Profound is an AI search visibility platform that helps brands understand how they appear in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews. As Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) becomes a top priority for content teams, Profound has emerged as an early tool focused on AI Search visibility.

Over time, many teams start evaluating Profound alternatives as their needs change. Common reasons include pricing constraints, limited flexibility beyond tracking, missing automation, or the need to support execution across larger teams and content libraries.

This article covers a range of alternatives, from analytics-first AEO tools to AI-native platforms built for execution. Rather than naming a single “best” option, the goal is to help you choose the right tool based on team size, technical maturity, and how you plan to operationalize AI search over the next few years.

What is Profound?

Profound is a specialized platform focused on AI search visibility tracking. Its core purpose is to show brands how often, where, and in what context they appear inside AI-generated answers.

What Profound does well

• Tracks brand citations and mentions across AI engines
• Reports visibility metrics for AI-generated answers
• Shows competitive presence in AI search responses

Core features

• AI citation tracking across multiple LLM platforms
• Brand mention monitoring in AI responses
• Competitive analysis for AI visibility
• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) recommendations
• Performance reporting and analytics

Who it’s for: Marketing teams, SEO professionals, and content strategists who want visibility into how their brand performs inside AI-generated answers.

Profound excels at answering what is happening in AI search. It doesn’t attempt to handle how teams create, update, or ship content in response. Most teams pair it with other tools to act on the insights.

Why teams look for Profound alternatives

Teams typically explore alternatives for a few practical, non-overlapping reasons:

• They want to move from insight to action: Dashboards show what’s happening, but they don’t update content. Teams increasingly want tools that help them refresh and ship content based on AI visibility data.
• They need automation that scales: Visibility tracking does not rewrite sections, manage large content libraries, or support repeatable updates. As AI search becomes operational, execution carries more weight.
• Collaboration becomes a bottleneck: As teams grow, they need shared systems for review, approval, and repeatable processes.
• Their scope expands beyond monitoring: Many teams want one platform to support research, creation, optimization, and refresh.
• Cost and ROI need to align: As budgets shift, teams reassess tools that solve only one narrow problem. By 2026, a growing share of SEO budgets will move toward AI search optimization, which increases pressure to show downstream impact.

The best Profound alternatives in 2026

The tools below fall into four broad categories: AI-native execution platforms, analytics-first AEO tools, enterprise SEO platforms adding AI visibility, and page-level optimization tools.

1. AirOps: Best for AI-native content execution at scale

AirOps is built for teams that want to act on AI search insights, not just monitor them. While Profound focuses on where brands appear inside AI-generated answers, AirOps focuses on what teams do next, like updating content, managing large libraries, and shipping improvements at scale. Instead of thinking of AI search as a reporting layer, AirOps treats it as an operational input. Teams use AI visibility data alongside SEO and performance metrics to prioritize work, update content, and maintain quality across thousands of pages with humans in the loop.

Best for

Content operations leaders, growth teams, and technical SEOs who want AI embedded across the full content lifecycle.

Key capabilities

• Enterprise-grade AI visibility platform and end-to-end system of action for AI search
• Page360 analytics: Page-level view that combines AI citations, Google Search Console data, and GA4 performance to guide prioritization
• Bulk execution (Grids): Update hundreds or thousands of pages at once using structured, spreadsheet-style controls
• Configurable pipelines: Multi-step content processes that support review, approval, and direct CMS publishing
• Brand governance: Centralized brand voice, product knowledge, and proprietary context applied consistently across outputs
• Model and cost control: Support for multiple LLMs with direct control over usage and spend

Pros

• Connects AI search visibility directly to content updates
• Designed for large content libraries and multi-team collaboration
• Supports repeatable, systemized content operations

Cons

• More powerful than monitoring-only tools
• Requires upfront system design and setup
• Not intended for single-page or ad hoc use cases

Pricing

• Solo: Starts free
• Pro: Custom pricing
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Learn more about how AirOps and Profound compare here.

2. Scrunch: Best for technical AI visibility and delivery control

Scrunch is an AI search visibility and delivery platform designed to help teams monitor how brands appear in AI-generated answers and measure real AI-driven traffic. It combines prompt-level visibility tracking with a technical delivery layer (AXP) that helps ensure content is accessible to AI systems. Scrunch is analytics- and diagnostics-first, focused on understanding where and why brands appear in AI search, rather than orchestrating the creation, refresh, or publishing of content based on those insights.

