ChatGPT answers, unedited

Yes. The category you want is usually called AI visibility tracking, AI search monitoring, or AEO/GEO tracking. The key distinction is that you don't just want a tool that says “ChatGPT mentioned my company.” You want it to show which answer, which prompt, which competitor, and—most importantly—which websites/pages the AI cited as sources.

My picks

1. peec.ai — best overall

This is probably where I'd start.

Peec tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other AI surfaces, while showing visibility, position, sentiment, share of voice, competitors, and the sources being cited. Its particularly useful distinction is between brand visibility (AI mentions you) and source visibility (AI actually cites your website/content). Peec AI Peec.ai Docs

That distinction is exactly what you're asking about.

For example, you could discover:

“ChatGPT recommends Acme 42% of the time, but only 8% of those answers cite Acme's own website. Instead, it gets its information from G2, Reddit, Forbes, and industry publications.”

That's much more actionable than a simple mention counter.

2. otterly.ai — best value

Otterly is worth looking at if you don't need an enterprise platform.

It tracks prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, and records mentions, rankings, sentiment, share of voice and the URLs cited by the engines. Otterly

It's a particularly good choice if your goal is:

• Track 20–100 important questions people ask about your category
• See whether your company appears
• See who beats you
• See what sources AI is using
• Monitor changes over time

3. tryprofound.com — best for enterprise

Profound is the one I'd investigate if this is becoming a serious marketing/brand-intelligence function rather than a side project.

It is positioned around enterprise AI-search analytics and deeper citation/source intelligence, rather than simply being an “SEO rank tracker for ChatGPT.” Current comparisons put it toward the enterprise end of the market. SEO Counselors AEO Labs

The metric I'd pay the most attention to

Don't make “number of AI mentions” your primary KPI.

I'd build a dashboard around:

1. Mention rate — % of relevant prompts where your company appears.
2. Recommendation/rank — where you appear when you're mentioned.
3. Share of voice — your visibility versus competitors.
4. Citation rate — % of answers that cite your site/content.
5. Citation share — what percentage of all cited sources in your category are yours.
6. Third-party source distribution — Reddit, G2, Wikipedia, news, review sites, competitors, publishers, etc.
7. Citation pages — the specific URLs AI is relying on.
8. Prompt-level history — whether a particular answer changed after you published/updated something.

That last part is especially valuable. Peec, for example, explicitly surfaces the sources AI platforms reference and lets you drill down into individual tracked prompts and recent AI responses. Peec.ai Docs

One important caveat

AI citations are volatile. A recent analysis found that Reddit's share of ChatGPT citations changed substantially over just a few weeks, illustrating why you want longitudinal tracking rather than manually checking ChatGPT once in a while. Axios

So if your real question is:

“When someone asks an AI assistant about my company/category, what does it say, and what evidence is it using?”

I'd shortlist Peec → Otterly → Profound, in that order for most companies.

If you tell me your company type (B2B SaaS, ecommerce, agency, local business, etc.) and roughly how many prompts/competitors you want to track, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 and compare current pricing, engines, citation-level reporting, API/export options, and whether they track ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity/Gemini separately.

Yes — the category you want is usually called AI visibility tracking, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), or GEO monitoring. These tools track whether assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews mention your company, which sources they cite, which competitors appear instead, and how that changes over time. geodocs.dev

My shortlist

Recent 2026 comparisons consistently put Profound, Peec, Otterly, AthenaHQ and Goodie among the leading dedicated platforms. citationdesk.com

If your specific question is “When an AI assistant talks about my company, what website/source did it use?”, I'd prioritize citation-level data over a generic “AI visibility score.” That's important because AI citation patterns are surprisingly fragmented: one 2026 benchmark found that 62% of cited domains appeared only once across its query set. blog.andrewbyzov.com

What I'd buy

• Small company / founder: Otterly.AI or Peec AI
• Marketing team: Peec AI
• Enterprise / multiple brands / competitive intelligence: Profound
• Already paying for Ahrefs: investigate Brand Radar before adding another platform
• PR team: Brand24 can make sense because it combines AI references with broader brand monitoring

For example, Citations.io is also worth looking at if you specifically want a live citation feed rather than a broader SEO/GEO platform.

One important caveat: don't treat an AI visibility score as equivalent to actual customer exposure. Different tools use different prompt sets and methodologies, and real-prompt tracking vs. simulated prompts is a major distinction. www.getaiso.com

If you tell me your company size, B2B/B2C, approximate budget, and which AI assistants matter most, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 tools and compare their pricing, citation tracking, API/reporting, and competitor monitoring.

If your goal is specifically “Which AI assistants mention my company, and what sources/citations are they using?”, you want an AI visibility / AEO / GEO monitoring platform, not a traditional brand-monitoring tool.

My shortlist for 2026:

Independent comparisons consistently identify Profound, Peec AI, and Otterly as the main dedicated options, with the major difference being depth, price, and workflow rather than whether they can detect mentions at all. Elmo AEO Labs MentionsAPI

What I'd choose

For most companies: Peec AI. It gives you the useful middle ground: track your target prompts, see whether you're mentioned, measure share of voice against competitors, and inspect the sources/citations behind answers. Geodocs Refine AI

If you're early-stage: Otterly is a very reasonable starting point. Current comparisons put its entry pricing around $29/month, making it one of the cheapest ways to establish a baseline. Marqeable

If you're an enterprise brand: Profound is the one I'd investigate first. Its emphasis is much more on granular answer-engine and source-level intelligence rather than simply giving you a “visibility score.” SEO Counselors

The important distinction

Don't just measure “Did ChatGPT mention us?”

