citations? Content, Retrieval and Model Knowledge in Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), arxiv.org, 10 October 2026
See where you stand
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