Software for Monitoring AI Search Mentions (2026)

Software for monitoring AI search mentions watches how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and AI Overviews talk about your brand. It reruns the same prompts. It logs mentions, citations, and competitors. It tells you when a mention appears, disappears, or gets the facts wrong.

A one-off ChatGPT screenshot is not monitoring. Mentions move week to week. Competitors get added to listicles. Models pick a new source. If you only check by hand, you notice the drop after the sales team does.

This list is mention and citation monitors. Not writers. Not on-page graders. I grouped them by cadence, citation depth, and whether you can keep a history.

Mentions vs citations vs rankings

Three different jobs get mixed in every roundup.

• Mention: the model used your brand name.
• Citation: the model linked a URL (yours or someone else's).
• Rank / position: how early you appear in that answer.

Monitoring software should store the answer text, not only a score. Scores drift. The snippet is the evidence you send to a client or an editor.

If you also need classic Google positions, that is a rank tracker. If you need the full SEO stack, see best AI SEO tools. This page stays on AI mention monitoring.

How I picked this monitoring software

I read the live listicles that currently get cited for this query, including Zapier, Ahrefs, Semrush, TechnologyAdvice-style roundups, and vendor blogs. The names that repeat: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI, Semrush AI Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar.

A tool made this list if it:

1. Re-queries engines on a schedule (daily or weekly), not a single audit.
2. Detects brand strings in the answer, with competitor names in the same run.
3. Keeps history so you can see a mention appear or vanish.
4. Exposes sources when the vendor actually shows citation URLs.

I cut tools that only score HTML (llms.txt, schema) and never ask an LLM.

Quick comparison

Tool	Monitoring job	Cadence	History / exports	Entry
AI SEO Tracker	Mentions, citations, sources, competitor gaps	7-day audit week, then weekly	Permanent read after the audit	$49, then $79/mo
Otterly.AI	Daily mention index and link citations	Daily on Lite	Looker Studio / API on higher plans	From $29/mo
Peec AI	Visibility, position, sentiment alerts	Daily on published plans	CSV, Looker Studio, API on higher plans	From about €89/mo (check their site)
Profound	High-volume mention and crawler analytics	High frequency on paid plans	CSV / API on higher plans	Check their site
Ahrefs Brand Radar	Share of mentions across huge prompt indexes	Index refresh, plus custom prompts	Inside Ahrefs	AI indexes from $199/mo
Semrush AI Toolkit	Mentions, citations, sentiment in Semrush	Plan-dependent	Semrush reports and exports	$99/mo per domain
Waikay	Fact accuracy and misinformation in answers	Monthly on free, more on paid	Reports per brand	Free monitoring tier; paid from about $20/mo (Ahrefs, 2026)
Nightwatch	Rank tracking plus AI mention add-on	Plan-dependent	Agency reports / white-label	Check their site

1. AI SEO Tracker

Best for: A mention log you can keep, plus the URLs the models cited
Starting price: $49 one-time, then $79/mo
Free plan: No full scan. Homepage preview of three sample prompts.

AI SEO Tracker monitors ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and AI Overviews. That is the monitoring set most buyers mean when they say "AI search mentions."

The $49 audit is a 7-day scan week on up to 50 prompts. You keep login, print, and export after day 7. New scans stop unless you move to Basic ($79/mo, 50 prompts, 1 brand) or Pro ($199/mo, 500 prompts, unlimited brands, teammates).

What you are buying as monitoring software:

• Rank / missing status per prompt and engine
• Competitor names in the same answers
• Cited sources (the listicles and docs the model used)
• Snippets of how the model described you
• MCP so an agent can read the same data (OAuth, no API keys)

Page Inspector is on the higher plan. Do not expect it on Basic.

Use it when: you want a closed loop: mention → source → page to fix. That is LLM SEO measurement, not a sentiment toy.

Skip it when: you need 10 engines or a 200 million prompt research database.

Pros:

• Five engines in the first paid scan
• Sources and competitors in one report
• Permanent read on the $49 audit
• Agent access over MCP

Cons:

• Weekly on paid plans, not intra-day alerts
• No free historical monitor
• Five engines only

2. Otterly.AI

Best for: Daily mention checks on a small prompt set
Starting price: Lite $29/mo (15 prompts)
Free plan: Trial

Otterly is the cheap daily monitor in Zapier, Semrush, and xSeek lists. Lite covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and Copilot. Gemini and AI Mode cost extra.

Daily cadence is the reason to pick it over a weekly tool. You will know a mention dropped within a day, not after the Monday report. Fifteen prompts is the limit that bites.

Higher plans add workspaces, API, and MCP. Unlimited team members on all plans helps a small agency.

Use it when: a handful of head prompts matter every day.

Skip it when: you need Gemini in the base price, or 50+ prompts.

3. Peec AI

Best for: Alerting when visibility or position moves
Starting price: From about €89/mo (check their site)
Free plan: Trial on some plans

Peec's monitoring story is metrics plus alerts. Visibility (share of chats), position (how early you appear), sentiment. Semrush highlights custom alerts for gains and losses. That is closer to "software for monitoring" than a static GEO score.

Source analysis tells you which domains to chase. Agencies get pitch workspaces so a prospect sees the mention gap before they sign.

