Which brands AI recommends: AI visibility tools

Four tools are named in 96% of AI answers about AI visibility software

Edition 1 · October 2026, with September 2026 back-filled for comparison · 7,805 valid answers from 8 AI assistants · Published November 11, 2026

Every day we ask 8 AI assistants the same 40 questions a buyer might ask when looking for an AI visibility, GEO or AEO tool, and record which brands each answer names. Figures below are for October 2026; September is in brackets.

Findings

95.5% of answers name at least one of the four

1. Four names show up almost every time

Profound is named in 83.0% of valid answers (77.9%), Semrush in 77.0% (68.1%), Peec AI in 73.6% (58.2%) and Otterly.AI in 60.3% (52.7%). 95.5% of answers name at least one of the four (90.4%). Profound was the most-named brand on 29 of 31 days. The average answer names 6.6 of the 44 brands we track (5.8).

What this means for you: a buyer who asks an AI assistant for a tool in this category will almost always see these four. Any other tool is competing for the remaining places on a list that averages 6.6 names.

34.2% average overlap between two assistants

2. AI assistants disagree with each other

For the same question on the same day, the brand lists from two different assistants overlap by about a third: 34.2% on average when we count the 44 brands on our list, 28.9% when we count every brand name in the answers. ChatGPT and Copilot are the most alike (46.0%, or 41.3% counting every name). The five least-alike pairs all include Google AI Mode, under both ways of counting.

What this means for you: showing up in one assistant tells you little about the others. Check each assistant your buyers use on its own.

51.4% average overlap between consecutive days

3. Most day-to-day movement is reshuffling

Ask the same assistant the same question on two consecutive days and the two brand lists overlap by about half: 51.4% counting our 44 brands, 46.8% counting every name. Only 6.5% of consecutive-day pairs are identical (5.8% counting every name). Google AI Overviews repeats itself most often (23.7% identical). Gemini and Google AI Mode change the most (39.1% and 41.1% overlap; 36.4% for both counting every name).

For context, Namebeam's first edition measured 12%–40% consecutive-day overlap for a different category (local services), collected through APIs. Source: Namebeam Edition 1 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23626831). The categories, collection methods and brand sets differ, so we show the two side by side rather than compare them.

What this means for you: if a brand's share in one assistant moves a few points from one day to the next, that is most likely the assistant reshuffling its list. Judge visibility on monthly averages across many questions.

20.0% of cited answers naming Peec AI cite its own site

4. The leaders are carried by other people's pages

Take the answers that name a brand and cite at least one source. How often is that brand's own website among the sources? Peec AI 20.0%, Semrush 30.0%, Profound 31.1%. For some other brands it is much higher: HubSpot 70.1%, Dageno 87.3%, MaxAEO 95.9%. When the leaders are named, the sources next to them are mostly other websites: each other's sites (tryprofound.com, semrush.com, otterly.ai), the HubSpot blog, Zapier and YouTube.

What this means for you: for a smaller tool, its own website is doing nearly all the work. What the leaders have and smaller tools lack is coverage on pages the assistants already read, such as comparison articles, roundups and video reviews.

Ranking: all 44 brands

Sorted by named rate, October 2026. 7,805 valid answers over 31 days. Definitions are on the methodology page.

