Category: Articles

As AI assistants like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Claude become primary discovery channels, brands need specialized tools to track and optimize their visibility. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platforms have emerged as the essential infrastructure for understanding how your brand appears in AI-generated responses, monitoring citations, and proactively improving your presence across conversational interfaces.

The GEO landscape has rapidly expanded throughout 2025, with solutions ranging from budget-friendly monitoring tools to enterprise-grade platforms offering deep analytics, prompt volume intelligence, and optimization workflows. This comprehensive guide covers 25 leading platforms, each with distinct strengths in coverage, pricing, and capabilities.

Below, you’ll find a quick-reference table comparing all platforms, followed by detailed deep dives into each solution. Whether you’re a solopreneur tracking basic mentions or an enterprise team building a comprehensive GEO strategy, this index will help you identify the right platform for your needs.

Platform	Starting Price (2025 Est.)	Models Covered	Improve or Monitor	Prompt Volume Data	Languages
Spotlight	Free tier; Paid ~$49/mo	ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Copilot, Aimode	Also Improve	Yes	All languages
Profound	~$99/mo	ChatGPT	Also Improve	Yes	Unknown
Scrunch AI	~$300/mo	Every LLM (not specified)	Also Improve	No	Multiple (not listed)
Peec AI	~€89/mo (~$95)	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Deepseek	Also Improve	Yes	Unknown
Hall	Free tier; Paid ~$49/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, DeepSeek	Also Improve	Unknown	Unknown
Otterly AI	~$29/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Promptmonitor	~$29/mo	ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, AI Mode	Also Improve	No	Unknown
Mentions.so	~$49/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Writesonic	~$79/mo	ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, 10+ platforms	Also Improve	Yes	Unknown
Semrush AI Toolkit	~$99/mo (add-on)	ChatGPT, Perplexity	Also Improve	Yes	Unknown
AthenaHQ	~$295/mo	ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok	Also Improve	Unknown	Unknown
Peekaboo	~$100/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
MorningScore	~$49/mo	ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews	Also Improve	Unknown	Unknown
SurferSEO	~$79/mo	Google, ChatGPT, other AI chats	Also Improve	Unknown	English, Español, Français, Deutsch, Nederlands, Svenska, Dansk, Polski
Airank	~$49/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
AmionAI	Beta; ~$50/mo	ChatGPT	Also Improve	No	Multi-language (not listed)
Authoritas AI Search	~$119/mo	ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews, Bing AI	Also Improve	Unknown	Multilingual (customizable)
ModelMonitor	~$49/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Quno	~$99/mo	Unknown	Also Improve	Unknown	Unknown
RankScale	Beta; ~$79/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Waikay	~$19.95/mo	ChatGPT, Google, Claude, Sonar	Also Improve	No	13 languages
XFunnel	~$199/mo	ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Perplexity, AI Overview, AI Mode	Also Improve	Yes	Unknown
Clearscope	~$170/mo	ChatGPT, Gemini	Also Improve	Unknown	Unknown
ItsProject40	~$50/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
AI Brand Tracking	~$99/mo	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown

Now let’s dive deeper into each platform. The following sections provide comprehensive details on pricing, model coverage, key features, and use cases for all 25 GEO solutions. This will help you understand not just what each tool does, but how it fits into different marketing workflows and team structures.

Platform Deep Dives

How to Choose the Right GEO Platform

Match Coverage to Your Footprint: Start with the AI models that drive your customers’ journeys. Platforms like Spotlight and Authoritas offer the broadest footprint, while focused solutions like Profound excel within one primary assistant.

Prioritize Visibility Gaps: Tools such as Scrunch AI and RankScale surface where you are absent in overviews or chat responses. Pair those insights with optimization-centric suites like Writesonic or SurferSEO to close gaps quickly.

Weigh Prompt Intelligence: If understanding prompt demand is critical, lean toward Spotlight, Profound, or Promptmonitor for richer prompt volume and journey analytics.

Design for Team Workflows: Agencies and enterprise teams benefit from white-label reporting (Mentions.so) or persona-based insights (AthenaHQ, Quno), whereas solo operators may prefer the simplicity of Otterly AI or Hall.

Pricing and coverage reflect the latest available data as of November 2025 and may change. Verify current plans and feature sets directly with each provider.

