AI Search Tracking Tools Report
A sober look at the software gold rush happening in AI search tracking
AI search is changing the game.
Most brands are still optimizing just for Google.
Smart ones are also optimizing for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude—and whatever comes next.
That’s what we do at Minuttia.
We help B2B companies dominate search—not just traditional SEO, but AI-driven discovery too.
Here’s how we do it:
Develop AI + Google search strategies
Create high-quality human and AI content
Amplify visibility through Digital PR
Continuously improve with agent analytics & reporting93% of our clients stick around.
And >63% of our revenue comes from repeat business. Not by accident.
If you want to win on AI search before it’s table stakes, talk to us.
We’re already helping 50+ B2B SaaS companies. You could be next.
The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 fundamentally changed how we do marketing.
It introduced a new, emerging channel—one that adds to the discoverability and visibility pie already dominated by Google Search.
To be clear: Google Search and chat-based search are, in my view, two distinct channels.
AI search isn’t replacing Google; it’s expanding it, even if some cannibalization is inevitable.
After all, Google’s introduction of features like AI Overviews and AI Mode—now core parts of the search experience—shows it’s willing to cannibalize itself in favor of chat-like interfaces.
Time will tell how it all plays out.
We’ve been tracking a new software category that’s emerged from these changes.
The AI search tracking software category has exploded in the past two years.
We wanted to dive deeper, better understand the landscape, and offer a perspective that may not align with how companies position themselves.
Buckle up, and let’s go.
Disclaimer: For simplicity, I’ll use the term AEO to describe this software category. The marketing industry hasn’t settled on a standard term, and while I’m not particularly attached to any label, AEO will be my vehicle of choice for this report.
Key Insights
Here’s the TL;DR of the report:
Naming convergence hints at a bubbly market: Multiple tools use almost identical brand names (e.g., AI Rank Pro, AI Rank.Pro, AI Rank Lab, AI Rank Now), suggesting a gold-rush dynamic rather than clear differentiation.
The AI search tracking landscape is clearly AEO-first by volume (about three-quarters of tools), with SEO platforms as the second pillar and a small long tail of adjacent categories.
Roughly one in five AEO tools is known to have raised funding. About one in five is (still) bootstrapped. Just over half have no reliable human funding status (these are often very small/opaque tools).
Among AEO tools that have raised, about 7 in 10 are early-stage. The money is still going into young companies, not a wave of late-stage AEO giants.
Total known funding across AEO tools stands at $257.9 million.
Most funded AEO tools are early-stage by count, but most of the capital (~73%) is concentrated in a handful of Series A–B companies.
Let’s break down each of these insights in detail.
Origins
First, we looked into the origins of the tools competing in this category.
As we shared above, the AI search tracking market is overwhelmingly AEO-first: In our dataset of 240 tools, 176 tools (73.3%) are native AEO products, built around AI search from day one, while 42 tools (17.5%) are SEO-origin platforms extending into AI search.
The remaining 22 tools (9.2%) come from adjacent categories (content, e-commerce, ads, PR, analytics, CMS/CRM).
Grouped into macro buckets:
AEO-native: 176 tools (73.3%)
SEO: 42 tools (17.5%)
Adjacent (everything else): 22 tools (9.2%)
This data suggests that AI search is already bleeding into the broader marketing and product stack—not just traditional SEO.
While we don’t have reliable market share data per tool, we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that several category incumbents have also entered the race.
Think of tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush—platforms with the distribution required to capture market share quickly and at scale.
That said, the AEO software category already has a long tail, and we’re not especially bullish on most of these tools surviving as the market evolves.
Funding Status
Next, we examined the funding status of companies in our dataset, with a primary focus on the AI search tracking category.
Here’s a snapshot of the data for the 176 AEO tools in our dataset:
Bootstrapped: 40 tools (22.7%)
Has Raised: 39 tools (22.2%)
Unknown / Not classified: 97 tools (55.1%)
Roughly one in five AEO tools has raised funding, another one in five is (still) bootstrapped, and just over half have no reliable, human-verified funding status, often due to being very small or opaque.
Author’s Note: This was somewhat surprising, as I expected more companies in this category to have raised funding. Importantly, if our researcher’s confidence in a company’s funding status wasn’t rated as “high,” we excluded that data, thereby improving the accuracy of the results.
Funding Stages
Here, we focus on the 39 AEO tools marked as having raised funding.
Here’s what the distribution looks like for this category:
If we cluster those 39 tools into stage “buckets”:
Early (Pre-Seed / Seed / Angel / Pre-Series A): 27 tools (69.2%)
Mid (Series A–B): 6 tools (15.4%)
Other / hybrid instruments: 4 tools (10.3%)
Unspecified stage: 2 tools (5.1%)
As expected in an emerging category, roughly 7 in 10 funded AEO tools are early-stage.
Most of the funding is still flowing into young companies, not into a wave of late-stage AEO giants.
While many of these tools may not make it to the next round of funding, for now, the category is crowded with early-stage companies competing in the AI search arms race.
Total Funding
Next, we examine the total funding raised by AEO tools.
Our coverage includes:
All AEO tools: 176
AEO tools with a positive human-validated funding amount: 31
Share of AEO with known non-zero funding: 17.6%
Author’s Note: 8 additional tools are marked “Has Raised” but show $0 funding due to a lack of reliable sources confirming actual amounts.