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Brands ranked by named rate, October 2026
Rank Brand Named rate Named first Average position Days in the top 3 Change vs September (pts)
1 Profound 83.0% 35.6% 2.36 31 +5.1
2 Semrush 77.0% 12.1% 4.15 31 +8.9
3 Peec AI 73.6% 12.5% 3.14 30 +15.4
4 Otterly.AI 60.3% 8.5% 3.82 1 +7.6
5 Ahrefs 58.1% 2.5% 5.33 0 +10.5
6 Scrunch 37.4% 1.0% 5.05 0 +9.1
7 AthenaHQ 30.1% 1.4% 4.73 0 +6.0
8 HubSpot 28.3% 5.5% 4.96 0 +1.9
9 SE Ranking 24.3% 1.1% 5.91 0 +1.0
10 Writesonic 17.9% 1.3% 6.01 0 +4.7
11 Rankscale 14.8% 1.2% 5.98 0 +3.6
12 Goodie 14.5% 2.3% 4.75 0 +6.6
13 Conductor 9.7% 0.2% 6.54 0 +2.0
14 ZipTie 9.3% 0.5% 5.30 0 +3.0
15 Promptwatch 8.8% 0.8% 5.17 0 +0.8
16 AirOps 8.2% 0.5% 5.93 0 +0.5
17 Surfer 7.9% 0.5% 6.58 0 +0.2
18 Similarweb 7.7% 1.0% 5.17 0 +0.7
19 MaxAEO (publisher) 7.4% 2.8% 3.55 0 −4.3
20 Frase 7.4% 0.5% 6.51 0 −2.9
21 BrightEdge 5.5% 0.1% 7.01 0 +0.8
22 Dageno 5.3% 1.1% 4.25 0 −2.5
23 Evertune 5.0% 0.3% 5.64 0 −1.7
24 Superlines 4.9% 0.5% 5.80 0 +3.6
25 LLMrefs 4.7% 0.2% 6.35 0 +1.9
26 Ansvisor 4.2% 0.2% 7.21 0 +3.6
27 LLM Pulse 3.7% 0.3% 5.38 0 +0.2
28 Nightwatch 3.5% 0.1% 7.59 0 +0.6
29 Clearscope 3.5% 0.1% 7.06 0 +0.4
30 Brand24 3.4% 0.4% 6.66 0 +0.4
31 Sight AI 3.3% 0.5% 4.41 0 −0.6
32 Brandi AI 3.2% 0.4% 4.29 0 +0.6
33 Meltwater 3.1% 0.3% 6.48 0 +0.8
34 AIclicks 2.9% 0.3% 4.96 0 −3.8
35 Brandlight 2.7% 0.1% 6.02 0 +0.7
36 Rankability 2.7% 0.2% 6.55 0 −0.4
37 Beamtrace 2.6% 0.3% 4.39 0 +0.7
38 Geoptie 2.3% 0.2% 5.40 0 −0.8
39 Mentionova 2.2% 0.4% 5.09 0 −1.6
40 MarketMuse 2.0% 0.2% 5.84 0 −0.7
41 Cognizo 2.0% 0.2% 6.12 0 −1.6
42 Knowatoa 1.6% 0.0% 7.42 0 +0.1
43 Trakkr 1.1% 0.0% 6.88 0 +0.1
44 Cloro 0.8% 0.0% 6.66 0 −1.1

Named rate by assistant: top 10 brands

Share of each assistant's valid answers that name the brand, October 2026. Darker means named more often.

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Named rate of the top 10 brands in each assistant
Brand ChatGPTClaudeCopilotGeminiGoogle AI ModeGoogle AI OverviewsGrokPerplexity
Profound 90.3%89.5%95.2%81.6%60.8%80.5%86.3%80.3%
Semrush 70.5%89.3%85.3%80.0%60.1%81.4%90.1%61.2%
Peec AI 79.9%89.3%80.5%66.0%47.9%66.9%82.6%70.2%
Otterly.AI 70.0%78.0%70.8%51.1%41.7%54.6%79.0%34.5%
Ahrefs 58.1%78.8%49.9%61.1%41.0%58.4%76.7%34.7%
Scrunch 43.5%62.9%40.3%16.2%10.9%18.3%58.6%33.5%
AthenaHQ 23.8%49.1%43.4%16.9%17.0%14.4%58.8%11.8%
HubSpot 20.0%30.5%19.0%29.0%28.4%33.1%29.2%33.9%
SE Ranking 3.5%47.6%4.2%27.7%22.7%42.7%26.2%14.7%
Writesonic 7.7%32.9%12.4%19.2%8.4%14.5%30.0%12.3%

How much the lists agree

Between assistants

Average overlap of the brand lists for the same question on the same day, October 2026, counting the 44 brands on our list.

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Pairwise overlap between assistants
Assistant ChatGPTClaudeCopilotGeminiGoogle AI ModeGoogle AI OverviewsGrokPerplexity
ChatGPT –37.9%46.0%36.0%31.8%38.0%40.6%41.1%
Claude 37.9%–36.6%32.1%26.4%32.3%40.2%30.6%
Copilot 46.0%36.6%–33.9%29.6%35.4%39.1%36.3%
Gemini 36.0%32.1%33.9%–27.0%32.6%34.2%31.7%
Google AI Mode 31.8%26.4%29.6%27.0%–37.2%28.0%28.4%
Google AI Overviews 38.0%32.3%35.4%32.6%37.2%–34.8%32.5%
Grok 40.6%40.2%39.1%34.2%28.0%34.8%–32.1%
Perplexity 41.1%30.6%36.3%31.7%28.4%32.5%32.1%–

Day to day

The same assistant and question on two consecutive days, October 2026. "Identical" means the two lists are exactly the same set of brands.

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Day-to-day overlap by assistant
Assistant Overlap, 44 brands Identical, 44 brands Overlap, every name Identical, every name
ChatGPT 58.3% 8.5% 55.0% 8.3%
Claude 53.4% 2.5% 48.1% 1.4%
Copilot 50.1% 1.8% 47.3% 0.9%
Gemini 39.1% 1.1% 36.4% 0.9%
Google AI Mode 41.1% 5.6% 36.4% 4.6%
Google AI Overviews 61.0% 23.7% 56.5% 22.0%
Grok 52.1% 1.5% 41.3% 0.5%
Perplexity 53.0% 8.3% 52.2% 8.5%

Where the answers get their sources

The 25 most-cited websites

October 2026. The share is of answers that cite at least one source.

