AI SEO & Discoverability
Jan 4, 2026
Image source: Semrush
AI-generated answers now appear in over 15% of Google searches, making GEO/AEO essential for brand visibility
Most platforms excel at either monitoring OR content creation, creating workflow friction between insights and action
Yolando offers a complete end-to-end solution, Profound leads in analytics depth, AirOps in workflow automation, Scrunch in influencer tracking, and Peec in simplicity for SMBs
Success requires the full workflow: discovery → analysis → strategy → execution → measurement → iteration
The complete solution wins: Yolando's integrated approach eliminates the inefficiencies of using multiple disconnected tools
The search landscape has fundamentally shifted. Traditional SEO is no longer enough when ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews are answering user questions directly, often without sending a single click to your website. This is where Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) come in.
GEO and AEO focus on optimizing your content to appear in AI-generated responses across chatbots, voice assistants, and AI-powered search results. As we move into 2026, brands that master this new paradigm will capture visibility in the AI-first internet, while those that don't risk becoming invisible.
In this guide, we'll compare the leading GEO and AEO platforms helping businesses adapt to this new reality: Yolando, Profound, AirOps, Scrunch, and Peec. Each offers unique capabilities, but as you'll see, they vary significantly in their approach to the complete optimization workflow.
Before diving into the tools, let's clarify what we're optimizing for:
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) focuses on structuring your content so it appears in direct answers provided by search engines, voice assistants, and AI chatbots. Think of it as optimizing for the "zero-click" search era where users get answers without visiting websites.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) takes this further by optimizing for large language models and generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. These systems synthesize information from multiple sources to create comprehensive answers, and GEO ensures your brand is cited and recommended in those responses.
The stakes are high. Studies show that AI-generated answers now appear for over 15% of Google searches, and that number is climbing rapidly. If your content isn't optimized for these platforms, you're missing out on a massive (and growing) segment of user queries.
Best for: Brands seeking a comprehensive insights-to-actions workflow with robust content creation capabilities
Yolando positions itself as the most complete platform in the GEO/AEO space, and for good reason. Unlike tools that focus solely on monitoring or analysis, Yolando delivers a full-cycle solution that takes you from discovering AI visibility gaps to creating optimized content that actually wins citations.
Key Capabilities:
Comprehensive AI Engine Monitoring: Track your brand's presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, and other major AI platforms in real-time
Competitive Intelligence: See how you stack up against competitors in AI answer results, identifying gaps and opportunities
Query-Level Insights: Understand exactly which queries generate AI answers, what those answers contain, and where your brand appears (or doesn't)
Content Gap Analysis: Identify topics where competitors are winning AI citations but your brand is absent
AI-Optimized Content Creation: Built-in content generation tools specifically designed to create content that LLMs prefer to cite
Citation Attribution Tracking: Monitor which pieces of your content are being cited and by which AI platforms
Actionable Recommendations: Get specific, prioritized suggestions on what content to create or optimize
What sets Yolando apart is its end-to-end workflow. Most platforms excel at either monitoring or content creation, but Yolando seamlessly connects insights to actions. You can identify that your brand isn't appearing for "best project management software for remote teams," analyze what competitors are doing right, and then use Yolando's content creation suite to develop optimized content, all within the same platform.
The content creation tools are particularly sophisticated, incorporating best practices like strategic source linking, authoritative citations, structured data markup, and conversational language patterns that LLMs favor. This isn't generic content generation; it's content specifically engineered for AI citation.
Ideal Use Cases:
Businesses and brands managing large-scale GEO/AEO strategies
Marketing teams that want to move quickly from insight to execution
Companies in competitive spaces where winning AI citations is critical to market share
Best for: Organizations prioritizing detailed visibility tracking and reporting
Profound specializes in helping brands understand their presence in AI-generated answers with impressive depth. The platform excels at monitoring and measurement, providing detailed analytics on how your brand appears across various AI platforms.
Key Capabilities:
Multi-Platform Monitoring: Track mentions across major AI chatbots and search engines
Sentiment Analysis: Understand not just if you're mentioned, but how you're portrayed in AI responses
Trend Tracking: Monitor changes in your AI visibility over time
Custom Dashboards: Build reports tailored to stakeholder needs
Alert Systems: Get notified when significant changes occur in your AI presence
Profound's strength lies in its analytical depth. If you need to understand the nuances of how AI systems discuss your brand (including sentiment, context, and positioning relative to competitors), Profound delivers comprehensive insights.