You want the software to tell you:

• Mention rate: How often does the AI name your company?
• Citation rate: How often does it actually link/cite your site?
• Source discovery: Which third-party sites are being cited instead of you?
• Competitors: Who is being recommended when you're not?
• Prompt-level results: Which exact questions cause you to appear/disappear?
• Sentiment/positioning: What does the AI say about your company?
• Trend: Is your visibility improving month over month?
• Engine differences: Do ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI surfaces behave differently?

That source discovery piece is particularly valuable. For example, you might discover that ChatGPT repeatedly cites three review sites, Reddit threads, industry publications, or comparison pages when answering questions about your category. That gives you a concrete list of places where building legitimate third-party authority could matter. Current tools increasingly expose this citation/source layer. Geodocs Baarely

One caveat: these platforms are measuring a sample of inherently non-deterministic AI responses, so I would treat the numbers as directional trends rather than an absolute measurement of “what ChatGPT knows.” Marqeable

If you tell me your company size and roughly what you're willing to spend ($30/mo, $100–300/mo, or $500+/mo), I can narrow this to the 2–3 tools I'd actually buy and compare their current features/pricing.

If you're early-stage: Otterly is a very reasonable starting point. Current comparisons put its entry pricing around $29/month, making it one of the cheapest ways to establish a baseline. marqeable.com

If you're an enterprise brand: Profound is the one I'd investigate first. Its emphasis is much more on granular answer-engine and source-level intelligence rather than simply giving you a “visibility score.”

The important distinction

Don't just measure “Did ChatGPT mention us?”

You want the software to tell you:

Yes. What you’re looking for is generally called AI visibility / AEO / GEO monitoring: software that repeatedly asks AI engines questions and records whether your company is mentioned, which sources are cited, how prominently you appear, and which competitors are winning instead. Refine AI Lil Big Things

My shortlist

🥇 If I had to pick one: Profound

tryprofound.com is particularly relevant to your question. It doesn't just tell you "your company was mentioned 37 times." It can show which websites AI systems used as sources, categorize those sources (your site, competitors, earned media, social, institutions, etc.), and let you analyze citation share by prompt/topic/platform. Profound

It also tracks the actual answers and citation sources over time across major answer engines, rather than treating AI visibility like a conventional Google ranking. Profound Profound

🥈 If you're not an enterprise: Otterly

otterly.ai is probably where I'd start if you're a smaller company or marketing team. It tracks brand mentions, website citations, position and competitors across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Otterly

The advantage is that you can get useful monitoring without buying an enterprise-grade analytics platform.

One important distinction

I'd specifically look for a product that records the source URLs behind the AI answer, not merely "brand mentions."

For example, you ideally want to be able to see:

Prompt: "What are the best payroll platforms for a 50-person company?"
AI: recommends your company
Citation: example.com/review-of-payroll-platforms
Other citations: G2, Forbes, competitor comparison, Reddit, etc.
Competitor cited instead: Competitor X
Change: Your citation appeared 12% more often this month

That information is much more actionable because it tells your marketing/SEO/PR team which external sources are influencing AI's perception of your company. Profound explicitly provides this source-level analysis. Profound

What I'd buy based on company size

• Solo / small company: Otterly
• Growth-stage marketing team: Peec or Otterly
• SEO + content + PR team: Profound
• Enterprise / multiple brands or markets: Profound
• Want the software to help fix visibility, not just measure it: Goodie

I'd also avoid choosing based purely on the number of AI models supported. Citation-level data, prompt coverage, historical answers, geographic variation, competitor comparisons, and reproducibility matter more than a vendor saying it supports "12+ LLMs."

If you tell me your company size, approximate monthly budget, and whether you mainly care about ChatGPT vs. Google AI Overviews vs. Perplexity, I can narrow this to the 2–3 tools I'd actually demo and compare their current pricing/features.

It also tracks the actual answers and citation sources over time across major answer engines, rather than treating AI visibility like a conventional Google ranking. Profound Profound

🥈 If you're not an enterprise: Otterly

otterly.ai is probably where I'd start if you're a smaller company or marketing team. It tracks brand mentions, website citations, position and competitors across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Otterly

The advantage is that you can get useful monitoring without buying an enterprise-grade analytics platform.

One important distinction

I'd specifically look for a product that records the source URLs behind the AI answer, not merely "brand mentions."

For example, you ideally want to be able to see:

Prompt: "What are the best payroll platforms for a 50-person company?"
AI: recommends your company
Citation: example.com/review-of-payroll-platforms
Other citations: G2, Forbes, competitor comparison, Reddit, etc.
Competitor cited instead: Competitor X
Change: Your citation appeared 12% more often this month

That information is much more actionable because it tells your marketing/SEO/PR team which external sources are influencing AI's perception of your company. Profound explicitly provides this source-level analysis.

What I'd buy based on company size

If you mean tracking when ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI assistants mention your company, cite your website, or recommend competitors instead, you’re looking for an AI visibility / AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) monitoring tool, not a traditional citation manager. alignify.cowww.sona.com

Good options by use case:

What I’d measure (regardless of tool):

• Mention rate: How often your company appears in answers to buyer questions
• Citation rate: How often your pages are linked as sources
• Share of voice: Your visibility vs. competitors
• Source attribution: Which websites AI assistants rely on when discussing your category
• Sentiment/positioning: Whether AI describes you positively, negatively, or inaccurately
• Prompt coverage: Which customer questions you win or lose www.clearscope.io

A practical stack:

• Startup / SMB: Ahrefs Brand Radar or Citations.io + a spreadsheet of your top 50 buyer prompts
• Marketing team: Semrush or Clearscope + AI visibility monitoring
• Enterprise: Profound + BI/reporting integrations

One important distinction: AI citation tracking is not the same as web mention monitoring. Tools like Brand24, Mention, or Meltwater are good for PR/social mentions, but they generally weren’t built to answer “When someone asks an AI assistant for the best vendors in my category, does my company appear and what sources does the model cite?” alignify.cowww.sona.com

If you tell me your company size (startup, mid-market, enterprise), industry, and whether you care more about ChatGPT specifically or all AI engines, I can narrow this to 2–3 choices.