The 25 most-cited websites
Rank Website Answers citing it Share of cited answers
1 tryprofound.com 1,968 25.7%
2 semrush.com 1,882 24.6%
3 otterly.ai 1,459 19.1%
4 maxaeo.ai 1,367 17.9%
5 blog.hubspot.com 1,361 17.8%
6 youtube.com 1,294 16.9%
7 zapier.com 1,216 15.9%
8 hubspot.com 1,157 15.1%
9 peec.ai 1,140 14.9%
10 reddit.com 1,063 13.9%
11 dageno.ai 922 12.1%
12 ansvisor.com 787 10.3%
13 ahrefs.com 772 10.1%
14 rankability.com 629 8.2%
15 visible.seranking.com 616 8.1%
16 scrunch.com 598 7.8%
17 nogood.io 568 7.4%
18 frase.io 551 7.2%
19 metehan.ai 545 7.1%
20 linkedin.com 542 7.1%
21 airops.com 536 7.0%
22 seranking.com 530 6.9%
23 technologyadvice.com 504 6.6%
24 amicited.com 491 6.4%
25 yotpo.com 483 6.3%

Own website against everyone else's

Among answers that name the brand and cite at least one source: how often the brand's own website is cited, and the three other websites cited most often next to it (with the share of those answers).

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Own-site citation rate and most common other sources
Brand Own-site citation rate Cited most often next to it
Profound 31.1% semrush.com (24.4%), otterly.ai (20.2%), blog.hubspot.com (18%)
Semrush 30.0% tryprofound.com (23.3%), otterly.ai (17.7%), zapier.com (17.5%)
Peec AI 20.0% tryprofound.com (26.3%), semrush.com (23.4%), otterly.ai (20.4%)
Otterly.AI 24.4% semrush.com (24.1%), tryprofound.com (23.6%), maxaeo.ai (17.3%)
Ahrefs 16.2% semrush.com (21.9%), tryprofound.com (21.2%), zapier.com (18.3%)
Scrunch 21.5% tryprofound.com (25.9%), semrush.com (19.4%), blog.hubspot.com (19%)
AthenaHQ 15.8% tryprofound.com (22.5%), ansvisor.com (20.7%), semrush.com (18.1%)
HubSpot 70.1% tryprofound.com (21.7%), semrush.com (19.9%), maxaeo.ai (17.3%)
SE Ranking 33.5% youtube.com (23.4%), zapier.com (19.7%), semrush.com (18.3%)
Writesonic 20.8% tryprofound.com (19.8%), blog.hubspot.com (18.6%), ansvisor.com (17.3%)
MaxAEO (publisher) 95.9% youtube.com (32.8%), reddit.com (22.1%), hubspot.com (19%)
Dageno 87.3% youtube.com (27.1%), zapier.com (18.8%), reddit.com (18.5%)

Downloads

Each edition has its own set of files. Files from earlier editions stay at the same address.

October 2026

Files for October 2026
File Contents Size
answers-2026-10.csv.gz One row per attempted answer (9,920 rows). 2.2 MB
missing.csv Every attempted answer that is not valid, with status and reason. 119 KB
prompts.csv The 40 questions. 4 KB
brand-aliases.csv The 44 brands and the rule that matches each name. 1 KB
summary.json The numbers on this page. 41 KB

September 2026

Files for September 2026
File Contents Size
answers-2026-09.csv.gz One row per attempted answer (9,440 rows). 2.1 MB
missing.csv Every attempted answer that is not valid, with status and reason. 38 KB
prompts.csv The 40 questions. 4 KB
brand-aliases.csv The 44 brands and the rule that matches each name. 1 KB
summary.json The numbers on this page. 40 KB

Columns in the answers file: date, platform, question ID, answer ID, status, brands named in order, number of brands named, whether MaxAEO is named and at what position, cited domains, cited URLs, public share link.

Answer text: not a download in this edition, because of its size. Each answer in the CSV has a public share link where the platform offers one, and we send the raw text on request: nancy@maxaeo.ai.

License: the compiled data and every column we derived (statuses, brands named, positions, cited domains, summaries) are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Please credit "MaxAEO, Which brands AI recommends" with a link to this page. The answer text is output from each AI provider. We share it only so you can check our counts; we do not license it.

Editions

Editions are added each month and old editions are never edited; corrections are added as a dated note on the edition they affect. There are no corrections so far. To report an error, write to nancy@maxaeo.ai.

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Edition log
Edition Data range Published Valid answers Days with missing answers
Edition 1 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-31 November 11, 2026 7,805 30 of 31
Back-filled with Edition 1 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 November 11, 2026 8,699 30 of 30

Day-by-day counts are on the methodology page.

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