There are many 3rd party vendors that offer software, services, and consulting support to help you show up better in AI search. When choosing which option is best for you, it's important to consider (a) the level of service / consulting you need vs. can handle in house, and (b) whether you need a custom solution or a one-size-fits-all approach.

The AEO Vendor Archetypes

The AEO competitive landscape can be segmented into the following types of vendors:

Continue reading for more detail on these vendor archetypes.

1: Legacy SEO Software Providers

What are they and how do they work

Legacy SEO software providers include large brands like Semrush, Ahrefs, Similarweb, and more. These providers' bread and butter is aggregating large amounts of search data to provide useful insights for SEO teams, including SERP, keyword volume, keyword variations, competitive intelligence, and more.

Recently, these vendors have begun offering one-size-fits-all add-ons to their existing enterprise plans that allow vendors to view their AI visibility and performance. Here is an example of Semrush's offering in the space, the 'AI Visibility Toolkit.'

These tools start by creating a synthetic dataset of potential AI search prompts. These synthetic prompts are primarily generated using a mix of traditional search engine data + AI-assisted embellishment. They then use web scraping methods to run those prompts against AI systems, measure the outputs, and present them via dashboards to the customer.

Who should be using these tools

There's a few types of customers for which legacy SEO software providers are the right choice when trying to expand into AI search optimization. Here's how to know if that's you:

• You're a small brand where price is a major limiting factor.
• If you're in an industry where user purchase behavior is still predominantly concentrated in traditional search engines. If your customer demographic is a laggard in AI adoption, these tools are probably sufficient for your current use cases.
• If you're in an industry where search is not a primary driver of customer discovery. E.g. if you sell in heavily regulated industries, or exclusively via RFP applications, or to government agencies, search in general may not be a top priority, and these tools could be sufficient for you today.

Potential drawbacks for other customers

If you're not in one of the categories above, here are some potential drawbacks to using a legacy SEO software provider:

• Core Prompts: Because they rely on traditional search history and AI-assisted embellishment, these tools do not provide a precise measurement of how your brand is actually showing up today for real customers using AI search.
• Lack of Customizability: Because these are one-size-fits-all tools, they miss out on Answer Engine Optimization insights and opportunities that are unique to specific industries or brands. An example of this is Research-Based Authority optimization for healthcare brands.
• Account Support and Customer Service: Because these are massive companies, and AI search is not their core offering, you may not have access to readily available customer support. Smaller specialists are able to prioritize customer needs more rapidly in their product roadmaps and generally offer better and more responsive support.

Market share and pricing

These tools are very affordable, and typically start at $99 per month as stated on the Semrush site here.

Given these tools' existing and legacy footprint among nearly all enterprise and mid-market companies, they currently have higher market share relative to the Self-service AEO tracking tools, but their market share is declining quickly especially given that the dedicated AEO-software tools have much higher pricing for enterprise (sometimes >30x).

2: Self-service AEO Tracking Tools

What are they and how do they work

Self-service AEO tracking tools like Trakkr and Profound offer self-service software that helps brands understand how they're perceived by AI systems today. While these tools are one-size-fits-all, they are purpose-built for AEO teams and as such offer more configurability and better AI-search-specific features relative to the legacy SEO software providers.

These tools may suggest prompts that you should be tracking based on either AI-prompted generation or small samples of click-stream user search data, but most customers who use them are encouraged to self-select the prompts that they would like to track.

Once the prompts have been collected, these vendors either use an API call to LLMs like ChatGPT or web scraping methods to 'ask' the prompts to LLMs at scale. While both API and web scraping are used, the vast majority of vendors rely on web scraping given the significantly lower cost and the belief that it is a better representation of what the user actually sees.

These tools then aggregate the LLM response data at scale and present the insights to the user via dashboards. These insights may include metrics like AI visibility (what % of prompts do you show up in), citations (what are the sources that drive your visibility), competitive intelligence (how do your competitors show up), and more.

Who should be using these tools

These tools are fully self-service, one-size-fits-all software subscriptions. Here's how to know if they're right for you:

• You're a small brand where price is a major limiting factor (these tools start at $0 / mo, completely free in many instances).
• You're trying to dip your toe into the water with AI-search, and want a low-lift, easy way to start playing around with interventions at home.
• You already know exactly what your customers are searching, and don't need any custom technology to identify prompt volumes at scale.
• You're a very large brand, but you have a dedicated, full-time AEO team. This includes AEO content specialists, experts with experience identifying the queries your customers are asking, software engineers who are able to build attribution systems at scale, etc.

Potential drawbacks for other customers

If you're not in one of the categories above, here are some potential drawbacks to using a self-service AEO tracking tool:

• Bad Data: If you're tracking the wrong prompts that users aren't actually searching, you're not tracking at all. These tools put the onus on customers to decide which prompts they want to see metrics for. If you don't have a real, programmatic method of identifying those queries, you won't get value from these tools.
• Lack of Customization: If AI search is a top priority for your organization, driving millions in revenue each year, a standard one-size-fits-all software subscription leaves a lot of value on the table. For example, standard web scraping of free models may not be fully representative of what your customer base is seeing if you're targeting enterprise users that rely on API-based company-provided models, or a higher income bracket which is more likely to be using a paid version of ChatGPT, for example.