If your goal is specifically “When an AI assistant mentions my company, what source did it use, and how often does this happen?”, you want an AI visibility / answer-engine monitoring platform rather than traditional SEO rank tracking.

My shortlist

🥇 I'd start with OtterlyAI

It is unusually well aligned with your exact question. It doesn't just tell you “Company X was mentioned.” It tracks which domains and URLs were cited in AI answers, including changes in link position over time. It also lets you compare your citation/mention performance with competitors. otterly.ai

For example, you could monitor prompts like:

• “What are the best [category] companies?”
• “What software should a [target customer] use for X?”
• “Company A vs Company B”
• “Alternatives to [competitor]”
• “Who are the leading vendors for X?”

Then measure:

Prompt → AI answer → brand mention → cited source → exact URL → competitor citations → change over time

That's much more useful than simply monitoring your company's name.

🥈 Peec AI is particularly good if you care about the source vs. the mention

One distinction I really like in Peec's reporting is brand visibility vs. source visibility. A company can be mentioned without its website being cited, or its website can be cited without the company being explicitly named. Peec tracks those separately. docs.peec.ai

That's an important distinction for measuring whether your content is actually becoming an information source for AI, rather than merely whether the model knows your brand.

🏢 Profound for larger teams

Profound is worth looking at if this is becoming a serious enterprise marketing/GEO function. Its Answer Engine Insights tracks visibility, citations, sentiment, share of voice, positioning, and what websites are driving AI answers about your brand. www.tryprofound.comwww.citeflow.io

One important caveat

Don't treat these tools as if they're giving you a perfect log of every ChatGPT conversation mentioning your company. They generally work by running a defined set of prompts against AI/search systems on a schedule and analyzing the resulting answers. www.tryprofound.comwww.citeflow.io

So the real measurement is closer to:

“How does my company appear when representative customer questions are asked?”

rather than:

“Tell me every time anyone on the internet asks ChatGPT about us.”

My ranking for your use case: OtterlyAI → Peec → Profound.

If you tell me your company size, B2B/B2C, and roughly how many prompts/markets you need to monitor, I can narrow this down to the best 1–2 options and compare their current pricing/features.

If your goal is specifically “Which AI assistants mention my company, what sources/citations are they using, and how does that change over time?”, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: OtterlyAI

For your exact use case, OtterlyAI is probably the easiest place to start. It lets you define the questions you care about—e.g. “best [category] software,” “alternatives to [competitor],” “companies that solve X”—and automatically monitors the answers across multiple AI engines. It records both brand mentions and domain citations, plus competitors and sentiment. otterly.ai

Its newer Citations Report is particularly relevant: you can see which URLs are repeatedly cited, which prompts generated those citations, which AI engine produced them, and whether your brand appeared in the answer. help.otterly.aiotterly.ai

When I'd choose Peec instead

If the question you're really asking is:

“What external websites are influencing AI's perception of my company, and where should our PR/content team try to get mentioned?”

I'd seriously consider Peec AI. It breaks sources down by domains and URLs and identifies places where competitors are being cited but you aren't. It also tracks mention frequency, position, sentiment, and citations. peec.ai

That's particularly useful for discovering things like:

• Competitor is cited by 15 industry publications; you're cited by 3.
• Reddit is repeatedly influencing answers about your category.
• A particular review site is disproportionately responsible for AI recommendations.
• AI assistants cite an outdated page about your company.
• Your website gets cited but your brand isn't actually mentioned—or vice versa.

Profound

Profound is the one I'd investigate if you're at a larger marketing/SEO organization. Its Answer Engine Insights product explicitly combines visibility, citations, sentiment, share of voice, and positioning, and its citation tooling identifies the publishers/authors driving AI citations. help.tryprofound.com

One important distinction

Don't buy a tool merely because it says it tracks “AI mentions.”

There are really four different metrics you want:

1. Mention rate — How often does AI name my company?
2. Recommendation/ranking — Where does my company appear relative to competitors?
3. Citation rate — How often does AI link to my site?
4. Citation sources — Which third-party websites does AI use when forming the answer?

The fourth is arguably the most strategically valuable because it tells you what the AI ecosystem believes about your company and where that belief is coming from. OtterlyAI and Peec are particularly strong here. peec.aiotterly.ai

If I were evaluating them for a company today:
OtterlyAI → Peec → Profound in that order for a typical marketing team; I'd move Profound to #1 if you're an enterprise with a serious GEO/SEO operation.

If you tell me your company size, approximate monthly budget, and whether you care more about ChatGPT citations or all AI engines, I can narrow this to the best 1–2 options and compare their current pricing/features.