Best for

SEO and AEO analysts at technically mature organizations who want strong visibility into AI search performance, prompt behavior, and AI-attributed traffic.

Key features

• AI citation and mention tracking across major AI engines
• Prompt-level visibility analysis for AI-generated answers
• Answer Experience Platform (AXP) for AI crawler delivery control
• Bulk prompt management (uploading, tagging, editing)
• Enterprise access controls with RBAC and SSO

Pros

• Strong AI search monitoring and diagnostics capabilities
• Clear visibility into how prompts, personas, and regions affect AI answers
• Direct control over AI crawler delivery
• Clear attribution for AI-related traffic

Cons

• No native content creation or publishing workflows
• Recommendations-focused with no native execution or publishing layer
• No multi-step workflows for content creation, review, or deployment
• Lacks unified page-level prioritization combining AI signals, GSC, and GA4
• Limited bulk execution for content refresh or creation at scale
• No centralized brand governance, knowledge base, or content grounding system

Pricing

• Explorer: Custom
• Growth: Custom
• Professional: Custom
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

3. Peec.ai: Best for lightweight AEO measurement

Peec.ai is an analytics-first platform built for teams that want fast, low-friction insight into AI search visibility. It focuses on measuring where brands appear in AI-generated answers (LLM responses and AI Overviews) without requiring changes to existing content workflows or systems. Peec is intentionally lightweight, positioning itself as an entry point into AEO tracking rather than a system for executing or scaling content updates based on those insights.

Best for

Teams just getting started with AEO measurement who want affordable, low-effort monitoring.

Key features

• Daily AI answer and citation tracking
• Source-level visibility and citation analysis
• Support for multiple AI engines
• Shareable dashboards and reporting for stakeholders
• Looker Studio community connector and CSV export for downstream analysis

Pros

• Very fast setup with minimal configuration required
• Low-friction way to make AI search visibility measurable
• Unlimited seats on most plans, making it easy to share insights across teams
• Clear, transparent reporting on citation sources and AI answer composition

Cons

• Analytics-only platform with no native execution or publishing layer
• No built-in content operations, bulk workflows, or CMS integrations
• Limited automation beyond scheduled prompt runs and exports
• No brand governance, contextual grounding, or enforcement of on-brand execution

Pricing

• Starter: €89/month
• Growth: €199/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

4. BrightEdge: Best for enterprise SEO programs adding AI visibility

BrightEdge is an established enterprise SEO and content performance platform built to support large, complex SEO programs across brands, regions, and teams. It combines traditional SEO capabilities (keyword research, technical audits, competitor analysis, reporting) with emerging AI visibility and insight tools that help enterprises understand and act on AI search trends

Best for

Large enterprises and mature SEO programs that want to extend existing SEO investments with AI visibility, analytics, and enterprise-scale governance without onboarding an entirely new tool.

Key features

• Enterprise-grade keyword and SEO performance tracking with deep data sets
• Copilot AI assistant for content insights and prompt-based recommendations
• AI Catalyst for unified AI search visibility across LLM-derived features like AI Overviews and conversational results
• Content optimization recommendations and prioritized SEO task feeds
• Large-scale reporting, visualization tools, and dashboards tailored for cross-team visibility
• Governance, security, and access controls appropriate for enterprise teams
• Competitive intelligence with Data Cube X and market share benchmarking

Pros

• Comprehensive enterprise SEO capabilities
• Strong reporting and governance features
• Familiar workflows for large teams
• Designed to handle multi-domain, multi-market SEO needs at scale

Cons

• High cost for smaller organizations
• AI visibility remains an add-on
• Premium pricing and custom quotes make it a poor fit for smaller organizations
• AI visibility remains an add-on extension of analytics rather than a native execution engine
• Complex interface and steep learning curve due to breadth of features

Pricing

Enterprise pricing

5. Surfer SEO: Best for page-level optimization

Surfer SEO focuses on improving individual pages using SERP-based recommendations and prescriptive on-page SEO guidance. The platform is document-centric, built around a real-time Content Editor that helps writers optimize a single article against ranking pages. While Surfer has expanded into AI with features like Surfer AI and the AI Tracker, these capabilities function as add-ons rather than a unified operational layer, and AI visibility insights remain largely disconnected from execution.

‍

Best for

Content teams, writers, and SEO specialists focused on optimizing individual pages and producing higher-scoring content, rather than orchestrating end-to-end, multi-step content workflows at scale.