Profound made a buzz by being first to market in AI visibility tracking, but being first doesn’t mean being best. If you’re looking for alternatives—whether for better pricing, superior features, or a more accessible platform—here are five excellent options that often outperform Profound.

With pricing starting at $499/month and a focus on enterprise clients, Profound isn’t the right fit for many teams. More importantly, several newer platforms have emerged that offer better features, more accessible pricing, and superior user experiences.

That’s why I’ve researched and compiled this list of the best Profound alternatives. Each tool offers unique advantages, better pricing models, and serves different needs within the AI brand visibility ecosystem—often outperforming Profound in key areas.

Whether you’re a startup on a budget, an agency managing multiple clients, or an enterprise looking for more specialized features, there’s an alternative here that will likely work better than Profound for your situation.

What is an AI brand visibility monitoring tool?

An AI brand visibility monitoring tool (also called AEO/GEO tools) tracks how your brand appears in AI-generated responses across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and Google AI Overviews.

These tools monitor two key metrics:

• Mentions: When AI directly recommends your brand or product in its responses
• Citations: When your content is used as a source to inform AI responses

Think of it as Google Alerts, but specifically for AI search results. These platforms help you understand where and how your brand shows up in AI conversations, track trends over time, and identify opportunities to improve your visibility.

Why look for Profound alternatives?

While Profound was early to market, there are several compelling reasons to consider alternatives:

• Pricing: At $499/month minimum, Profound is significantly more expensive than alternatives like Spotlight ($50/month) or Hall (free tier available)
• Better value: Many newer platforms offer more features and better value at lower price points
• Free features: Tools like Spotlight offer extensive free features (intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, prompt volume tools, Google Analytics integration, content scoring, reputation scoring) that Profound doesn’t provide
• Accessibility: Profound’s enterprise focus makes it less accessible for smaller teams, while alternatives offer more flexible entry points
• Superior features: Newer platforms have learned from early tools and often offer better sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, actionable insights, and unique capabilities like automatic prompt discovery
• Risk-free testing: Alternatives like Spotlight offer free full pro access for audits, while Profound requires a significant upfront investment

5 Best Profound Alternatives in 2025

Here are the best alternatives to Profound for AI brand visibility monitoring:

1. Spotlight
2. Scrunch AI
3. Hall
4. Otterly.AI
5. BrandLight

Let’s dive into each one.

1. Spotlight

• Best for: Agencies and brands focused on comprehensive AI share of voice and reputation management
• What I like: Intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, reputation scoring, and extensive free features
• Pricing: Free version that includes full audit. Paid plans start at $50/month.

Spotlight is a comprehensive AI visibility platform that stands out as one of the best alternatives to Profound. The platform monitors brands across 8 AI platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot—offering features that often surpass what Profound provides at a fraction of the cost.

What makes Spotlight exceptional is its intelligent approach to AI visibility tracking. Rather than just tracking prompts you manually input, Spotlight automatically discovers the most searched prompts that your brand would want to appear in—those that potential customers would ask when searching for products or services you offer. These prompts are grouped by topics aligned with your marketing objectives, and Spotlight identifies each prompt’s search volume to help prioritize your actions.

The platform sends all prompts to all models weekly using a local IP to get local responses. Responses are then analyzed to:

• Identify brand mentions and evaluate sentiment around those mentions
• Compare your positioning against competitors
• Capture and analyze all citations and data sources used in responses
• Track queries that ChatGPT uses to fetch fresh data from the web
• Produce visibility rankings, sentiment breakdowns, and actionable content suggestions

Spotlight goes beyond basic tracking by reverse engineering what makes brands with high visibility succeed. The system analyzes what type of websites each model prefers to cite and creates an improvement plan based on those insights. It also performs gap analysis and suggests content that directly addresses prompts where your brand didn’t appear.

But here’s what really sets Spotlight apart: their comprehensive feature set and generous free tools. Spotlight includes:

• Citation Tracker: Tracks how often each piece of your brand-owned content was cited by each model over time
• Content Grading Tool: Grades existing content and webpages, guiding how to optimize them from both technical and content perspectives based on GEO best practices
• Google Analytics Integration: Connects to Google Analytics to pull traffic data and display how much traffic came from LLMs, which specific LLM, and which page that traffic landed on—closing the loop to show which content is actually bringing in traffic from AI models
• Prompt Volume Tool: Discovers prompt volumes using multiple data sources including real-time prompt tracking, Google Search Console data, Google Trends, AdWords reports, and advanced AI models trained on human-AI interactions
• Brand Reputation Section: Sends prompts asking models directly about your brand’s quality, value for money, and other key metrics, then scores the responses to provide a high-level view of how your brand is perceived by each model—including data sources so you can manage negative inputs

Spotlight is particularly strong in sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, and actionable insights. The platform is trusted by agencies and is well-suited for teams that need to manage multiple brands or clients. Plus, Spotlight is built by AI agents, allowing for very fast development of new features and rapid adaptation to the high-paced changes in this field.