Market share and pricing

These vendors have grown rapidly, going from <$1M in annualized spend in mid-2024 to $50-100M in early 2026. They continue to grow rapidly as customers solve for AI search at exponentially growing rates.

However, intense competition has forced a broader price contraction in the market. Today, the bar is set at free: many software vendors offer basic visibility tracking at no cost. Other pricing models include $99 / mo, $500 / mo, and even upwards of $3,000+ / mo.

There is a wide range of pricing still present today in the market, and we forecast continued price compression in the near term as competition intensifies.

3: Traditional Agencies

What are they and how do they work

Traditional agencies (e.g. performance marketing, brand, SEO, etc.) have begun expanding their service lines to include AI search optimization.

These agencies typically leverage an agency subscription from one of the self-service AEO tracking tools, and use those insights to inform their AI search recommendations for you.

Because they're leveraging 3rd party software, there is no proprietary category intelligence that they offer customers.

While there are some agencies that have developed strong product offerings in AEO, the category as a whole is so nascent that it is incredibly difficult for the market to separate signal from noise, especially when these agencies are also offering numerous other services that may blend attribution with AI search results.

Generally, these agencies are an easy way for customers to start investing in AI search only because they're so accessible—customers already have them on retainer and they've delivered successful results elsewhere.

They can offer promising results, but often rely on one-size-fits-all strategies, and AEO is fundamentally not core to their business, expertise, or revenue in general, which means there's a much smaller focus on it overall.

Who should be using these tools

Generally, traditional agencies should be a last resort for customers looking to invest in AI search. Exceptions include customers who already have strong relationships with agencies that have delivered consistent results for them, and are willing to add on AEO services for free (which many of them are doing today).

If AI search is not core to your business, this could be a good way to start experimenting to see what results or insights they're able to deliver, especially if you don't have marketing resources in house.

Potential drawbacks for other customers

Covered above. Generally these shouldn't be the first choice for companies looking to make a strong investment into AI search.

Market share and pricing

Agencies price by the hour, with prices varying widely from $50 / hour to $300+ / hour.

4: AEO Custom Software & Service Specialists

What are they and how do they work

AEO custom software & service specialists include companies like Petra Labs. Petra Labs is a specialized vendor that offers a complete set of software tools for measuring AI search performance, along with end-to-end services where they actually do 100% of the work to help you win AI search. Petra Labs takes a high-touch, customized approach, where software is built around the end customer's use case to ensure that they are getting maximum value by considering how their AI search use case may be different than their competitors or companies in other industries.

Here's what they do:

• Petra offers engineers that build custom prompt maps to most accurately identify what real users are searching for in your industry. They'll build ad-hoc web scrapers that uncover customer sentiment from social platforms, they'll use real user search queries from data partnerships, and they'll integrate with your internal systems to ensure that no company-specific nuance gets missed.
• They'll then run those prompts, at scale, against various LLMs using their software which uncovers how your brand is showing up today, and more importantly: why? What are the citations that are actually driving visibility for your brand and competitors today.
• Petra's software is used for all clients, with individual components that get customized for each one. An example of this includes blending API and scraping methods for a given customer depending on their users' demographics.
• Petra then deploys real experts who identify relevant recommendations from the software simulations, and do 100% of the work to get your brand mentioned. This includes:
  • Owned media: blog, help content, landing pages, etc.
  • Site optimization: plug into your site to ensure content is structured correctly and to deploy owned media recommendations
  • Earned media: PR and 3rd party editorial placements on high-value domains
  • Social: Social platform optimization on sites like Reddit, G2, Trustpilot, etc.
• Finally, Petra offers engineers that build custom attribution systems for your organization that programmatically measure the impact of AEO interventions at scale, so that you can always know what's working and what's not.

Petra and other AEO custom software & service specialists act as your long-term partners, functioning as an extension of your team that helps you react in real time to model updates, competitive positioning changes, brand crises, new product launches, and more.

Who should be using these tools

Any company where AI search is a real priority should be turning to AEO custom software & service specialists.

Potential drawbacks for other customers

Pricing is the biggest potential drawback. These vendors reflect a real investment into AEO.

Market share and pricing

Software & services are billed monthly, at a fixed rate. Rates are custom and depend on level of effort required along with potential opportunity associated with performance improvements in your industry.

Typically, while prices vary, they start at $5,000 per month and go up to $50,000 per month. That being said, most customers typically pay between $10,000 - $20,000 per month.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many options for customers to choose from when looking to make an investment into AI search optimization / AEO. The AEO vendor landscape has 4 main archetypes of vendors, including:

• Legacy SEO software providers
• Self-service AEO tracking tools
• Traditional agencies
• AEO custom software & service specialists

If AI search is a real priority for your organization today, you should be working with an AEO custom software & service specialist. Reach out to Petra Labs to see what an investment into AEO could look like for your brand today!