SEO software, sorted by job

Best AI SEO tools: pick by the job, not the ranking

Every major SEO vendor now sells “AI visibility” next to classic SEO, so feature lists overlap. This page does not rank them. It sorts the work into six jobs, shows how each vendor describes itself, and gives you a one-URL trial to run on your own pages.

  1. 1. Data

    Keywords, competitors, backlinks

    Human check: Confirm intent on the live SERP

  2. 2. Diagnosis

    Crawl, indexability, internal links

    Human check: Cross-check in Search Console

  3. 3. Briefs and grading

    Outline, terms, draft scoring

    Human check: Cut anything the brief invents

  4. 4. Research and structure

    Synthesis, FAQ drafts, JSON-LD

    Human check: Validate before you publish

Four of the six jobs, in the order a page moves through them.

Our take

Buy one tool per job, and only after a trial

Choose one data source. Add an on-page or brief tool only if you publish often enough to need grading. Use a general AI workspace for the synthesis in between. Do not pay for a second tool that does a job the first already covers; the overlap in the vendor descriptions below is the reason to test before you buy.

Disclosure

ZeroTwo publishes this page and sells one of the products discussed. We have not run these vendors against each other, so nothing here is a ranking, score or benchmark. Vendor descriptions are their own homepage headlines, read on 5 October 2026.

Six jobs, and what each one needs

The clearest way to choose is to name the job first. The last column is the part no tool does for you.

AI SEO jobs compared: what good looks like, which vendors position for the job, and the human check required.
JobWhat good looks likeVendors that position for itHuman check before you act
Keyword and competitor dataVolumes, difficulty and competitor pages from a large index, exportable to CSV.Semrush, AhrefsTreat volume as relative. Read the actual results page to confirm what searchers want.
Technical crawl and diagnosisA reproducible crawl: status codes, redirects, canonicals, indexability, internal links.Suite audit modules (check your plan) or a standalone crawlerVerify a sample of flagged URLs in Search Console before any bulk fix.
Editorial briefs and on-page gradingA brief built from the current results, term and heading suggestions, a live score while you write.Surfer, Clearscope, Frase, MarketMuseA score measures similarity to what already ranks, not originality. Check the brief against what your reader needs.
Topic inventory and gap-findingYour existing pages mapped to topics, with a clear view of what is missing or thin.MarketMuse, Surfer, FraseDecide keep, update, merge or cut yourself; a gap list is a prompt for judgment, not a verdict.
AI-visibility trackingRepeated sampling of AI answers for your prompts, with the cited sources recorded.Semrush, Ahrefs, Surfer, Clearscope, Frase each describe thisAnswers vary between runs. Read the trend over many samples, not a single result.
Research synthesis and structured outputReads the exports and sources you supply, reconciles them, drafts briefs, FAQ answers and JSON-LD for review.A general AI workspace such as ZeroTwo, or a vendor's built-in assistantFact-check claims and validate JSON-LD in Google's Rich Results Test.

Roles are our summary of how each vendor positions itself. Confirm current features and pricing on the vendor's own site.

How the vendors describe themselves

Quoted from each homepage, with the question to ask before you buy. No prices appear here because plans and limits change; the official sites are linked.

Data and competitive suites

  • Semrush

    Homepage headline

    “Be found everywhere search happens”

    Suite for search data and competitive research, positioned across AI search, SEO, PPC and social.

    Fits when
    You need one broad data source and already know which modules you will use.
    Ask before buying
    Which plan includes the exports, reports and seats you actually need?
    Semrush official site

  • Ahrefs

    Homepage headline

    “Make your business discoverable—in search, AI, and beyond”

    Search and AI data platform covering competitive intelligence, content marketing and site performance.

    Fits when
    Backlink and competitor research drive your decisions.
    Ask before buying
    How does the plan meter exports and projects at your site size?
    Ahrefs official site

Briefs, grading and planning

  • Surfer

    Homepage headline

    “Be The Answer in AI Overviews – Everywhere Buyers Search.”