Spotlight Pricing

Spotlight’s pricing starts at $50/month, making it significantly more affordable than Profound’s $499/month entry point. But here’s the kicker: Spotlight offers free full pro access for a one-time audit, allowing you to experience all the platform’s premium features before committing to a paid plan.

This means you can get a comprehensive audit of your AI visibility using Spotlight’s full feature set, see exactly what insights the platform provides, and then decide if you want to continue with a paid subscription. Spotlight also offers many free tools that provide real value even without a paid plan. This is a huge advantage over Profound, which requires a significant upfront investment just to see what you’re getting.

Spotlight User Feedback

Users praise Spotlight for its intelligent prompt discovery, comprehensive citation tracking, reputation scoring capabilities, and the value provided by its free features. Agencies particularly appreciate the automatic prompt discovery aligned with marketing objectives, the Google Analytics integration that closes the loop on traffic attribution, and the content grading tool that provides actionable optimization guidance. The tool is well-regarded for brand reputation management use cases, and users consistently note that it offers better value than more expensive alternatives like Profound.

⭐️ Overall Score: 5/5 stars

2. Scrunch AI

• Best for: Teams needing granular, prompt-level tracking with content optimization suggestions
• What I like: Detailed brand insights with AI content optimization recommendations
• Pricing: Starts at $300/month (trial available, no free tier)

Scrunch AI is a comprehensive AI brand presence tracking platform that offers granular, prompt-level visibility monitoring. What sets it apart from Profound is its focus on providing actionable insights, not just data.

The platform tracks your brand across major AI platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI. It provides detailed insights into:

• Prompt-level visibility tracking
• Sentiment analysis of how your brand is being discussed
• AI content optimization suggestions to fill visibility gaps
• Multi-source monitoring across different AI platforms

One of Scrunch AI’s standout features is its content optimization recommendations. While many tools just show you where you’re appearing (or not appearing), Scrunch AI actually suggests how to improve your content to better show up in AI responses.

However, it’s worth noting that the platform focuses more on tracking and insights rather than direct content fixing tools. If you’re looking for a tool that tells you exactly what to do with the data, Scrunch AI is a strong choice.

Scrunch AI Pricing

Here are Scrunch AI’s pricing plans:

• Starter: $300/month, track up to 350 prompts
• Growth: $500/month, track up to 700 prompts
• Pro: $1,000/month, track up to 1,200 prompts
• Enterprise: Custom pricing with custom features

While there’s no free tier, they do offer a trial so you can test the platform before committing. This is more affordable than Profound’s $499/month starting price, making it a solid alternative for teams that need detailed tracking but want to save some money.

Scrunch AI User Feedback

Users appreciate Scrunch AI’s detailed brand insights and the ability to track AI mentions at a granular level. The sentiment analysis feature is particularly well-received. However, some users note that the action tools are somewhat limited compared to the depth of insights provided.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.5/5 stars

3. Hall

• Best for: Startups and teams of various sizes looking for flexible pricing
• What I like: Free Lite plan, excellent prompt tracking, and real-time updates
• Pricing: Free Lite plan, Starter $239/month, Business $599/month, Enterprise custom

Hall is a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform that offers one of the most accessible entry points into AI visibility tracking. What makes Hall a great Profound alternative is its flexible pricing model, including a free tier that actually provides real value.

The platform offers:

• AI mention tracking across major platforms
• Share-of-voice reporting to understand your market position
• Agent analytics for deeper insights
• Conversational commerce monitoring (unique feature)
• API access on higher tiers
• Real-time updates and prompt tracking

Hall’s free Lite plan includes 1 project with 25 tracked questions, which is perfect for startups or small teams that want to test AI visibility tracking without a financial commitment. This is a significant advantage over Profound, which requires a $499/month investment upfront.

