Best AI Mode Tracking Tools 2026

TL;DR: Google's AI Mode answers a question in a conversation, with a handful of cited sources, and many searchers never click through to a list of blue links. A normal rank tracker cannot tell you whether your brand appears in that answer. This guide compares five tools that try to, and gives you a checklist for choosing between them. SE Ranking is first on the list because AI Mode has its own dedicated tracker there.

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Key takeaways

• AI Mode is not a ranking position. It is a written answer with sources attached. What you track is whether your brand is mentioned, whether your pages are cited, and who else is named beside you.

• Prompts replace keywords. Every tool here asks you to supply the questions a buyer might ask, then checks the answers. Your results are only as good as the prompts you pick.

• Engine coverage differs. Some tools track AI Mode alone or alongside a few engines, others cover many more. Decide first whether AI Mode is your only concern.

• Citations matter as much as mentions. Knowing which domains and pages AI Mode pulls in tells you what to fix.

• Prices are published unevenly. Some vendors list prices openly, others do not. Where we could confirm a figure on a vendor's own page we show it. Otherwise we say so.

What AI Mode tracking actually means

Traditional rank tracking asks one question: at what position does my page appear for this keyword? AI Mode breaks that. The answer is composed text, the sources are a short list, and the same question can produce a different answer on another day or in another country.

So the work shifts to four things:

• Mentions. Does the answer name your brand at all, even without a link?

• Citations. Which of your pages, or which competitor pages, does the answer point to?

• Competitors. Who else appears for the same prompt, and how often?

• Change over time. Is your presence growing, shrinking or random?

A good tool lets you set up a list of prompts, run them on a schedule, and show those four things without a person copying answers into a spreadsheet by hand. That is the line we use below.

How we evaluated these tools

Our team evaluated each tool from its vendor's own public pages, and this guide describes what those pages say. Nothing here is a test result or a ranking by performance. We looked at five things: which engines are tracked, whether AI Mode is named specifically, how citations and sources are shown, whether competitors can be compared, and how pricing is published. Every price below is as shown on the vendor's page when we read it on 2 November 2026. Prices change, so check the vendor before you buy.

The five

1. SE Ranking

Best for: teams that want AI Mode tracking next to their normal SEO reporting.

SE Ranking has a page devoted to tracking Google's AI Mode. It describes the tool as a way to spot every mention of your brand, or link to your website, in AI Mode answers. It says you can find which of your pages are cited most, and it says you can track how often competitors are featured in AI Mode snippets.

The page also describes source analysis: it says the tool finds the domains and URLs that Google pulls into AI Mode responses for the prompts you track. You can filter by country and language. The metrics it names are the number of brand mentions and links, average position trends over time, and traffic potential. It also says you can compare AI Mode with AI Overviews and with traditional organic results, and see search volume, estimated traffic and the full AI Mode snippets.

If you want more than AI Mode, SE Ranking's wider AI visibility tracker covers four engines. Its FAQ says it analyzes answers generated by ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. It describes brand mention and link tracking, competitor monitoring, source data, cached copies of AI answers and historical data. It also offers a free AI visibility checker that allows five checks a day, and a free 14-day trial with no credit card required.

That mix is why it leads this list. You get a dedicated AI Mode view and a broader view, in a product many teams already use for rankings and audits.

Where it falls short: the AI pages we read name five engines (Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini) and do not name Claude or Copilot, so a team that needs those will need to ask. The AI features also sit inside a wider SEO platform, so if you only want AI tracking, check whether you need the rest. Prices are not on the feature pages. SE Ranking's plans page has the current figures, and the way AI tracking is split between plans and add-ons is worth confirming with the vendor.

2. Peec AI

Best for: marketing teams that want a tool built only for AI search, with plans listed openly.

Peec AI describes itself as an AI search analytics platform for marketing teams. Its homepage lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and an "AI Mode Visibility Tracker." You set up prompts, add the brands you want to compare, and the tool identifies the sources AI answers cite, such as review sites, LinkedIn, Reddit and editorial domains. It offers CSV exports, a Looker Studio connector and an API.

Its pricing page lists Starter at $95 a month for 50 prompts, Pro at $245 a month for 150 prompts, and Advanced at $495 a month for 350 prompts, with custom pricing for Enterprise. On the three standard plans it lists ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Perplexity and several API-based models appear under Enterprise.

Where it does not fit: a team that wants AI Mode tracking inside a wider SEO suite will be running two tools. The prompt caps mean you should count your prompts before you pick a plan.

3. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Best for: teams already working in Ahrefs.

Ahrefs describes Brand Radar as a way to track and grow your brand's visibility across AI answers. Its page says it tracks brand mentions and citations, benchmarks you against competitors and monitors sentiment. It names AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, and says Claude is available for custom prompts.

