Add as preferred source on GoogleMost teams start with ChatGPT, because that is the name everyone says in meetings. Then they get round to Google, and find a much bigger surface where a competitor has quietly been the answer for months.
That is the reason to bother with Gemini. Google still handles most searches in almost every category, it is putting AI answers on more of them every quarter, and those answers get read by people who never chose to use an AI tool at all. They just searched for something, like they always have.
Why Google is worth the effort
The short version: Gemini grew faster last year than anything else in this market, and it is attached to the search engine your customers already use.
Similarweb's May 2026 figures put Gemini at 27.9% of AI chatbot visits, second only to ChatGPT. A year earlier it was on 527.7 million visits a month. By May 2026 it was on 2.9 billion. That is roughly 450% growth in twelve months, while ChatGPT's share of the same market fell from about 76% to 53%.
Similarweb, worldwide AI chatbot web-visit share, May 2026. Web visits only, so this is the web slice rather than the whole picture.
Then add the part that does not show up in chatbot numbers at all. Google is putting AI answers into ordinary search results, in front of people who never went looking for an AI tool. Graphite's research found that AI now accounts for 56% of traditional search volume worldwide, and that most estimates are four to five times too low because they ignore mobile apps.
So if you only have the budget to add one engine beyond ChatGPT, this is the one.
Two places Google answers, and they don't agree
This one catches people out, so it is worth a minute.
There is the Gemini app, where somebody deliberately opens it and asks a question. And there are the AI answers inside normal Google Search, which show up whether the person wanted them or not.
Google runs two of those in search. AI Overviews is the summary that appears above the blue links. AI Mode is the separate conversational tab you can switch into.
Those two do not give the same answer, and that is the bit worth knowing. AI Overviews mostly pulls from pages that already rank well, so the SEO work you have been doing carries over. AI Mode splits your question into several smaller searches behind the scenes, which drags in Reddit threads and YouTube videos that would never make page one. You can be ranking first and still be completely missing from it.
So when a tool tells you it tracks Google, ask which of the two it means. If it gives you one combined Google number, it is averaging two different answers together, and the work to fix each one is different.
At a glance
| # | Tool | Best for | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peec AI | The best all-in-one pick. Detailed analysis, solid data and clear recommendations you can act on, so you get from insight to impact fastest | $95/mo |
| 2 | Rankscale | The widest engine coverage per euro, if vendor size is not a question you have to answer | $99/mo |
| 3 | AthenaHQ | Seeing your real numbers for free first, then having the tool draft the follow-up work | Free, then $295/mo |
| 4 | Scrunch AI | Bigger brands in crowded categories who want a ready-made prompt library | $300/mo |
| 5 | Profound | Buyers who want a wide AI marketing platform, or who must clear a security review | $99/mo |
Taken from each vendor's published pricing and engine list on 14 September 2026.
1. Peec AI
From $95/mo. Berlin, founded 2025.
You get the Gemini app, AI Overviews and AI Mode all on the cheapest plan, reported separately, plus ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot. Very little else does that without an upgrade.
Reporting them separately is what makes the data useful. If you look strong in AI Overviews and you are nowhere in AI Mode, you now know your rankings are fine and your problem is that other people's pages don't mention you. No amount of on-site work fixes that, and without splitting the two you would probably have spent a quarter finding out the hard way.
Peec also shows the pages behind each of the three, sorted into five groups, so that diagnosis takes a minute rather than a quarter. And it can read your server logs, which lets you see whether Google's AI crawler is actually fetching your pages in the first place.
Where it is not the pick. Founded in 2025, so there is little history. No free tier. Fifty prompts on the entry plan. And engines past the included six cost extra per engine.
2. Rankscale
From $99/mo. Europe, bootstrapped.
All three Google surfaces on every plan, inside the widest engine list here. You can run checks as often as once an hour, which is genuinely useful for AI Overviews, because it changes faster than anything else we track.
They publish the full credit formula too, so you can price it yourself before signing.
Where it is not the pick. Two founders, bootstrapped, nothing published on SOC 2 or SSO. The traffic reporting was in beta when we checked. And credits climb quickly at volume.
3. AthenaHQ
Free tier, then $295/mo. United States, Y Combinator backed.
Eleven engines on every tier, including the free one, so you can see all of Google's AI surfaces before spending anything. Two of the founders worked on Google Search and DeepMind, which shows in how it handles retrieval.
The agent that drafts your follow-up work fits Google problems particularly well, because the fixes there are usually ordinary content and authority jobs that somebody has to sit down and do.
Where it is not the pick. The 3,600 credits on the Starter plan will not cover a real prompt set, so plan on more than $295. API access is an extra, quoted on request.
4. Scrunch AI
From $300/mo. United States.
Covers the Gemini app and AI Overviews, with 350 prompts of your own plus a large industry library on the entry plan. Crawler analytics and site audits sit alongside, so it covers more of the workflow than the cheaper tools.
Where it is not the pick. The highest entry price here, a seven-day trial and no free tier, and extra seats at $25 each. It is also thinner on AI Mode than the three above, and AI Mode is the surface most likely to surprise you.
5. Profound
From $99/mo. New York.
Comfortably the best-funded company in this category. They raised a $96M Series C at a $1B valuation in February 2026, led by Lightspeed, and they have more than 140 reviews on G2. They are also the only tool here with published SOC 2, SSO and SAML, so if your purchase has to get through an information security review, this is the shortest path and the ranking above doesn't really apply to you.
Two things are worth knowing before you shortlist them, though.
The first is what they are becoming. Profound started as an AI visibility tool and is now building something much wider. They have introduced Marketing Engineering as a discipline, launched a university, a certification and an agency marketplace, and they describe the goal as one platform for the future of AI marketing. If that is the direction you are heading too, it is a good reason to pick them. If you just want to measure and improve how AI describes you, you are buying a lot of platform you did not ask for, and the AEO part of the roadmap now has to share attention with the rest of it.
The second is pricing. For Gemini specifically this is the most locked-down option on the list. The $99 plan tracks ChatGPT only. AI Overviews arrives at $399. The Gemini app and AI Mode are both Enterprise features, at a price they do not publish.
Where it is not the pick. Anywhere you are buying it yourself without a procurement process. You cannot reach the surfaces this article is about without booking a sales call, and you cannot compare the cost without one either.
Questions we get asked
Which should we worry about first, the Gemini app or the in-search answers? The in-search answers, for almost everybody. They reach people who never opened an AI tool, so the audience is far larger.
Does ranking well still help? In AI Overviews, more than anywhere else in AI Search, so your existing work keeps paying off there. Much less in AI Mode. Barely at all in the Gemini app.
Why does the tool show something different from my own browser? Because a tool checks from a fixed location with a clean, signed-out session, and you are signed in, somewhere specific, with a search history. That is the right way to get a number you can compare over time, and it will never match what you see on your laptop. Compare the tool against itself, not against your own screen.
Can we opt out of AI Overviews? Not in any way you would actually want to. Blocking Google's crawler takes you out of normal search too, which is a cure considerably worse than the disease.