The platform also stands out for its conversational commerce monitoring feature, which helps you understand how your brand appears in AI-powered shopping experiences. This is particularly valuable for e-commerce brands.

Hall Pricing

Here are Hall’s pricing plans:

• Lite: Free, includes 1 project with 25 tracked questions
• Starter: $239/month, includes 20 projects with 500 tracked questions
• Business: $599/month, includes 50 projects with 1,000 tracked questions
• Enterprise: $1,499/month, includes API access and more

Hall offers the most accessible pricing of any premium AI monitoring tool, making it an excellent choice for teams that want enterprise-level features without enterprise-level pricing.

Hall User Feedback

Users love Hall’s accessible pricing and the value provided by the free tier. The platform is praised for its strong project and prompt tracking capabilities, real-time updates, and user-friendly interface. Teams of various sizes appreciate the flexibility to scale as they grow.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.8/5 stars

4. Otterly.AI

• Best for: SEO teams bridging traditional SEO with AI visibility
• What I like: Structured GEO audit tool that provides systematic insights
• Pricing: Pricing not always public; GEO Audit Tool available

Otterly.AI takes a unique approach to AI visibility tracking by focusing on structured audits and systematic improvements. The platform is particularly valuable for SEO teams that want to bridge traditional SEO metrics with emerging AI visibility.

Key features include:

• GEO audit tool for comprehensive AI citation factor analysis
• Brand and content citation tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI
• Competitive benchmarking
• Structured AI SEO audits that provide actionable recommendations

What sets Otterly.AI apart is its focus on systematic improvements. Rather than just showing you where you appear, the platform provides structured audits that help you understand the factors impacting your AI visibility and how to improve them.

This makes it an excellent choice for SEO professionals who are familiar with traditional SEO audits and want a similar structured approach for AI visibility. The platform helps bridge the gap between traditional SEO and AI search optimization.

Otterly.AI Pricing

Otterly.AI’s pricing is not always publicly available, but they offer a GEO Audit Tool that you can access. For detailed pricing information, you’ll need to contact them directly.

Otterly.AI User Feedback

Users appreciate Otterly.AI’s systematic approach to AI visibility tracking. SEO teams particularly value the structured audit format, which makes it easier to understand and act on the insights. The platform is well-regarded for helping bridge traditional SEO practices with AI visibility optimization.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.3/5 stars

5. BrandLight

• Best for: Large enterprises and agencies managing extensive brand portfolios
• What I like: Enterprise-grade analytics with advanced reporting and API integration
• Pricing: $500+/month, enterprise level

BrandLight is an enterprise-focused AI visibility platform that came out of stealth mode in April 2025 with a $5.75 million funding round. The platform is designed for large organizations that need advanced analytics, comprehensive reporting, and extensive integration capabilities.

Key features include:

• Advanced analytics and reporting
• API integration for custom workflows
• Competitive intelligence
• Enterprise-grade security and compliance
• Support for managing large brand portfolios

BrandLight is positioned as a premium alternative to Profound for enterprises that need more sophisticated analytics and integration capabilities. The platform is well-suited for large marketing agencies or enterprise brands that manage multiple products or brands.

While the pricing is high (starting at $500+/month), the platform offers enterprise-level features that justify the investment for organizations with extensive monitoring needs.

BrandLight Pricing

BrandLight pricing starts at $500+/month and scales based on your needs. For exact pricing, you’ll need to contact them for a custom quote tailored to your requirements.

BrandLight User Feedback

BrandLight is well-reviewed for large portfolios and enterprise use cases. Users appreciate the advanced analytics capabilities and the ability to manage multiple brands effectively. The platform is particularly well-regarded for its reporting and integration features, making it a strong choice for enterprise teams.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.6/5 stars

How to Choose the Right Profound Alternative

When choosing between these Profound alternatives, consider the following factors:

1. Budget and Pricing

If budget is a concern, Spotlight offers exceptional value starting at just $50/month—a fraction of Profound’s $499/month. Plus, Spotlight’s free full pro access for a one-time audit lets you test everything before committing. Hall offers a free tier with paid plans starting at $239/month. Scrunch AI starts at $300/month, still more affordable than Profound. BrandLight starts at $500+/month, similar to Profound’s pricing.