And here’s what the distribution looks like on a high level:
Total known funding: $257.9M
Mean funding: ~$8.3M
Median funding: $2.5M
Range: from $30K up to $62.5M
Interquartile range:
25th percentile: ≈ $0.84M
75th percentile: ≈ $6.18M
In short, the typical funded AEO tool has raised in the low single-digit millions, with a few large outliers skewing the average upward.
Now, let’s break down funding by stage, based only on AEO tools with confirmed, non-zero funding.
Early (Pre-Seed / Seed / Angel)
24 tools (77.4%)
Total funding: ~$53.8M (20.9% of AEO dollars)
Median funding: ~$1.46M
Mid (Series A–B)
5 tools (16.1%)
Total funding: ~$189.1M (73.3% of AEO dollars)
Median funding: ~$29.1M
Unspecified stage (but non-zero amount)
2 tools (6.5%)
Total funding: ~$15M (5.8% of AEO dollars)
This reflects a classic pattern in emerging categories: many small early-stage bets, and a handful of mid-stage winners absorbing most of the capital.
Market Outlook
Let’s start with a critical question:
Why does this category exist in the first place?
The answer lies in the incentive for companies to gain visibility in AI search.
That incentive is referral traffic, which translates into sales, sign-ups, or demo requests, depending on the company’s product or service.
As long as the incentive remains, the AI search tracking software category will continue to grow.
While it’s still unclear how large this category may become, we can draw some useful lessons from the more established SEO space.
SEO remains competitive (but not cutthroat) with a few incumbents (like SEMrush) and a long tail of niche players.
I believe that something similar will happen to the AI search tracking category.
The challenge is that, regardless of how the category evolves, the tail is already too long—with 176 tools in total.
This reflects the gold-rush dynamics at play—ones that will inevitably face a reality check.
While I’m optimistic about this corner of the internet, I have serious reservations about most tools in this category.
Simply put: even if AEO as a channel has a future, most of the tools built for it likely don’t.
Here are a few things I’d like to point out based on our data and my intuition regarding the future of the category:
AI search tracking—the core use case for most tools in this category—is already commoditized. They’ll need to differentiate or face a slow fade-out.
Since the core use case is commoditized—and most tools lack the experience, discipline, or innovation to stand out—they’ll default to dropping their prices.
Many (if not most) of these tools will go out of business, consolidate, or pivot.
A handful of leaders will likely emerge, but under investor pressure to grow faster, better, and more efficiently.
I doubt the opportunity here is big enough to justify IPOs. Investor interest in secondaries will likely be low, leaving acquisitions as the only realistic path to liquidity.
With that in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if some AEO leaders are acquired by traditional SEO incumbents like Ahrefs.
Expect headwinds ahead—especially around quality-of-results volatility, as Kevin predicted in his 2026 outlook.
Here’s what this means for you (depending on where you fall under).
What does this mean for you as a company?
Not much. And here’s why.
Competition is a good thing.
If your company needs AI search tracking, there’s no shortage of tools to choose from.
While many tools in this category remain stubborn on pricing and come with limitations (e.g., prompt caps), prices will inevitably drop—benefiting B2B buyers in the long run.
What does this mean for you as a competitor in this category?
Unless you’ve raised significant capital (and are playing a different game) or already have distribution (e.g., you’re an SEO influencer), this probably isn’t a great category to build in.
I’ll leave it at that.
What does this mean for you as an agency?
Just like companies, you’ve got plenty of tools to choose from.
You might also explore partnerships with these tools to tap into their audiences—as they do with yours.
In many cases, the audience overlap could be significant.
What does this mean for you as an investor?
I’m an investor in this category, too.
My reasons for investing are different (e.g., I run an agency and benefit in ways that aren’t obvious from the outside). Still, I’d argue this isn’t the most attractive category for investors right now.
Founders will pitch this as “the future you don’t want to miss,” but the data tells a different story: the category is already crowded.
That would be true if this were an already established category.
It’s not, and there will be volatility ahead.
Invest wisely.
Bringing this to a close
I put this report together to better understand the dynamics of the AI search tracking category.
Right now, a lot of uninformed decisions are being made, and frankly, there’s a lot of BS in this software category.
I’m not here to bust that, but it’s important for me to have a clear view, grounded not only in intuition but also in data.
The data in this study aren’t perfectly accurate, but they’re directionally useful.
I hope you found the report helpful, even if your perspective differs from mine.
If so, please share your thoughts with me.
Thank you for reading today’s note, and see you again next week.
Report Disclaimers and Limitations
This report is based on research conducted using a combination of human analysts and AI agents. We have made every effort to validate and cross-check the data, and the underlying dataset is available for anyone who wants to review or challenge the findings. That said, the AI search tracking category is evolving rapidly, so there is a high likelihood that we have missed tools, features, or recent funding events, and some funding amounts or company details may be incomplete or outdated.
Nothing in this report should be interpreted as investment, legal, tax, or other financial advice. It is intended purely for informational and educational purposes. The author has invested in one or more companies mentioned in the report, which may create potential conflicts of interest, and readers should conduct their own independent research before making any financial decisions.
You can access our data here.