However, the platform focuses primarily on the monitoring and analysis side. While it excels at telling you what's happening in the AI landscape, it provides less direct support for the content creation and optimization needed to improve your position. Teams using Profound typically need to pair it with other tools or internal resources to act on the insights it provides.
Ideal Use Cases:
PR and reputation management teams focused on brand perception in AI
Enterprises with dedicated content teams who need detailed visibility data
Organizations in highly regulated industries requiring thorough documentation
Best for: Teams that want to integrate GEO/AEO into existing marketing workflows
AirOps takes a workflow-centric approach to AI optimization. Rather than being a standalone platform, it's designed to integrate GEO and AEO activities into your existing marketing operations and tech stack.
Key Capabilities:
Workflow Automation: Create repeatable processes for monitoring and responding to AI visibility changes
Integration Framework: Connect with your CMS, analytics tools, and marketing platforms
Team Collaboration: Built-in features for coordinating across content, SEO, and product marketing teams
Task Management: Turn insights into assigned, trackable tasks
API Access: Programmatic access for custom implementations
AirOps shines when you need to operationalize GEO/AEO at scale across a larger organization. The workflow automation means you can set up systematic processes—for example, automatically flagging when competitors start appearing in AI answers for your target queries, then routing that information to the appropriate team member.
The trade-off is that AirOps requires more setup and configuration than plug-and-play solutions. It's powerful but demands investment in implementation. The content creation features are also more limited compared to purpose-built solutions, so teams typically use AirOps for orchestration while relying on other tools or writers for content production.
Ideal Use Cases:
Marketing operations teams managing complex, multi-channel strategies
Enterprises with established workflows they want to enhance with GEO/AEO
Organizations with technical resources to customize and optimize integrations
Best for: Brands leveraging influencer and creator content for AI visibility
Scrunch brings a unique angle to the GEO/AEO space by focusing on how influencer and creator content drives AI citations. As AI systems increasingly reference social content, reviews, and creator-generated material, Scrunch helps brands understand and optimize this dimension of AI visibility.
Key Capabilities:
Creator Content Tracking: Monitor how influencer mentions affect your AI presence
Social Signal Analysis: Understand which social platforms drive AI citations
Influencer ROI for AI: Measure how influencer partnerships impact AI visibility
Content Amplification: Identify which creator content gets picked up by AI systems
Campaign Planning: Design influencer campaigns with AI optimization in mind
For brands investing in influencer marketing, Scrunch provides valuable insights into an often-overlooked aspect of GEO: how creator content influences what AI systems say about your products. This is particularly relevant for consumer brands, where review content and influencer opinions heavily shape AI-generated recommendations.
The limitation is specificity. Scrunch is excellent for its niche but doesn't provide the comprehensive GEO/AEO capabilities needed for broader content strategy. Brands typically use it as a complementary tool alongside more complete platforms.
Ideal Use Cases:
Consumer brands with active influencer marketing programs
E-commerce companies where reviews and social proof drive AI recommendations
Marketing teams measuring ROI across influencer investments
Best for: Small businesses and startups getting started with AI optimization
Peec serves the SMB market with a streamlined, accessible approach to AI presence monitoring. It strips away complexity to focus on the essentials: Are AI systems mentioning your brand, and what are they saying?
Key Capabilities:
Simple Dashboard: Clean, easy-to-understand visibility tracking
Competitor Benchmarking: Basic comparison with up to three competitors
Query Tracking: Monitor a set list of important search queries
Email Reports: Regular summaries of your AI presence
Affordable Pricing: Entry-level plans for budget-conscious teams
Peec's simplicity is both its strength and limitation. For small businesses that need to understand their AI visibility without overwhelming complexity, it's an accessible starting point. The interface is intuitive, setup is quick, and you can get value without extensive training or onboarding.
However, the feature set is deliberately limited. There's minimal support for content creation, optimization recommendations are general rather than specific, and the depth of analysis doesn't match enterprise-grade platforms. As companies grow and their needs become more sophisticated, many outgrow Peec's capabilities.