If you mean tracking when ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI assistants mention your company, what sources they cite, and which competitors appear instead, the category is usually called AI visibility tracking, AI search monitoring, or GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) analytics. tracemetry.comahrefs.com

The best tools depend on your company size and what you need:

My practical shortlist:

• Startup / small marketing team: Otterly.AI or Citations.io
• B2B SaaS / enterprise marketing: Profound or Peec AI
• SEO team already paying for tools: Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush
• Agency managing many clients: Parse or Profound

Things I would make sure the product tracks:

1. Prompt coverage — the actual questions being tested (“best CRM for startups,” “alternatives to X,” etc.)
2. Mention rate — how often your company appears
3. Citation rate — how often AI links to your site or attributes sources
4. Source-level attribution — which pages, reviews, forums, and publications AI relies on
5. Competitor gaps — where competitors are cited and you are missing
6. Historical trends — whether visibility is improving or declining

One important distinction: a company can be mentioned without being cited. AI answers often name brands without linking to them, so a good tracker should separate “brand mentions” from “source citations.” tracemetry.comahrefs.com

If you share your company type (SaaS, ecommerce, local business, agency, etc.) and approximate budget, I can narrow this to the 2–3 tools most likely to fit.

Yes — this is now a distinct AI visibility / GEO / AEO monitoring category. If your goal is specifically “Which AI assistants mention my company, and what sources/citations are they using?”, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: OtterlyAI

OtterlyAI is probably the best fit if you want to start measuring this without buying an enterprise platform. It monitors mentions and citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, and lets you see the URLs being referenced. Its current entry pricing is advertised at $29/month. otterly.ai

Importantly, it isn't just asking “did ChatGPT mention us?” It can tell you things like:

• Which prompts produce a mention of your company
• Which competitors appear instead
• Which URLs get cited
• Which third-party publications/sites are repeatedly cited in your category
• Whether your visibility is increasing or declining
• Which AI engines behave differently

Otterly also recently expanded its citation reporting with winner/loser analysis and detailed citation views. otterly.ai

If your real question is “what sources make AI recommend us?”

I'd look especially closely at Peec AI. Its positioning is more analytics-oriented, with source/citation analysis, competitor benchmarking and multi-model tracking. Independent comparisons also tend to put Peec toward the stronger end for citation/source analysis. fifteenthmeridian.compresenc.ai

If you're a large company

Profound is the one I'd investigate. It is designed more for enterprise-scale AI visibility/AEO programs, with deeper analytics and larger-scale query monitoring, although pricing and complexity are substantially higher. getrefine.ai

One important distinction

Don't confuse these with ordinary brand-monitoring tools.

You want a system that captures the chain:

Buyer question → AI answer → company mention → cited URL → source domain → competitor cited instead

For example:

“What are the best accounting platforms for mid-sized businesses?”

You ideally want to know:

ChatGPT: mentions your company
Position: #2 recommendation
Citation: your pricing page
Other citations: Forbes, G2, Reddit, industry publication
Competitor: #1
Competitor's citations: 3 publications you aren't mentioned in

That's much more actionable than simply counting brand mentions. AI citation tracking is specifically about monitoring the URLs AI systems use as sources, which is different from traditional backlinks or simple brand monitoring. fifteenthmeridian.compresenc.ai

If you tell me your company size and whether you're mainly interested in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or all of them, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for and compare their current pricing/features.

Yes. What you’re looking for is usually called AI visibility / AEO / GEO monitoring. The key distinction is that you want software that tracks both brand mentions and the actual URLs/sources cited by AI assistants.

My shortlist

1. OtterlyAI — my pick for most companies.
It tracks brand mentions and website/domain citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and others. Its prompt-level reports let you see the actual AI response and the URLs used as sources. It also has a public API if you eventually want to pipe the data into your own dashboard. otterly.ai

A particularly useful feature is its citation report, which shows which URLs are winning citations in your category—not merely whether your company was mentioned. otterly.ai

2. Peec AI — best for a serious marketing/SEO team.
Peec separates mention rate from citation rate, which is important. An AI can recommend your company without linking to you, or cite your site without explicitly naming you. It also tracks position and sentiment and updates data daily. peec.ai

3. Scrunch — best for enterprise-level analysis.
Its citation system goes particularly deep: you can see the domains and individual URLs being cited, which prompts cite them, how consistently they appear, and an Influence Score for identifying sources that have the greatest impact on AI answers. scrunch.com

4. Profound — enterprise choice.
I'd look at it if you're a large brand with PR, SEO, content, and brand teams that need sophisticated AI-search reporting and integrations. Current market comparisons generally put Profound in the enterprise tier. attrifast.com

The metric I would actually monitor

Don't just ask "Does ChatGPT mention us?"

Build a dashboard around:

1. Mention rate — % of relevant prompts where your company appears.
2. Citation rate — % where your website gets cited.
3. Citation share — how much of the category's citations belong to you vs. competitors.
4. Source share — which third-party sites AI is using to make recommendations.
5. Prompt-level results — exactly what ChatGPT/Perplexity/etc. said.
6. Competitor mentions — who gets recommended when you don't.
7. Citation changes over time — whether your visibility is actually improving.
8. Unbranded prompts — e.g. "best [category] software" rather than "What is [Company]?"

That last one is particularly important. A company can have excellent branded visibility while being essentially invisible when a potential customer asks an AI assistant for recommendations.

What I'd choose

• Startup / SMB: OtterlyAI
• Growing marketing team: Peec AI
• Enterprise / multiple brands or markets: Scrunch or Profound
• You want raw data/API rather than another dashboard: OtterlyAI is particularly interesting because it exposes reports, prompts, citations and workspace data through its API. otterly.ai

If your specific goal is "I want to know every time ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity mentions my company, what source caused the mention, and which third-party sites I should get mentioned on", I'd start with OtterlyAI and Peec AI and compare the same 50–100 customer prompts in both. That's a much better test than comparing feature lists.