Lower plans may include only three engines. Confirm ChatGPT + Perplexity + Overviews vs Gemini before you buy.

Use it when: a marketing team wants Slack-style movement alerts and a Looker connector.

Skip it when: you need the monitor to output a page brief.

4. Profound

Best for: High-frequency enterprise mention monitoring
Starting price: Check their site. Public pages disagree ($99 starter vs much higher enterprise).
Free plan: Demo

Profound is what large brands buy when "monitoring" means analysts, regions, and crawler logs. Semrush describes near-real-time change detection and CSV/API workflows. Zapier calls out Conversation Explorer and ChatGPT Shopping on higher plans.

Starter coverage is often ChatGPT only. Treat "10 engines" as an enterprise claim until the order form says so.

Use it when: you have a data team and a compliance review.

Skip it when: you wanted self-serve mention tracking this week.

5. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Best for: Market-level mention share, not a 40-prompt watchlist
Starting price: AI indexes from $199/mo each (Ahrefs, Feb 2026)
Free plan: Not for Brand Radar. Webmaster Tools is separate.

Most mention tools start from prompts you invent. Brand Radar starts from search demand. That reduces the "we only tracked the questions we already knew" bias.

You get share of AI mentions, response excerpts, competitor gaps, and citation domains across Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, and Gemini. Custom prompts exist. The product is still an index.

Use it when: leadership wants "how often are we named in this category?"

Skip it when: you need a cheap weekly monitor on 50 exact buyer prompts.

6. Semrush AI Toolkit

Best for: Mention monitoring next to keyword and backlink data
Starting price: $99/mo per domain
Free plan: Semrush trial

If monitoring has to live next to Site Audit and Position Tracking, this is the path of least resistance. Semrush tracks mentions, citations, sentiment, and prompt research in the same family as classic SEO.

Billing is per domain and per sub-user. That is a bad surprise if you expected unlimited seats like Otterly.

Use it when: the same person already opens Semrush every morning.

Skip it when: AI mentions are the only job and you do not want the suite.

7. Waikay

Best for: Catching wrong facts in AI answers, not only presence
Starting price: Ahrefs lists a free monthly monitoring tier, then about $19.95–$199.95/mo
Free plan: Basic monthly monitoring (per Ahrefs, 2026)

Most monitors count mentions. Waikay asks whether the mention is true. Dixon Jones's product builds a brand knowledge graph and flags claims the model invented (wrong price, dead feature, old HQ).

Ahrefs lists ChatGPT, Gemini, and Sonar as sources. That is narrower than a five-engine tracker. The job is different: reputation, not share of voice.

Use it when: hallucinated product facts cost you deals.

Skip it when: you still do not know if you are mentioned at all.

8. Nightwatch

Best for: SEO agencies that already rank-track and want AI mentions in the same report
Starting price: Check their site. Third-party posts disagree (€79 vs $49).
Free plan: Trial on some plans

Nightwatch is a rank tracker first. AI mention monitoring is the add-on. That is useful if the client report already comes from Nightwatch and you refuse a second dashboard.

Engine coverage and whether Claude is included changes by plan and by blog post. Confirm on their pricing page. Unlimited seats and white-label show up often in agency writeups.

Use it when: Google ranks and AI mentions must share one PDF.

Skip it when: chat-engine coverage is the product, not a module.

What "real-time" usually means

Vendors love "real-time AI citation monitoring." MaxAEO and others warn that the phrase is loose.

In practice:

• Daily: Otterly Lite, many Peec plans, some Profound tiers
• Weekly: AI SEO Tracker paid plans, many SMB tools
• Index: Brand Radar (huge sample, not your exact 50 prompts)

LLMs are non-deterministic. The same prompt twice can disagree. A good monitor stores both answers. A bad one overwrites yesterday and leaves you with a vibe.

A simple monitoring setup

1. Pick 20–50 buyer prompts ("best X for Y"), not branded vanity queries only.
2. Track you + 3 competitors on the same set.
3. Log mention, citation URL, and snippet every week.
4. When a competitor wins, open the cited listicle and pitch that page. That is how ChatGPT ranking actually moves.
5. Keep GEO work on the pages those models already cite.

If you need the first dataset without a subscription, the AI SEO Tracker $49 audit is a 7-day mention week you keep.

FAQ

What software monitors AI search mentions?

Dedicated trackers such as AI SEO Tracker, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Profound query chat engines on a schedule and flag brand names. Suite add-ons (Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Nightwatch) do the same inside a larger SEO tool.

Is mention monitoring the same as brand monitoring on the web?

No. Meltwater-style tools watch news, social, and blogs. AI search monitors watch model answers. You want both if PR and AI recommendations both matter.

How many prompts should I monitor?

Enough to cover the jobs you sell, not every keyword variant. Fifty commercial prompts is a solid start (that is the AI SEO Tracker audit size). Fifteen is a pulse. Five hundred is an agency roster.

Do I need sentiment analysis?

Only if models describe you badly or invent facts. Presence first. Sentiment second. Waikay is the fact-check specialist. Peec and Semrush include sentiment on many plans.

Can I monitor mentions for free?

You can run prompts by hand. Waikay has a free monthly tier per Ahrefs. Mangools AI Search Grader is a free score, not a monitor. Ongoing five-engine monitoring is paid.