An AEO tool shows which AI answers leave you out, and what to fix.
AEO, answer engine optimization, is the work of getting named and cited in AI answers. An AEO tool measures where that is not happening, shows the pages that win instead, and points to the fix. Proofsource is an AEO tool; here is what to expect from one and how the leading ones compare.
2 free scans, today and tomorrow: 25 questions on 4 engines. No card.
What does an AEO tool do?
It closes the loop between measurement and change. First it finds the questions where AI engines name competitors and not you. Then it shows why: which pages the engines cited, and whether they can read yours. Then it tells you what to change, and measures again to show whether the change worked.
Three things it should give you
Lost questions
Buyer questions where engines name competitors and leave you out.
Winning pages
The listicles, reviews and pages the engines cited instead of yours.
What to change
A page to rewrite, a list to get onto, a crawler block to lift, then a re-check.
How does Proofsource measure it?
Proofsource is an AI visibility platform that shows which buyer questions name your brand in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, who gets named instead, and exactly what to fix. It asks the questions your buyers ask on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, reads every answer, and records which brands are named and which pages are cited.
- Mention rate per question and engine, so you can see exactly which phrasings leave you out.
- A 95% Wilson interval on every percentage, so a dip you see on Tuesday can be told apart from noise. See the glossary.
- Daily sampling on the paid plan; the trial runs 2 scans about a day apart.
- A gap list: each question where a competitor is named and you are not, the pages that won it, and a drafted fix held for your approval.
The full method is on the methodology page.
Which engines does Proofsource cover?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, on every plan, with the same questions on each.
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Claude
Google AI OverviewsWhat separates a good AEO tool from a dashboard?
- It names the page that beat you. Without the cited pages, you cannot pick the cheapest gap to close.
- It checks your site can be read. If AI crawlers are blocked, or your text only appears after JavaScript, content work will not land.
- It drafts the fix, and you approve it. Nothing should publish itself in your name.
- It proves the change worked, with an interval, not a single re-run that happens to look better.
How do the leading tools compare?
Six criteria, the same for every tool. Each competitor fact links to the vendor's own page.
| Tool | Engines covered | Intervals and stats | Fixes and actions | Crawler checks | Price to start | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proofsource | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews on every plan; Grok and DeepSeek as paid add-ons. Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Mode are not tracked. | A 95% Wilson interval on every percentage; changes are flagged only when they clear it | Each gap names the pages the engine cited instead and comes with a draft held for your approval | Site audit checks whether AI crawlers get through and how much of each page they can read without JavaScript | Free trial; paid from $64 per brand per month (final price confirmed at launch), through sales | 2 free scans, today and tomorrow: 25 questions on 4 engines, no card |
| Profoundsource | Up to 9 on Enterprise: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Exa Search | Not published | AI Marketer agent, Opportunities, reusable Agents and Profound Sheets | Agent Analytics: AI-sourced traffic and attribution through CDN integrations such as Cloudflare, Vercel and Akamai | Free trial, then Enterprise at a custom price through a demo | Free: 50 prompts run daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews |
| Peec AIsource | Choose 3 per plan from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI; Perplexity as an extra model; up to 13 models including Claude on Enterprise | Not published | Gap analysis, ranked recommended actions and agent actions | Crawlability audit of robots.txt across 40+ AI bots, plus crawl insights from CDN logs | $95/mo Starter (50 prompts, 3 models); Pro $245/mo (150); Advanced $495/mo (350) | Free trial offered; length not stated on the pricing page |
| Otterly.AIsource | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot on every plan; Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini as paid add-ons | Not published | Recommendations (3 a week on Lite) and GEO audits (1,000 a month on Lite) | Agent Analytics on Standard and above; a free AI crawler simulation tool | $29/mo Lite (15 prompts); Standard $189/mo (100); Premium $489/mo (400) | Free trial offered; length not stated on the pricing page |
| Scrunchsource | Core: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot. Enterprise: 9, adding Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Google AI Mode and Grok | Not published | Insights and recommendations, 1 page optimisation a month on Core, content generation | AI agent and bot traffic, 5 site audits a month on Core; AXP on Enterprise | $250/mo Core (125 prompts, 5,000 responses a month, 4 LLMs) | 7-day free trial on Core |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkitsource | ChatGPT and Google AI Mode are named in Semrush's knowledge base; the full list is not published there | Not published | AI-generated strategic recommendations | AI Search Health in Site Audit flags blockers for AI crawlers (up to 100 pages) | $99/mo per user (25 tracked prompts, 1 domain); 50 more prompts for $60/mo | No free trial, per Semrush's knowledge base |
The full comparison of eight tools, with what each does best, is in the best AI visibility tools.
- Profound pricing www.tryprofound.com/pricing
- Peec AI pricing peec.ai/pricing
- Otterly.AI pricing otterly.ai/pricing
- Scrunch pricing scrunch.com/pricing
- Semrush KB: AI Visibility Toolkit www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-toolkit
Sources read on .
What buyers ask about AEO tools
What is an AEO tool?
Software that measures whether AI assistants name and cite your brand for the questions your buyers ask, and helps you change that. AEO stands for answer engine optimization; GEO is another name for the same work.
Is AEO different from SEO?
It builds on SEO, because AI engines draw on web pages and search indexes. The difference is the outcome you measure: being named inside an AI answer rather than ranking on a results page, and that outcome varies from one run to the next.
Which AEO tools suggest fixes?
Of the tools compared here, Profound, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Scrunch, Semrush and Proofsource all publish some form of recommendations or actions. Proofsource ties each fix to a specific gap and the pages that won it, and drafts it for your approval.
How long does AEO take to show results?
Engines that fetch pages live, such as Perplexity and ChatGPT search, can reflect a change within days of it being crawled. Answers built from a model's training data change only when the model is updated. That is why tracking per engine matters.
Find the AI answers that leave you out.
See which buyer questions name your brand, who gets named instead, and what to fix. 2 free scans, today and tomorrow: 25 questions on 4 engines. No card.
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