Yes. What you’re looking for is usually called AI visibility / answer-engine optimization (AEO/GEO) tracking. The important distinction is that you want software that tracks both mentions of your company and the sources/citations AI assistants use to make those claims.

My shortlist

If your specific question is “Why did ChatGPT say this about us?”

I'd lean toward Profound or OtterlyAI.

You want a workflow roughly like:

Prompt: “What are the best [category] companies?”
↓
AI answer: Your company is mentioned
↓
Citations: AI cites 7 websites
↓
Analysis: 3 of those sites mention your company, 2 mention competitors, 2 don't mention either
↓
Action: Identify which sources are influencing the answer and improve your presence there.

That's considerably more useful than simply counting how many times your brand appears.

OtterlyAI is particularly interesting for this use case: it monitors prompts daily and reports both brand mentions and domain citations, with response-level citation details. www.tryprofound.comahrefs.comhelp.otterly.aiwww.tryprofound.comhelp.otterly.ai

Profound looks stronger if you're building a more sophisticated enterprise AEO/GEO program, particularly because it adds source categorization and outreach intelligence—i.e., identifying publishers/authors that are disproportionately driving citations in your category. www.tryprofound.comwww.tryprofound.com

One important caveat: AI answers aren't deterministic. The same prompt can produce different answers depending on the session, location, account and other factors, so these platforms should be treated as trend/benchmark measurement, not an absolute record of what every user sees. www.tryprofound.comahrefs.comhelp.otterly.aiwww.tryprofound.comhelp.otterly.ai

My pick:

• Enterprise / serious brand intelligence → Profound
• SMB or lean marketing team → OtterlyAI
• Marketing analytics + share of voice → Peec
• Just want to investigate your brand immediately → Ahrefs

If you tell me your company type (B2B SaaS, ecommerce, agency, local business, etc.) and roughly how much you'd spend/month, I can narrow this to the 2–3 best options and compare their current pricing/features.

If your goal is specifically “Which AI assistants mention my company, what sources/citations did they use, and how is that changing?”, I’d look at AI visibility / GEO platforms, not traditional brand-monitoring software.

My shortlist

1. Otterly.AI — my default recommendation

Otterly is particularly well aligned with what you're asking for. It tracks brand mentions, brand coverage, and domain citations, and can monitor individual URLs cited by AI search experiences. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot and Claude. otterly.ai

Its prompt-level reporting actually gives you the useful forensic detail: the AI response + the URLs used as citations, alongside competitor rankings and changes over time. help.otterly.ai

I'd choose it if:

“I want a dashboard that tells me where my company is mentioned and what websites AI is using to substantiate the answer.”

2. Peec AI — strongest citation-oriented alternative

Peec makes an especially useful distinction between:

• Brand visibility — AI explicitly mentions your company
• Source visibility — your website/content is actually used as a source

That distinction is important. You can be cited without being mentioned, or mentioned without your own site being cited. Peec tracks both, plus source-level and URL-level analysis. docs.peec.ai

It also specifically analyzes which sources influence AI results and provides citation intelligence for Google AI Mode. peec.ai

I'd choose it if:

“I care less about vanity mention counts and more about which sources are influencing AI's perception of my company.”

3. Profound — enterprise choice

Profound is worth considering if you're building a substantial GEO/AEO program rather than simply monitoring mentions. It is used by larger marketing teams to understand how AI systems perceive brands and which sources influence those answers. Recent reporting also identifies Profound among the platforms major brands are using for AI-search optimization. www.businessinsider.com

I'd expect it to make more sense for an enterprise team than a small company just wanting a citation tracker.

One important thing: track the sources, not just your mentions

This is probably the biggest strategic distinction.

Suppose someone asks ChatGPT:

“What's the best software for X?”

You might get:

Company A — mentioned
Company B — mentioned
Company C — mentioned

But the more interesting question is:

Why did the AI choose those companies? What websites did it read/cite?

For example, AI may repeatedly cite industry publications, Reddit, comparison sites, Wikipedia, review sites, LinkedIn, or competitors' pages. Recent research suggests that third-party sources are particularly important: one 2026 analysis of 167,551 AI citations found 85.7% pointed to third-party sites rather than the brands' own sites. arxiv.org

That's why I'd prioritize a platform with citation/source-level reporting over a conventional “brand mentions” monitor.

What I'd buy

Small/medium company: → Otterly.AI

SEO/GEO-focused marketing team: → Peec AI

Enterprise / agency / sophisticated AI-search program: → Profound

Already paying for Semrush: → Semrush AI Visibility

And I wouldn't rely on a single tool's overall “AI visibility score.” I'd want these raw metrics:

1. Mention rate — % of tracked prompts where you're mentioned
2. Position/rank — where you appear in the answer
3. Citation rate — % of answers citing your domain
4. Citation URLs — exact pages being cited
5. Third-party citation sources — publications/sites influencing your visibility
6. Competitor share of voice
7. Prompt-level response history — ideally the actual response, not just a score
8. Engine/model breakdown — ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Perplexity, etc.
9. Geography/language breakdown
10. Change over time

If you tell me your company type, approximate size, and whether you're mainly interested in ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity or Google AI search, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare their current pricing/features.