    Describes itself as an AI visibility platform: audit existing content, find competitive gaps, write or optimise with live guidelines.

    Fits when
    Writers who want a live editor beside the draft.
    Ask before buying
    Does the score method fit your niche when you test it on your own URL?
    Surfer official site

  • Clearscope

    Homepage headline

    “Get Discovered on Google, ChatGPT, and What's Next”

    Write, optimise, track and scale search and AI visibility; also offers AI drafts.

    Fits when
    Editors who review other people's drafts against a grade.
    Ask before buying
    How many reports and users does your plan allow per month?
    Clearscope official site

  • Frase

    Homepage headline

    “Rank on Google. Get cited by AI.”

    Presents one loop: audit, research, write, publish and monitor rankings and AI mentions.

    Fits when
    A small team that wants brief, draft and monitoring in one place.
    Ask before buying
    Which steps would you still do outside it, and is that acceptable?
    Frase official site

  • MarketMuse

    Homepage headline

    “Create the content that counts”

    Content planning and optimisation: tells you what to write and how much, against competitors.

    Fits when
    A large existing library where prioritising matters more than drafting.
    Ask before buying
    How does it model difficulty for your domain, and can you see why?
    MarketMuse official site

What the research and Google say about AI search

Two primary sources, read on 5 October 2026, and what they do not promise.

Google Search Central

No special files or markup needed

“Be sure that you're writing non-commodity content that your readers will find helpful and reliable.”

The same guide says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup or Markdown for Google's generative AI features, and that there is no requirement to break content into tiny pieces. Structured data is not required for generative AI search, though it still helps with rich-result eligibility.

Google's AI optimisation guide

arXiv:2311.09735

“Up to 40%” is a best case, not a forecast

The GEO paper (Aggarwal et al., accepted to KDD 2024) says its strategies can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses on its GEO-bench benchmark, and that efficacy varies across domains.

Read it as: some tactics moved one visibility metric in one test set. It does not give an expected citation or ranking gain for your site, and no vendor on this page can promise one.

Read the paper

Where ZeroTwo fits, and where it does not

The synthesis layer between your data tools and the page. Not a replacement for any of them.

Use it for

  • Turning exports you paste or upload (keyword CSVs, crawl exports, SERP notes) into a brief and a decision list.
  • Running the same brief through different models and comparing the outputs side by side (60+ models).
  • Drafting FAQ answers and JSON-LD for content that is already on the page, for you to validate.
  • Web search on every plan and deep research (limited on Free, 150 a month on Plus, included on Pro and above), for gathering sources you then read.

Do not expect

  • It is a general AI workspace, not an SEO database: it does not replace a keyword index, a crawler or rank tracking.
  • It has no live SERP-scored editor. Use a grader if you want that score, and check what it measures.
  • It cannot see your Search Console data unless you export and paste it. Coverage is what you supply.

  • Free

    $0/mo

    • 100 free credits to start
    • Serper web search
    • No card required

  • Plus

    $14.99/mo

    • Exa web search
    • Access to Work and Code agents
    • Access to deep research

  • Pro

    $29.99/mo

    $26.99/mo billed annually

    • Access to deep research
    • Better model selection
    • Monthly credits

Plan details change; see the pricing page for current limits.

Run one URL through the stack

A procedure, not a published test: we have not released matched results for these tools. It shows what each step should hand to the next, and where a person has to check.

  1. Pick one URL and one query

    Produces: A baseline row: position, clicks and impressions for the query.

    Human check: You, from Search Console. Do not skip the baseline.

  2. Pull the data layer

    Produces: Related queries and the pages ranking for them, as a CSV.

    Human check: Open the top results yourself and note the intent.

  3. Diagnose the page

    Produces: Status, canonical, indexability and internal links pointing in.

    Human check: Confirm a sample with URL Inspection before changing anything.

  4. Write the brief

    Produces: Intent, sections, questions to answer, sources to cite, internal links.

    Human check: Delete anything the brief states that no source supports.

  5. Draft, grade, edit

    Produces: A draft with an optional grader score recorded before and after edits.

