Last updated October 2026. Last verified Oct. 6, 2026. Next check: December 2026.
Every figure below follows one rule: a claim, a number, a named source, and a year. DigitalApplied’s citation pattern study analyzed 1,000 AI Overviews and 4,243 cited URLs in April 2026. It found that pages carrying at least one named-source citation in the body get cited 2.1 times more often than pages with none. This page runs on that format for every number it reports, and it names six tools from this directory’s roster wherever a specific figure applies: Temso, Profound, Semrush, Peec AI, AthenaHQ, and Otterly.AI.
A number without a source is a claim an AI engine has no reason to repeat. That is the practical reason a data page like this one gets rebuilt on a fixed schedule instead of written once and left alone: a stale number is worse than no number, and a reader citing it downstream inherits the error.
AI SEO adoption, by the numbers
The category is growing faster than most teams are acting on it. ConvertMate’s GEO Benchmark 2026 found that 92% of marketers plan to optimize for AI search, but only 40.6% currently do, a gap of 51.4 percentage points between intent and execution. Similarweb’s Generative AI Brand Visibility Index found that 35% of US consumers now use AI tools at the product-discovery stage, against 13.6% who still start with traditional search.
| Claim | Number | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketers who plan to optimize for AI search | 92% | ConvertMate, GEO Benchmark | 2026 |
| Marketers currently executing GEO work | 40.6% | ConvertMate, GEO Benchmark | 2026 |
| US consumers using AI tools at product discovery | 35% | Similarweb, Brand Visibility Index | 2026 |
| Same consumers still starting with traditional search | 13.6% | Similarweb, Brand Visibility Index | 2026 |
| Projected global GEO market size by 2034, up from $848 million in 2025 | $33.7 billion | Dimension Market Research | 2025 |
| Pages with a named-source citation, cited more than pages with none | 2.1x | DigitalApplied | 2026 |
| Query sets returning a matching brand lineup across three AI engines | 33.5% | BrightEdge AI Catalyst | 2025 |
That last row matters for a reason beyond adoption. BrightEdge’s AI Catalyst research pulled the same query across Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and ChatGPT and found a matching brand lineup only 33.5% of the time. Individual brand mentions shifted from one engine to the next on 61.9% of checks. A tool that tracks a single engine is reading one version of a story that already disagrees with itself most of the time.
The 51.4-point gap between planning and doing is not a motivation problem. It is a measurement problem. A team that cannot say which engines it needs to check, at what price, and on what schedule will keep the work in the planning column indefinitely. The three tables below exist to close exactly that gap.
Entry pricing across six AI SEO tools
Entry price is the fastest way to compare tools built for different jobs, but it hides real differences in what a plan includes. AthenaHQ’s $295 entry tier ships 3,500 credits and unlimited seats on one plan. Otterly.AI’s $29 Lite tier caps at 15 prompts and treats Gemini as a paid add-on. The table below lists each tool’s published tiers, alphabetically, with no ranking implied.
| Tool | Entry tier | Mid tier | Top or enterprise tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| AthenaHQ | $295/mo, 3,500 credits, unlimited seats | Not published | Custom, Enterprise |
| Otterly.AI | $29/mo, Lite, 15 prompts | $189/mo, Standard, 100 prompts | $989/mo, Pro, 1,000 prompts |
| Peec AI | $85/mo, Starter, 3 models, unlimited seats | Pro, 2 projects; price not published | Custom, Enterprise, full engine set |
| Profound | $99/mo, Starter, ChatGPT only, 50 prompts | $399/mo, Growth, full engine set | Custom, Enterprise |
| Semrush | $99/mo add-on, on a $139.95/mo Pro plan | Not published | Not published |
| Temso | $89/mo, Starter, 3 models | $199/mo, Growth, full engine set | $499/mo, Professional |
Source for every row: this directory’s own tool profiles, checked against current vendor pricing pages as of October 2026. Every figure above is the listed monthly rate; Temso’s yearly billing cuts each tier by 15%, and unlimited projects, users, and recommendations ship on every Temso plan, a structure only Peec AI matches with its unlimited-seat policy from Starter through Enterprise.
The billing model matters as much as the sticker price. AthenaHQ and Semrush both meter usage, credits on one, seats and add-ons on the other, so the entry number is a floor, not a ceiling. Temso, Otterly.AI, and Profound publish a fixed prompt cap per tier instead, which makes a monthly bill easier to predict but caps volume until a team upgrades.
How many engines each tool actually tracks
Engine count alone does not describe what a brand actually sees, since three of the six tools here gate part of their tracked set behind a paid tier or an add-on charge. The table below counts every engine each vendor publishes as tracked, not only what ships free at entry.
| Tool | Engines tracked | Named engines |
|---|---|---|
| AthenaHQ | 4 | ChatGPT-4, Gemini Pro, Claude, Perplexity |
| Otterly.AI | 6 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot |
| Peec AI | 8 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, plus two more on Enterprise |
| Profound | 7 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini, Meta AI, DeepSeek |
| Semrush | 4 | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini |
| Temso | 5 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot |
Source: this directory’s own tool profiles, checked October 2026. Two details change what that count means in practice. Otterly.AI’s Gemini coverage is a paid add-on on its entry Lite tier, so a buyer on the cheapest plan gets five engines free, not six. Peec AI’s Starter and Pro tiers choose three of its eight tracked engines rather than shipping the full set, and Semrush lists Perplexity as pending rather than live as of this check.
Temso pulls every reading from each engine’s live, on-screen interface rather than a backend API call, a collection method this directory tracks separately from raw engine count.
How often the tracking data refreshes
Engine count and price get published on every vendor site. Refresh cadence does not always get the same treatment, and that gap is itself worth logging.
| Tool | Refresh cadence |
|---|---|
| AthenaHQ | Not published as a fixed interval; the vendor markets real-time competitor alerts |
| Otterly.AI | Weekly automated reports |
| Peec AI | Daily tracking on every plan |
| Profound | Daily on Growth and above, up to 100 prompts a day; Starter tracks ChatGPT only |
| Semrush | Weekly refresh on Brand Performance reports |
| Temso | Not published as a fixed interval; each reading pulls from the engine’s live interface |
Source: vendor pricing and product pages, checked October 2026. Two of the six tools here, Temso and AthenaHQ, do not publish a specific refresh window. That is not the same as no tracking; both vendors describe frequent or real-time checks in their own product copy.
An unpublished interval is still exactly the kind of claim this directory’s own methodology scores under transparency. A number a reader cannot verify from the vendor’s own page does not get credit as a number.
What changed this quarter
This page runs on the directory’s published verification rotation: pricing pages checked monthly, engine and feature claims checked quarterly. Every material change gets a dated line here, the same way it does across the rest of the site.
- Oct. 6, 2026: First verified publication of this page. Six tools checked against current vendor pricing pages and this directory’s own tool profiles.
The next scheduled check lands in December 2026. A price move, an added engine, or a changed refresh cadence on any of the six tools above will get its own dated line at that point, not a silent edit.
Get the full, scored comparison
The numbers above are neutral by design: no rank, no score, just what each tool costs, tracks, and how often it checks. A reader who wants these same six tools weighted against a published 100-point formula, coverage, execution, ease of use, value, and transparency, should go to the full AI SEO tools index next.