If you mean tracking when ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, or AI search engines mention your company and which sources they cite, you’re looking for an AI visibility / AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) monitoring tool, not a traditional citation manager. These tools typically track:

• whether your brand appears in AI answers
• the exact prompts that triggered mentions
• competitors mentioned alongside you
• URLs/sources cited by AI systems
• sentiment and positioning
• share of voice across AI engines citationlab.ai

Some of the strongest options:

My practical shortlist:

• Enterprise / large brand: Profound or Semrush
• SEO + AI visibility team: Ahrefs or Semrush
• You mainly care “does ChatGPT recommend us, and why?”: Peec AI, Surva.ai, or Otterly.AI
• You want a lightweight dashboard: CitationLab or similar AI mention trackers www.reddit.comcitationlab.ai

A good setup usually tracks a fixed prompt set, for example:

• “What are the best [category] companies?”
• “Compare [your company] vs [competitors]”
• “What software should a [buyer persona] use?”
• “Who are the leaders in [industry]?”

Then measure:

1. mention rate
2. rank/position in the answer
3. cited domains
4. competitor share of voice
5. whether the cited sources are your own website, reviews, news, or third-party references auditae.app

If you tell me your company size (startup, SMB, enterprise), industry, and whether you care more about ChatGPT mentions or AI citations back to your website, I can narrow this to 2–3 best fits.

If you mean tracking when AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, etc.) mention your company, recommend competitors instead, or cite your website/third-party sources, you’re looking for an AI visibility / GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) monitoring platform rather than a traditional SEO tool. dageno.ai

Here are some of the stronger options:

My shortlist by company size

Startup / SaaS team

• Start with Peec AI, Otterly.AI, or Citations.io. They’re closer to the core problem: “When someone asks an AI assistant about our category, do we appear?” www.surva.aicitations.io

Mid-market marketing team

• Semrush or Ahrefs make sense if you already pay for SEO tooling and want AI visibility folded into your workflow. www.techradar.com

Enterprise / brand reputation

• Look at Profound, MentionGEO, or similar enterprise platforms where you need many prompts, markets, competitors, and reporting. mentiongeo.ai

Features I would require before buying

Make sure the tool can answer:

1. Which prompts cause my company to appear?
   • “Best CRM for startups”
   • “Alternatives to [competitor]”
   • “Who are the leaders in [category]?”

2. Was my company merely mentioned, or actually cited?
   • Mention ≠ source attribution. Citation tracking is usually the more valuable signal. www.surva.aicitations.io

3. Which URLs and sources are AI systems relying on?
   • Your blog?
   • Reviews?
   • Wikipedia?
   • Industry publications?
   • Competitor pages?

4. Can it compare against competitors?
   • Share of AI answers won
   • Citation share
   • Sentiment/positioning

One practical approach: track a fixed set of 50–200 buyer questions monthly, not just your company name. AI assistants often recommend brands without being directly asked about them, so prompt-based monitoring gives a much better picture of market visibility. www.tryhikoo.com

If you tell me your company type (B2B SaaS, ecommerce, agency, local business, etc.) and approximate budget, I can narrow this to 2–3 best fits.

If your goal is specifically “Which AI assistants mention my company, what sources/citations are they using, and how is that changing over time?”, I’d shortlist these:

🥇 My pick: Scrunch

Scrunch is particularly well matched to your question because it doesn't stop at “was my company mentioned?”

Its Citations functionality shows:

• which websites/domains AI assistants cite
• the specific URLs being cited
• whether the source belongs to you, a competitor, or a third party
• which prompts generated those citations
• citation trends over time
• citation share by source/owner scrunch.com

That's important because there's a big difference between:

“ChatGPT mentioned my company.”

and

“ChatGPT mentioned my company because it cited this particular review/comparison/article, while competitors are being supported by these five other domains.”

The second one gives you something actionable to work on.

🏢 Profound for enterprise

Profound is probably the one I'd evaluate if you're running a larger SEO/content/brand team. It sits more in the enterprise AI visibility / AEO category rather than being merely a mention-monitoring tool.

💰 OtterlyAI for a lighter-weight setup

OtterlyAI is attractive if you want to get monitoring running without buying an enterprise platform. It tracks mentions and citations across major AI/search platforms and provides API access to prompts, citations, reports, and workspace data. otterly.ai

🔎 One important caveat

Don't treat an AI-visibility score as an exact measurement of reality. AI answers are nondeterministic: the same prompt can produce different answers and citations at different times. Recent research specifically finds substantial variability in citation visibility, meaning trends across repeated measurements are more meaningful than a single “visibility = 37%” number. arxiv.org

So I'd prioritize a product that lets you inspect the actual prompt → AI answer → cited URLs → competitor sources chain.

If I were evaluating three today, I'd trial: Scrunch + Profound + OtterlyAI and give each the same 50–100 commercially important prompts. Scrunch would be my first choice if source/citation intelligence is the primary requirement; Profound if you need enterprise reporting; Otterly if cost and simplicity matter most. A recent 2026 comparison similarly puts these three among the leading options, with different positioning by company size. getrefine.ai

If you tell me your company size, industry, and approximate budget ($50/mo, $500/mo, $2k+/mo), I can narrow this to the 2–3 tools I'd actually buy and compare their pricing, AI-engine coverage, citation-level data, API, and alerts.

If your goal is specifically “When an AI assistant talks about my company, what did it say, and which sources did it use?”, you’re looking for an AI search visibility / AEO / GEO monitoring platform, not a traditional brand-monitoring tool.

My shortlist

🥇 If citations are the priority: Profound

Profound's citation tracking is probably the closest match to what you're describing.

It lets you see:

• Which AI engines cite you
• Which exact URLs are being cited
• How often you're cited
• Which competitors receive citations instead
• Which third-party publishers are influencing AI answers
• Citation share by topic, prompt, and platform
• Whether citations come from your site, competitors, media, social, institutions, etc.

