You've heard the pitch for Generative Engine Optimization. AI is answering the questions your customers used to type into Google. If your business isn't showing up in those AI-generated answers, you're losing deals you never knew existed.
Fine. You're bought in. But when you try to actually do something about it, you hit a wall: there's no established playbook, no single tool that handles everything, and the category is moving so fast that half the tools you find launched within the last six months.
Here's what actually works right now, organized by what you need to accomplish.
Understanding the GEO Tool Landscape
GEO isn't a single activity. It's a collection of related practices, and no single tool covers all of them. The tools available today fall into a few distinct categories:
- Visibility tracking: Monitoring whether AI platforms recommend you
- Content optimization: Adjusting your content to be more "AI-friendly"
- Prompt research: Understanding what people are asking AI about your category
- AI auditing: Analyzing how AI currently perceives your brand
Building an effective GEO strategy usually means combining tools from at least two of these categories.
Visibility Tracking Tools
This is the foundation. Before you optimize anything, you need to know where you stand.
Mentionable
Tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Gemini, and Claude. You enter your URL, it generates relevant prompts to monitor, and you track changes over time. Starting at €29/mo, it's the most accessible entry point for solopreneurs who want automated tracking without enterprise complexity. All plans include all five LLMs and email alerts when your visibility changes.
Otterly.ai
More feature-rich visibility tracking with deeper analytics. Good for marketing teams that want granular data on citations, sentiment, and competitive positioning. Starts around $99/mo.
Semrush AI Toolkit
If you're already paying for Semrush, their AI visibility features integrate into the existing dashboard. Convenient if you're in their ecosystem, but the combined cost can exceed $200/mo, which is steep for someone just getting started with GEO.
Content Optimization Tools
Tracking tells you where you stand. Optimization tools help you improve.
Surfer SEO (with AI Optimization Features)
Surfer has expanded beyond traditional SEO content optimization into GEO territory. Their content editor now includes signals about AI readability, structured data recommendations, and suggestions for the kind of comprehensive, authoritative content that AI platforms tend to reference.
The advantage is that you optimize for both Google and AI engines simultaneously. The content principles overlap significantly, clear structure, comprehensive coverage, authoritative tone.
Clearscope
Clearscope's content optimization approach translates well to GEO. Their focus on topical coverage and content comprehensiveness aligns with what makes content "AI-recommendable." While not explicitly a GEO tool, the fundamentals it teaches, covering topics thoroughly and using natural language, are exactly what AI platforms look for when selecting sources to reference.
Frase
Frase combines content optimization with question research, which is particularly relevant for GEO. Their platform identifies questions people ask about your topics and helps you create content that answers them comprehensively. Since AI platforms essentially answer questions, creating content that answers those same questions well is a direct path to visibility.
Prompt Research Tools
Understanding what people actually ask AI about your category is underrated. This is the GEO equivalent of keyword research.
Manual Prompt Research
Honestly, the most effective "tool" right now is just using AI platforms directly. Spend an hour asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini the questions your ideal customers would ask. Note which brands get recommended, what language the AI uses, and which questions produce the most commercially relevant answers.
This is tedious and doesn't scale, but it gives you ground truth that no automated tool fully captures yet. If you want a faster starting point, Mentionable offers free AI visibility tools that let you check your brand's visibility, run a GEO audit, generate an llms.txt file, and find content opportunities, all without signing up.
AlsoAsked and AnswerThePublic
These aren't AI-specific tools, but question research platforms like AlsoAsked and AnswerThePublic surface the kinds of questions people ask about your topic. Many of these same questions end up being asked to AI platforms. They're useful for identifying the prompts worth tracking and the content gaps worth filling.
ChatGPT and Perplexity Search Trends
Both platforms are starting to surface trending topics and popular queries. Monitoring these can give you early signals about what your audience is asking AI, before that intent shows up in traditional keyword tools.
AI Audit Tools
Before you optimize, it helps to understand how AI currently perceives your brand.
Brand Mentions Audit (Manual Method)
Ask each major AI platform: "What do you know about [your brand]?" and "Would you recommend [your brand] for [your use case]?" The answers reveal how AI perceives your positioning, authority, and relevance. This takes thirty minutes and provides surprisingly actionable insights.
Scrunch AI
Scrunch bridges auditing and optimization, analyzing your current AI visibility and providing specific recommendations for improvement. Their focus on actionable suggestions makes them useful for businesses that want a clear roadmap, not just data.
Building Your GEO Stack
Here's what I'd recommend based on budget and stage:
Just Starting Out (Under $50/mo)
Start with manual prompt research (free) and a basic visibility tracker. Understand where you stand before spending on optimization tools. Use the free tiers of content optimization tools to improve your most important pages.
Growing Business ($50-150/mo)
Combine a visibility tracker with a content optimization tool. Track your progress, optimize your key pages, and monitor competitors. This covers the feedback loop: track, optimize, measure.
Serious About GEO ($150-300/mo)
Full stack: visibility tracking, content optimization, prompt research tools, and regular AI audits. At this level, you're not just monitoring, you're actively managing your AI visibility as a channel.
What Matters More Than Tools
Tools are only as useful as the strategy behind them. The businesses seeing the best results from GEO aren't the ones with the most expensive tools. They're the ones doing a few things consistently:
Creating genuinely comprehensive content. AI platforms recommend sources that answer questions thoroughly. Thin content that ranks on Google through backlinks alone doesn't impress AI models.
Building real authority signals. Reviews, mentions in reputable publications, active presence on relevant platforms. AI models pull from the same trust signals that humans use.
Staying consistent. AI visibility shifts slowly, then all at once. The businesses that track regularly and make incremental improvements compound their advantage over time.
The tools make this easier to manage and measure. But the work itself, creating valuable content, building genuine authority, positioning your brand clearly, that's on you. No tool replaces the fundamentals.
