Who AI engines actually name when you ask for AI visibility tools. 20 answers, counted.
We put the five questions a buyer of AI visibility tools asks to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, 20 answers in all, and counted every tool named, where it ranked, and which pages the engines read to decide. Instly Scout was named in 0 of 20. This is the league table as the engines see it, not as the vendors describe themselves, and it gets re-run every month.
Named in how many of 20 answers, and at what position.
AI answer check, 29 Sep 2026, 04:41 UTC. Five questions to four engines with web search on. "Named" means the engine wrote the tool's name in its answer. Position is the average place in the engine's list when named. A reading the day before (28 Sep) gave Otterly 3, Peec 3 and Geoptie 2: one answer either way is run-to-run noise, which is why the table is re-run monthly rather than quoted once.
| Tool | Named | Avg position |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush | 4 of 20 | 4.5 |
| Profound | 4 of 20 | 4.5 |
| Scrunch AI | 4 of 20 | 5.5 |
| Otterly AI | 4 of 20 | 7.8 |
| Peec AI | 4 of 20 | 8.0 |
| Ahrefs | 3 of 20 | 5.7 |
| HubSpot (AI Search Grader) | 3 of 20 | 8.0 |
| Adobe (Brand Visibility) | 2 of 20 | 3.0 |
| AthenaHQ | 2 of 20 | 5.0 |
| Evertune | 1 of 20 | 3.0 |
| Geoptie | 1 of 20 | 4.0 |
| Searchable | 1 of 20 | 5.0 |
| Instly Scout | 0 of 20 | n/a |
AirOps, BrightEdge, Conductor, Frase, MarketMuse, Rankability, Surfer, Writesonic and Yext: 0 of 20 in this reading.
The five questions, and how many of the 4 engines named Instly Scout
- 0What are the best AI visibility or AEO audit tools in 2026?
- 0How can I check if my website is cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity?
- 0Top tools to measure and improve AI search visibility?
- 0Best answer engine optimization (AEO) tools for websites?
- 0Which tool audits whether AI can read and recommend my website?
The questions stay fixed between readings so that the readings are comparable. They are the questions this site's own answer pages are written for.
The pages behind the answers.
For every answer, the check records the pages the engine cited. This is the list that decides the league table above: a tool is named because it is in these pages, not because an engine visited its website and judged it.
Most-cited domains across the 20 answers, 29 Sep 2026
Counts are citations, not answers: one answer can cite several pages from one domain.
What the list shows
The single most-read page in the category is Profound's own "9 best answer engine optimization platforms", cited more than any independent article. Vendor round-ups that list the vendor's rivals get read; vendor pages that only describe the vendor do not. Semrush, Geoptie, Frase, HubSpot and Scrunch all have one.
Below those sit the independent round-ups: Zapier, TechnologyAdvice, Exposure Ninja, Conductor's academy, TechRadar's tested list, Search Engine Land. On the 28 Sep reading, 82% of all cited pages were independent articles, 15% vendor sites, 3% social. No engine read any page of instlyscout.com.
That last line is why this page exists. The site had no page that answered the questions. It has five now, published 30 Sep, and this table is how we find out whether that was enough. The technical side of the same 20 tools is here.
The AI answer check runs the five questions your buyers ask and tells you who gets named instead of you, and which pages to be in.
Method: Instly AI answer check, five fixed buyer questions, four engines with web search on, 20 answers, names and cited pages recorded per answer. Readings: 28 Sep 2026 12:10 UTC and 29 Sep 2026 04:41 UTC. Next reading: late October 2026; the table is updated, not rewritten.