It also lets you identify the publishers and authors that repeatedly influence AI answers in your category, which is particularly useful if you're trying to increase citations rather than merely measure them. www.tryprofound.com

Profound currently covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok and others. www.tryprofound.com

I'd choose this if you're building an actual AI-search intelligence program.

🥈 Ahrefs Brand Radar — best if you already use Ahrefs

Ahrefs Brand Radar is unusually strong because it connects AI citations to its enormous traditional search dataset.

It currently analyzes hundreds of millions of search-backed prompts and tracks AI Overviews/AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and other surfaces. help.ahrefs.com

One feature I particularly like for your use case is the distinction between:

Mention → Citation → “Found but not cited.”

That last category matters: an AI system can retrieve your page while ultimately choosing somebody else's page as the visible citation. Ahrefs explicitly tracks this distinction. help.ahrefs.com

That gives you a much more useful funnel:

AI knows about us → AI retrieves us → AI actually cites us

Ahrefs also lets you identify the specific pages and domains being cited alongside your brand. ahrefs.com

🥉 Otterly — probably the easiest place to start

Otterly AI is a good choice if you don't need an enormous enterprise platform.

It monitors brand mentions and domain citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot and Claude, and gives you competitor comparisons. otterly.ai

Its citation reporting has also become substantially more granular, including URL-level citation details and winner/loser analysis. otterly.ai

I'd pick Otterly if your main question is:

“Give me a dashboard every week showing where my company appears, where competitors appear, and what URLs the AIs are citing.”

The metric I'd pay most attention to

Don't just track brand mentions.

I'd build your dashboard around these five:

1. AI mention rate — % of relevant prompts where your company appears
2. Citation rate — % where your own site is actually cited
3. Third-party citation share — which outside sites are shaping the AI's answer about you
4. Competitor share of voice — who gets recommended instead of you
5. Citation accuracy — whether the cited information about your company is actually correct

That distinction is important because being mentioned doesn't necessarily mean being cited. Ahrefs' research, for example, found that AI assistants mention brands substantially more often than they link to them. ahrefs.com

And third-party sources can be extremely important: AI may cite a review, comparison article, Reddit discussion, directory, or publication rather than your own website. ahrefs.com

What I'd buy

• Small/medium company: Otterly
• SEO team already using Ahrefs: Ahrefs Brand Radar
• Enterprise / PR + SEO + AEO team: Profound
• Very granular citation investigation: Scrunch
• Already heavily invested in Semrush: Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

If you tell me your company size, industry, approximate budget, and whether you care more about ChatGPT specifically or all AI search engines, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 and compare their current pricing/features.

If you mean “which tools tell me when ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, etc. mention my company and what sources they cite”, you’re looking for AI visibility / AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) monitoring, not traditional brand monitoring. The strongest options are:

My shortlist by company size

Enterprise / PR / brand team

• Choose Profound. It is built specifically around “how AI talks about your brand,” including cited sources and competitive visibility. www.tryprofound.com

Marketing team already using SEO tools

• Choose Semrush or Ahrefs so AI visibility sits alongside rankings, backlinks, and content analytics. www.techradar.comwww.techradar.com

Startup / smaller team

• Start with Otterly.AI or Peec AI for a narrower, cheaper monitoring layer. www.reddit.com

Features I would require before buying

Make sure the product can:

• Save the exact AI answer text (not just “you appeared”)
• Show which URLs were cited
• Track competitors in the same answers
• Run the same prompts repeatedly (AI answers vary between runs) arxiv.org
• Separate:
  • brand mention
  • recommendation/ranking
  • factual citation
  • negative/incorrect claims

A practical setup is usually:

1. Pick 50–200 customer-intent prompts (“best X software,” “alternatives to X,” “who provides Y service”).
2. Monitor weekly across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and AI search experiences.
3. Track whether your company is mentioned, whether your own pages are cited, and which third-party sources influence answers.

If you tell me your company size, industry, and whether you care more about reputation monitoring or getting more AI recommendations, I can narrow this to 2–3 choices.

If your goal is to know when AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.) mention your company and which sources they cite, there isn't a single tool that does everything perfectly yet. The best choice depends on whether you want SEO insights, AI visibility, or brand monitoring.

Here's how the current landscape breaks down:

If you specifically care about AI citations

The most valuable metrics are:

• Which prompts trigger mentions of your company
• Whether you're recommended or omitted
• Which websites the AI cites
• Which competitors are cited instead
• Changes in visibility over time
• Citation share across different AI assistants

The newer AI-focused platforms (such as Profound, Goodie AI, and Peec AI) are designed around these questions rather than traditional keyword rankings.

For a smaller budget

You can build a surprisingly effective workflow using:

• Google Alerts for new web mentions.
• Semrush or Ahrefs to identify authoritative pages about your company.
• A scheduled script (or an automation platform) that regularly queries multiple AI assistants with a fixed prompt set and stores:
  • the full answer,
  • whether your company was mentioned,
  • the cited URLs,
  • the date,
  • the model used.

This creates a historical record that's often more actionable than checking manually.

If you're an enterprise

If AI search is a major acquisition channel, I'd shortlist:

1. Profound
2. Goodie AI
3. Peec AI

These are among the most focused on measuring visibility and citations across generative AI systems rather than conventional search engines.

If you tell me:

• your company name,
• whether you're B2B or B2C,
• and whether your priority is ChatGPT, Google AI Mode/AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity,

I can recommend the platform that's the best fit and suggest a monitoring strategy tailored to your goals.