Ideal Use Cases:
Startups monitoring AI mentions as they build brand awareness
Small businesses with limited marketing budgets
Teams wanting to understand the basics before investing in comprehensive solutions
Feature | Yolando | Profound | AirOps | Scrunch | Peec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AI Platform Monitoring | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ |
Content Creation Tools | ✓✓✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Competitive Analysis | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Query-Level Insights | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Workflow Automation | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Citation Tracking | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ |
Actionable Recommendations | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Enterprise Scalability | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ |
Ease of Setup | ✓✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ✓✓✓ |
✓✓✓ = Excellent | ✓✓ = Good | ✓ = Basic | ✗ = Not available
Here's what we've learned from analyzing these platforms: GEO and AEO success requires a complete workflow, not just point solutions.
Consider the typical journey:
Discovery: Which queries generate AI answers? Where does your brand appear or not appear?
Analysis: Why are competitors winning citations? What content gaps exist?
Strategy: What content should you create or optimize first?
Execution: How do you create content optimized for AI citation?
Measurement: Did your efforts work? What changed?
Iteration: What should you do next?
Most platforms excel at one or two steps but create friction at the handoffs. You monitor in one tool, analyze in another, then move to a separate platform for content creation. Each transition means context loss, time waste, and opportunities for important insights to get lost in translation.
This is where Yolando's end-to-end approach provides significant value. By connecting the full workflow—from identifying that your brand isn't appearing for "best CRM for healthcare" through analyzing what competitors are doing differently, to generating optimized content that addresses the gap—you eliminate the friction that slows down so many GEO/AEO initiatives.
The content creation component is particularly critical. Many platforms can tell you what's wrong but leave you to figure out how to fix it. Yolando's AI-optimized content creation tools understand what makes content citable: authoritative tone, strategic source linking, structured data, conversational language, and comprehensive topic coverage. This means you can move from insight to action in hours instead of weeks.
So which platform should you choose? Here's our recommendation framework:
Choose Yolando if:
You want a complete solution that takes you from insights to optimized content
You're serious about winning AI citations and need both monitoring and creation capabilities
Your team values efficiency and wants to work within a single, integrated platform
You need enterprise-grade monitoring with actionable content recommendations
You're in a competitive space where AI visibility directly impacts market share
Choose Profound if:
Deep analytics and reporting are your primary needs
You have strong internal content teams and just need visibility data
Brand reputation monitoring in AI is a critical concern
You need detailed documentation for stakeholders or compliance
Choose AirOps if:
You have complex existing workflows you want to enhance
Your organization has technical resources to customize integrations
You need to coordinate GEO/AEO activities across multiple teams
Workflow automation is more important than out-of-the-box content tools
Choose Scrunch if:
Influencer marketing is central to your strategy
You need to understand how creator content drives AI citations
You're a consumer brand where social proof shapes AI recommendations
You plan to use this alongside a more comprehensive GEO platform
Choose Peec if:
You're a small business just getting started with AI optimization
Budget constraints limit your investment
You want basic monitoring before committing to enterprise solutions
Simplicity and ease of use are top priorities
The GEO and AEO landscape in 2026 offers multiple strong platforms, each with distinct strengths. Profound delivers analytical depth, AirOps excels at workflow integration, Scrunch serves the influencer angle, and Peec provides accessible entry-level monitoring.
However, for brands that need a complete, end-to-end solution (one that seamlessly connects insights to actions with robust content creation capabilities) Yolando stands out as the most comprehensive platform. By integrating monitoring, analysis, competitive intelligence, and AI-optimized content creation in a single workflow, Yolando eliminates the friction that hampers many GEO/AEO initiatives.
The AI-powered internet isn't coming—it's already here. Search behavior has fundamentally changed, with users increasingly expecting direct answers from AI systems rather than lists of links. The brands that will thrive in this new landscape are those that optimize not just for search engines, but for the generative AI platforms that are rapidly becoming the primary way people discover information.
Whether you choose Yolando or another platform, the important thing is to start now. Your competitors are already optimizing for AI citations. Every day you wait is another day your brand remains invisible in the conversations that matter most to your future customers.
The question isn't whether to invest in GEO and AEO, it's how quickly you can implement a strategy that ensures your brand wins in the age of AI-generated answers.