    Human check: Edit for what a reader would not find elsewhere.

  6. Add structure and ship

    Produces: JSON-LD only for content visible on the page.

    Human check: Validate in the Rich Results Test, then compare to the baseline.

Rubric for comparing tools

  • Same input for every tool

    One URL, one query, one data export. Otherwise you are comparing inputs.

  • Your data or its index?

    Note whether it used your export or its own index, and whether it says which.

  • Can you see the sources?

    Every recommendation should trace to a page or file you can open.

  • Run it twice

    Ask for the same brief again. Large differences mean you need a review step.

  • Minutes to a usable brief

    Time it, including your edits. Speed to a brief you throw away is not speed.

  • Plan needed at your volume

    Check the vendor's pricing page for the plan that covers your pages and seats.

Want to see this carried out end to end? Read a technical SEO workflow and deliverable, or choose what to write first with the content strategy planning tools guide.

Which setup fits which team

A starting point by situation. Vendors can be swapped; the jobs cannot.

Questions about AI SEO tools

Short answers, with the sources named.

What are the best AI SEO tools?

There is no single best tool; it depends on the job. Semrush and Ahrefs are positioned as data and competitive-research platforms. Surfer, Clearscope, Frase and MarketMuse are positioned around content planning, briefs and grading. Each of them now also describes AI search visibility as part of what it does, so their feature lists overlap more than they used to. Choose by job, then run the one-URL trial on your finalists with your own data.

Do I need special markup or an llms.txt file to appear in AI answers?

Google says no for its own generative AI features. Its guide to optimising for generative AI on Search states: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search (including its generative AI capabilities), as Google Search itself doesn't use them." It asks for non-commodity content that readers find helpful and reliable. Other AI products may behave differently, so test rather than assume.

Does the GEO research mean I can expect a 40% lift?

No. The Generative Engine Optimization paper (Aggarwal and co-authors, KDD 2024) reports that its methods can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses on the authors' benchmark, and that the efficacy of the strategies varies across domains. That is a best case under one study's conditions, not an expected result for your site or a promise from any tool.

Is structured data worth adding for AI search?

Treat it as ordinary SEO hygiene. Google's guide says structured data isn't required for generative AI search and that there is no special schema.org markup to add, but that it is still useful because it helps with eligibility for rich results. Mark up only what is visible on the page, and validate it before you publish.

What do AI SEO tools still need from me?

Inputs and judgment. Data tools need the right queries and competitors. Graders need you to decide what to ignore. A general AI workspace only reasons over what you supply or what it can search, so spot-check its sources. Plan a human check for each step: intent on the live results, flagged URLs in Search Console, unsupported claims in a draft, and JSON-LD in a validator.

Can ZeroTwo replace Semrush, Ahrefs or Surfer?

No. ZeroTwo is a general AI workspace with 60+ models, web search and deep research (150 a month on Plus, included on Pro and above). It does not include a keyword database, a crawler, rank tracking or a SERP-scored editor. It is useful for the synthesis step between those tools: turning exports into briefs, drafting FAQ answers and JSON-LD for review, and comparing how different models handle the same brief.

How much does ZeroTwo cost?

The Free plan is $0 with 100 free credits to start plus 20 bonus credits every day you log in, and no card required. Plus is $14.99 per month. Pro is $29.99 per month, or $26.99 per month billed annually. Current details are on the pricing page. We do not list competitor prices here because they vary by plan and change; check each vendor's pricing page.

How should I test AI SEO tools before paying?

Give every finalist the same URL, query and data export, and record whether it used your data or its own index, whether you can open its sources, how different a second run is, how many minutes you spent to reach a usable brief, and which plan covers your volume. Keep the baseline from Search Console so you can compare outcomes after Google has recrawled the page.

Sources read on 5 October 2026: Google Search Central's guide to optimising for generative AI features; arXiv:2311.09735; and the homepages of Semrush, Ahrefs, Surfer, Clearscope, Frase and MarketMuse.

Paste one keyword export and ask for a brief you can check