The category you’re looking for is usually called AI visibility tracking, LLM visibility monitoring, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). These tools monitor whether assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI search experiences mention your company, recommend competitors instead, and what sources they cite. www.elmohq.com

My shortlist:

A practical way to choose:

• Large company / PR / brand team: start with Profound or Peec AI.
• SEO team already using a suite: look at Ahrefs or Semrush.
• Need dashboards for executives: HubSpot may fit better if you already use its marketing stack.
• Want control and lower software cost: Elmo is worth evaluating. www.elmohq.com

When evaluating vendors, I’d prioritize:

1. Prompt-level evidence — can you see the exact question asked and the answer returned?
2. Citation tracking — does it show which websites AI assistants relied on?
3. Competitor comparison — who appears when your company does not?
4. Historical trends — can you measure improvement over months?
5. Coverage — which AI systems and regions/languages are included?

One caveat: these tools measure visibility; they generally do not have a direct way to force an AI assistant to mention your company. The useful output is identifying which prompts, pages, and third-party sources influence whether your company appears. www.reddit.com

If you tell me your company size (startup, SMB, enterprise) and whether you care more about ChatGPT mentions, AI search traffic, or PR/reputation monitoring, I can narrow this to 2–3 choices.

If you mean tracking when AI assistants mention your company, which sources they cite, and whether competitors appear instead, you’re looking for an AI visibility / GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) monitoring platform, not a traditional citation manager.

Good options:

My shortlist by situation:

• “I just need to know: does ChatGPT mention us, and what sources does it cite?” → Otterly.AI
• “We need executive reporting, competitor benchmarking, and a GEO program.” → Profound
• “Our SEO team already lives in a platform.” → Ahrefs or Semrush

When evaluating, I’d prioritize these features:

1. Exact prompt tracking — not just “brand sentiment.”
2. Source/citation capture — which pages, domains, reviews, or publications are being referenced.
3. Competitor comparisons — who appears when your company does not.
4. Historical trends — whether visibility is improving or declining.
5. Export/API access — useful if you want to combine AI visibility data with analytics or PR reporting.

A practical setup for most companies is to track 50–200 customer questions (for example, “best [category] software,” “alternatives to [competitor],” “how to solve [problem]”) and monitor which companies and sources appear over time. help.otterly.ai

If you tell me your company size (startup, mid-market, enterprise) and whether you care more about ChatGPT specifically or all AI assistants, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 choices.

If your goal is specifically tracking when AI assistants mention your company and which sources they cite, you're looking for the emerging category of AI visibility or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO/GEO) tools rather than traditional SEO software.

Here's how I'd group the best options:

If you're a startup or SMB

I'd lean toward:

1. Surva.ai — strongest emphasis on citations and the exact URLs AI models reference.
2. Mention.se — easiest dashboard and lower learning curve.
3. SEORav — particularly good if you want to monitor a defined set of customer questions over time.

If you're an enterprise

Consider:

• DeepSmith
• EvidentlyAEO
• HubSpot AEO (if you're already using HubSpot's CRM ecosystem) www.techradar.comwww.techradar.com

Features worth prioritizing

The best tools should track:

• AI assistants: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode
• Exact prompt used
• Whether your brand was mentioned
• Whether your website was cited
• Which third-party sources were cited instead
• Competitor share of voice
• Historical trends
• Alerts when visibility changes

A practical workflow

Many teams don't rely on one dashboard alone. They combine:

• an AI visibility platform,
• analytics (to see referral traffic from AI),
• and a custom list of 50–200 important customer prompts that are checked daily or weekly.

That gives a much clearer picture than only monitoring your brand name, because most valuable mentions happen in category questions like "best CRM for small businesses" rather than direct searches for your company. www.techradar.com

If you tell me:

• your company size,
• your industry (e.g. SaaS, ecommerce, local business, healthcare),
• and your approximate budget (free, <$100/mo, $500+/mo),

I can narrow this down to the two or three tools that fit best.

If your goal is specifically to track when AI assistants mention your company, what sources they cite, and how that changes over time, a new category of "AI visibility" or "Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)" tools has emerged.

Here's how I'd break them down:

If you're a startup or SMB

I'd start with:

1. Citations.io – one of the strongest products focused on AI citations rather than traditional SEO. It shows:
   • Which prompts mention you
   • Which URLs AI cited
   • Competitors cited instead
   • Recommended actions to improve visibility. citations.io

2. DeepSmith – useful if you want scheduled monitoring across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode with clear separation between "mentioned" and "cited." deepsmith.ai

If you're an enterprise

Look at:

• Siftly
• Profound
• Semrush AI Visibility
• Ahrefs Brand Radar

These are designed for larger marketing teams and competitive intelligence rather than just notification of mentions. Industry reviews frequently group them among the leading enterprise AI visibility platforms. www.techradar.com

Features worth prioritizing

Not every tool measures the same thing. The most useful platforms include:

• Monitoring across multiple AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI)
• Exact prompt history
• Source URLs cited by the model
• Competitor comparison
• Alerts when visibility changes
• Historical snapshots of responses
• Share of voice by prompt category

Keep expectations realistic

This area is still evolving. Different platforms often report different results because they sample different prompts, use different model versions, and test under different conditions. Many SEO professionals still supplement automated tracking with a small set of manually repeated prompts for consistency. www.reddit.com

If you tell me:

• your company size,
• your monthly budget (e.g. <$100, $500, enterprise), and
• whether you're mainly interested in ChatGPT, Google AI, or all AI assistants,

I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools that are the best fit.