2. Feature Needs

• Best overall value: Spotlight offers comprehensive features, free tools, and affordable pricing
• Content optimization: Scrunch AI offers the best content optimization recommendations
• Sentiment analysis: Spotlight excels at sentiment analysis and reputation management
• Free tier: Hall is the only option with a truly free tier (though Spotlight offers free full pro access for audits)
• Structured audits: Otterly.AI provides the most structured, audit-based approach
• Enterprise features: BrandLight offers the most advanced enterprise capabilities

3. Team Size and Use Case

• Agencies: Spotlight is the top choice for agencies, offering comprehensive monitoring, competitive insights, and excellent value
• Startups/small teams: Spotlight’s $50/month entry point and free audit make it ideal, or Hall’s free tier for basic testing
• SEO teams: Otterly.AI bridges traditional SEO with AI visibility, or Spotlight for comprehensive monitoring
• Enterprise: BrandLight offers the most comprehensive enterprise features, though Spotlight also serves enterprise needs well

4. Platform Coverage

All of these tools monitor the major AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI). Spotlight supports the most comprehensive coverage with 8 platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot. Hall offers unique conversational commerce tracking. Spotlight’s Google Analytics integration provides additional insights into traffic from AI models, showing which specific LLM and which pages are driving traffic.

Final Thoughts

While Profound made a name for itself by being first to market, these five alternatives often outperform it in key areas. Spotlight stands out as the top choice, offering comprehensive features including intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, reputation scoring, content grading, and extensive free tools (including prompt volume analysis, Google Analytics integration, and content scoring). With pricing starting at $50/month—90% less than Profound’s $499/month entry point—Spotlight offers exceptional value. Plus, their free full pro access for one-time audits removes the risk of trying the platform, and Spotlight’s AI agent-powered development means it adapts quickly to the fast-changing AI landscape.

Whether you’re looking for the best overall value (Spotlight), more affordable pricing (Hall), better content optimization features (Scrunch AI), structured audits (Otterly.AI), or enterprise-grade capabilities (BrandLight), there’s an option here that will likely work better than Profound for your situation.

The key is to identify your specific needs—budget, team size, feature requirements, and use case—and choose the tool that best aligns with those needs. Many of these platforms offer trials, demos, or free features (especially Spotlight), so take advantage of those to see which one feels right for your workflow.

Remember, the best tool is the one you’ll actually use consistently. Don’t just choose based on name recognition or being “first to market”—choose based on what will help you make better decisions about your AI visibility strategy. In most cases, that’s going to be one of these alternatives rather than Profound.

 

New data from Spotlight reveals a significant shift in how leading AI models, particularly ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview, are sourcing information from Reddit. Our analysis of over 3 million citations between August 5 and October 29, 2025, shows a dramatic decline in Reddit’s presence in AI-generated responses, with profound implications for anyone focused on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) or AI Engine Optimization (AEO).

The Numbers Don’t Lie

After analyzing daily citation patterns across eight major AI models, we uncovered some startling trends:

ChatGPT’s 95% Drop

ChatGPT’s relationship with Reddit underwent a dramatic transformation:

• • Early August 2025: Reddit citations peaked at 14.29% of all cited sources

• • Mid-September 2025: Dropped to 0.21%—essentially near-zero

• • By October 2025: Remained consistently below 1%

 

This represents a 95% decline in just one month, transforming Reddit from a significant source to virtually absent in ChatGPT’s citations.

 

AI Overview Follows the Same Pattern

Google’s AI Overview, another major player, mirrored this trend:

• • Early August: Started around 4.5% Reddit citation share

• • Mid-September: Dropped below 1% (synchronized with ChatGPT’s decline)

• • October: Remained consistently below 1%, often near zero

 

Perplexity Stands Out

In contrast to ChatGPT and AI Overview, Perplexity maintained consistent Reddit citations throughout the entire period:

• • August-September: Consistently cited Reddit at 3-8% of sources

• • October: Maintained 2-5% citation share

• • Peak performance: Reached 8.89% on September 13th

Perplexity became the leading AI model in terms of Reddit sourcing after ChatGPT’s decline, suggesting different underlying search or data access strategies.

 

Other Models: Consistently Low

Most other major AI models showed minimal Reddit engagement throughout:

• • Gemini: Rarely exceeded 1%, mostly stayed below 0.5%

• • Claude: Virtually no Reddit citations detected

• • Copilot: Minimal to zero Reddit presence

• • Grok: Flat line near 0% throughout the period

• • AI Mode: Fluctuated between 0-2%, generally very low

 

What Caused This Change?