Key features

• SERP-based content optimization guidance driven by top-ranking pages
• Real-time Content Editor with keyword usage, structure, and content scoring benchmarks
• Keyword research, clustering, and topical mapping
• Surfer AI for one-off article generation and optimization
• AI visibility signals via the AI Tracker add-on, primarily for monitoring brand mentions in LLM responses
• Limited automation through 1-click features (Auto-Optimize, Internal Linking) or API-based bulk execution

Pros

• Clear, prescriptive optimization guidance that reduces guesswork for writers
• Intuitive, document-level workflows that are easy for editors and content creators to adopt
• Strong support for traditional on-page SEO and SERP alignment
• Helpful for teams producing a steady volume of individual articles

Cons

• Automation is shallow and largely task-based, with bulk operations requiring API access or external tools
• AI visibility insights are secondary and operate as a measurement layer, not an insight-to-action system
• Limited governance over brand rules, proprietary data, and contextual grounding beyond writing style
• Not designed for large-scale execution, multi-step workflows, or ongoing content operations across hundreds of pages compared to AirOps

Pricing

Plans start around $99 per month.

6. Ahrefs: Best for SEO teams adding basic AI visibility

Ahrefs is a long-established, best-in-class SEO platform known for its keyword, backlink, and competitive intelligence. In response to AI-driven search changes, Ahrefs has begun introducing early AI search visibility signals layered on top of its existing datasets. These features extend Ahrefs’ role as a research and measurement platform, rather than transforming it into an execution or workflow system for AI search.

Best for

Established SEO teams and organizations already standardized on Ahrefs that want incremental AI search visibility insights without changing their existing SEO workflows or tooling.

Key features

• Keyword and backlink analysis
• Site audits and technical SEO tools
• Competitive research and benchmarking
• Early-stage AI search visibility insights
• Rank tracking and reporting
• Feature-rich data exports and integrations for downstream analysis in other tools

Pros

• Unmatched depth and reliability of SEO and backlink data
• Industry-leading SEO data depth
• Familiar interface for SEO teams
• Useful as a foundational research layer to understand how AI search is impacting visibility

Cons

• AI visibility features are still maturing
• Limited execution support for AI search
• No native execution layer for acting on AI visibility insights
• Lacks workflow orchestration, automation, or content update pipelines tied to AI search signals
• Primarily answers “what’s happening?” rather than “what should we do next?”

Pricing

Plans start at $129 per month.

7. SE Ranking: Best for agencies managing multiple clients

SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO platform designed to help marketers and agencies manage keyword tracking, competitor research, site audits, and on-page optimization within a single suite. In recent versions, SE Ranking has introduced AI search visibility features (often as an add-on) that let teams monitor AI-generated results alongside traditional rank tracking and performance metrics.

‍

Best for

Small to mid-sized SEO agencies managing multiple clients.

Key features

• AI citation and visibility tracking
• Daily rank tracking across locations and devices
• Multi-client project management
• White-label reporting
• Keyword tracking and competitor analysis
• Website audits and monitoring

Pros

• Agency-friendly pricing
• Built-in white-label reports
• Broad SEO feature coverage
• Competitive pricing with flexible add-on options
• Basic AI visibility insights complement keyword and performance data

Cons

• Less advanced AI visibility capabilities compared to Profound
• Limited automation for execution
• Not designed for large content systems

Pricing

Plans start around $65 per month.

Profound Alternatives Compared

‍

How to choose the right Profound alternative

• Choose AirOps if you need customizable, repeatable workflows and want AI embedded across your entire content operation.
• Choose analytics-first tools if you only need visibility measurement and reporting.
• Choose enterprise SEO platforms if AI visibility is an add-on to an existing SEO program.
• Consider budget, team size, integrations, and how much execution you want the tool to handle—not just insights.

Turning AI visibility into lasting impact

Profound remains a strong option for understanding how brands show up in AI search. But as AI search becomes operational, many teams need more than visibility alone. Execution, collaboration, and the ability to update content at scale increasingly determine who earns citations and who fades from AI answers.

That’s where teams move from tracking to action. Platforms like AirOps help content and SEO teams turn AI visibility insights into repeatable systems for updating, managing, and scaling content across both SEO and AI search. 

Book a demo to see how AirOps helps teams operationalize AI search and earn more consistent citations and mentions at scale.

‍