There are two ways to track. Custom Prompts lets you enter your own buyer questions. The AI Visibility Index uses pre-collected responses for any brand. The page shows prices in pounds: Custom Prompts starting at 40 pounds a month and the AI Visibility Index starting at 159 pounds a month. It also says prompt tracking is free for every paid Ahrefs Lite plan and above. The page does not give prices for every tier, so confirm the total with Ahrefs.

Where it does not fit: if you do not use Ahrefs for anything else, you will be adding a new platform. The two tracking methods also behave differently, so find out which one your use case needs.

4. Rankscale

Best for: teams that want to watch many AI engines at a low entry price.

Rankscale calls itself an AI visibility platform. Its page says it tracks brand visibility across 17 or more engines, naming Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Muse Spark, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and DeepSeek, and its FAQ also names Mistral and xAI Grok. It offers mentions, rankings, citations and sentiment, plus page audits.

The page says plans start at $99 a month and scale to $780 a month for Enterprise, with tiers listed as Pro at $99, Pro+ at $229, Growth at $385 and Enterprise at $780. If your question is "show me everywhere we appear," the engine list is the draw.

Where it does not fit: breadth is not depth. If you only care about AI Mode, a long engine list is something you pay for and do not use.

5. AthenaHQ

Best for: teams that want tracking and suggested fixes in one tool.

AthenaHQ calls itself the command center for AEO and GEO, which means optimizing for answer engines and generative engines. It tracks how a brand appears across AI platforms, shows where visibility is rising or falling, and recommends what to fix. Its page lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Copilot on the free Essential plan, and Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI on paid plans.

It lists Essential as free, with credits, and Starter at $295 a month, with annual billing shown at 17 percent off. Enterprise is custom. API access and extra credits are paid add-ons on top of Starter.

Where it does not fit: AI Mode is a paid-plan feature, so the free tier will not answer your AI Mode question. Credits also mean you should ask how fast your prompts will use them up.

A note on two names you may expect here. Profound's homepage lists engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek and Google AI Overviews, but the text we read does not name AI Mode. Semrush has an AI toolkit, but the page we read does not name which engines it tracks. If AI Mode is the point, ask each vendor to confirm it in writing.

Questions to ask about price

Prices on these pages are a starting point, not a quote. Make every vendor answer the same five questions:

1. What does the price scale with? Prompts, engines, markets, seats or credits all behave differently as you grow.

2. Is AI Mode included in the plan I am pricing? For some tools it is a paid-plan feature or an add-on.

3. How often do prompts run? Daily and weekly checks produce very different pictures of a changing answer.

4. Which countries and languages are covered, and are they extra?

5. What can I export? If your reporting lives in another tool, CSV, API and dashboard connectors save hours.

Weigh the answers against what you spend now. If someone currently pastes AI answers into a spreadsheet each week, that time is the budget the software competes with.

Who this is for

This is for marketing and SEO teams whose customers research with AI before they ever reach a website. Think agencies reporting to clients, in-house teams asked "are we showing up in AI answers?", and small businesses whose competitors have started to be named in them. It is less useful for a business that gets almost all of its work from referrals and has no search presence to protect.

Decision checklist

Write your prompts first. List twenty questions a buyer would ask before choosing a company like yours. Without that list, you cannot compare tools fairly.

Confirm AI Mode by name. Ask each vendor to show AI Mode results, not only a statement that AI search is covered.

Check how citations are shown. You want to see which pages and domains are cited, not only a score.

Ask about competitors. Can you add the rivals you actually lose to, and how many?

Check the country and language filters. AI answers vary by market.

Ask how long history is kept. A single snapshot tells you little.

Get the full price in writing. Include add-ons, prompt overages and the renewal terms.

Frequently asked questions

What is Google AI Mode?

It is a mode of Google Search that answers questions in a conversation with cited sources, instead of only showing a list of results. SE Ranking's tracker page describes it as the place where Google pulls domains and URLs into responses for your prompts.

Can a normal rank tracker track AI Mode?

Not by position. A rank tracker reports where a page sits in a list. AI Mode returns a written answer, so tools built for it track mentions, citations and competitors instead.

Do I need to track more than AI Mode?

Often yes. Searchers also use ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews. Some tools cover them together and some cover AI Mode alone, so decide how wide you want to go.

How many prompts do I need?

It depends on how many products, services and markets you have. Start with the questions that match your best-selling offers, then add more as you see what is useful.

Are the prices in this guide current?

They are what the vendors' pages showed on 2 November 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm before you buy.

The bottom line

If you want AI Mode tracked as its own thing, with source analysis, competitor views and country filters, SE Ranking is the first place to look, particularly if you already use it for ordinary SEO. Peec AI suits a team that wants an AI-search-only tool with clear prices. Ahrefs Brand Radar suits teams already in Ahrefs. Rankscale suits anyone who wants the widest engine list at a low starting price. AthenaHQ suits a team that wants recommendations as well as tracking.

Whichever you lean toward, bring your twenty buyer questions to every trial and see what each tool says about you. SE Ranking offers a free 14-day trial with no credit card required, so you can see its AI Mode tracker on your own prompts before you decide.