The synchronized nature of the decline across multiple models points to a broader systemic change rather than individual algorithm updates. Several factors likely contributed:

1. SERP Visibility Changes

Since AI models primarily source fresh data from Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), a reduction in Reddit’s visibility within Google search results would directly impact AI citations. Potential causes:

• • Google algorithm updates: Google may have adjusted how Reddit content ranks in search results

• • Reddit’s content structure changes: Changes to how Reddit presents content could affect crawlability

• • Competition shifts: Other platforms may have gained prominence in search results

 

 

2. API and Data Access Changes

Reddit has made significant changes to its API structure and pricing:

• • API access restrictions: Changes to how external services access Reddit data

• • Rate limiting: Stricter limits could impact search engine crawling

• • Data licensing: New policies might affect how search engines index Reddit content

 

3. AI Model Training Updates

While less likely to be synchronized across models, internal updates could play a role:

• • Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) updates: Changes to how models fetch real-time information

• • Source prioritization: Models may have adjusted internal weighting of different content sources

• • Quality filters: New filters might deprioritize forum-based content

Critical Implications for Your AI Visibility Strategy

For GEO/AEO Practitioners

If your Generative Engine Optimization or AI Engine Optimization strategy relies on Reddit, this data is critical news:

⚠️ The Risk

Relying solely on Reddit for AI visibility is now a high-risk strategy. Models that previously cited Reddit heavily have essentially stopped, which means:

• • Content posted on Reddit is less likely to appear in ChatGPT responses

• • Reddit-focused SEO tactics may no longer drive AI visibility

• • Investment in Reddit communities may show reduced ROI for AI citations

 

✅ The Opportunity

Perplexity users still get value from Reddit—if Perplexity is part of your target model mix, Reddit content may still drive visibility there. However, this model-specific approach requires careful consideration.

Strategic Recommendations

1. Diversify Your Content Sources

• • Don’t put all your visibility eggs in one basket

• • Explore other high-authority platforms where your audience engages

• • Build presence across multiple channels (forums, Q&A sites, niche communities)

 

2. Focus on First-Party Content

• • Prioritize content on your own website, blog, and official channels

• • You have direct control over this content and its discoverability

• • Optimize your own properties for AI model crawling and citation

 

3. Monitor Continuously

• • AI citation patterns are dynamic—they change fast

• • Track which sources AI models cite for your industry and keywords

• • Use tools like Spotlight to monitor these shifts in real-time

 

4. Understand Model-Specific Behaviors

• • Different AI models prioritize different sources

• • Tailor strategies to your target model mix

• • What works for Perplexity may not work for ChatGPT

 

5. Build Authority, Not Just Links

• • Focus on creating authoritative, comprehensive content

• • Earn citations through quality, not gaming

• • Build relationships with platforms that consistently appear in AI responses

 

The Bigger Picture

This data reveals something important about the AI content landscape: it’s dynamic and unpredictable.

What was true in August 2025 isn’t true in September. Strategies that work today may fail tomorrow. The only constant is change.

This is why continuous monitoring and agile strategy adjustment are essential for anyone serious about AI visibility.

 

What We’re Watching

• • Will Reddit citations return to ChatGPT? (Unlikely in the near term based on current trends)

• • How will other models adapt? (Perplexity shows a different path)

• • What new platforms will emerge as citation sources? (Opportunities may arise)

• • How will GEO/AEO strategies evolve? (The industry is responding)

 

Conclusion

The dramatic decline in Reddit citations by ChatGPT and AI Overview serves as a powerful reminder: strategies for AI visibility must be agile and data-driven.

Don’t build your entire strategy on a single platform. Don’t assume today’s citation patterns will last. And most importantly—stay informed about these shifts, because they can happen overnight.

The AI content landscape is still young, and the rules are being written in real-time. The brands that succeed will be those that monitor, adapt, and diversify.

—

About the Data

This analysis is based on Spotlight’s dataset of 3 million+ citations tracked between August 5 and October 29, 2025, across eight major AI models:

• • ChatGPT

• • Google AI Overview

• • Perplexity

• • Gemini

• • Claude

• • Microsoft Copilot

• • Grok

• • AI Mode