Are You Being Found in AI Search? Here’s How to Find Out

Marketers are racing to understand where and how their brands show up in AI-generated responses, and for good reason. With more people turning to tools like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot and Google Gemini for answers, visibility inside large language models (LLMs) is becoming just as important as traditional SEO rankings.

But tracking that presence is still new territory. Most analytics tools weren’t built with LLMs in mind. That’s starting to change.

Whether you want a simple, no-cost way to start or you’re ready to invest in deeper insight, here’s a breakdown of the best tools available now, including free and paid options, to help you monitor your LLM visibility.

Free Tools That Offer a Starting Point

Getting started with LLM monitoring doesn’t mean opening your budget right away. A few existing tools have added new ways to help marketers spot how often their content appears in AI search results or referrals. These aren’t full coverage solutions, but they offer a meaningful place to begin.

Bing Webmaster Tools: AI Performance

Bing recently introduced AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, giving site owners direct insight into how often their content is being used in AI-powered search experiences in the Bing Search Engine, Copilot and the Edge sidebar.

The report provides data on total citations, average cited pages, grounding queries and more. This will allow site managers to better validate which pages are being used and shown in AI answers and give a better understanding of what searchers are looking for over time. It’s one of the first native tools from a major platform built specifically to give publishers a view into AI-driven performance.

If your domain is already verified in Bing Webmaster Tools, this feature is free and ready to use.

Using GA4 to Track LLM Referral Traffic

Google Analytics 4 doesn’t offer LLM-specific dashboards, but it can still surface valuable information. Some AI tools, including ChatGPT and Bard, may appear in referral traffic reports when users click through to your site from links shared in chat sessions.

Marketers can create custom segments to track visits from AI tool domains. Most often, at least most recently, domains for those tools can include:

It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s useful for identifying when AI interactions are already influencing your web activity.

Should You Invest in a Paid AI Search Monitoring Tool?

For brands and agencies that want more accurate, automated and platform-wide insight into where their content is showing up, free tools often fall short. But paid AI search visibility trackers allow you to keep an eye on specific keywords or URLs across multiple LLMs, monitor visibility changes over time and even compare your presence to competitors.

These tools don’t just surface referral traffic. They give you a broader view of how your brand is showing up in AI-generated answers across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and more. Here are just a few you should consider.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit, or Semrush One, helps marketers measure how often their brand shows up in responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and similar AI platforms. It assigns a visibility percentage based on your presence across tracked queries and provides examples of what the LLM-generated responses look like.

Additionally, it can be used to track brand sentiment and performance against competitors, as well as monitor specific prompts – like you would monitor keywords or phrases you’re trying to rank for.

At Swanson Russell, we utilize this tool internally to better understand how the websites we manage may be appearing across these new tools. It’s especially helpful when evaluating keyword-level performance and checking whether branded or competitor content is being favored by AI platforms.

Pricing: Starts at $199/month for the Starter account, which also includes Semrush’s regular SEO monitoring tools.

Otterly AI

Otterly AI is designed specifically for LLM monitoring. It scans popular AI tools for your brand name, domain or key content topics and sends alerts when you appear in results or when competitors are mentioned instead. You can track shifts over time, view summaries of AI answers and spot opportunities to improve visibility.

It’s best suited for smaller teams or marketers looking for a simple, dedicated tool without the broader SEO platform overhead.

Pricing: Entry-level plans begin at $29/month, making it one of the most affordable tools available for AI-specific tracking.

Authoritas

Authoritas provides a more robust LLM monitoring experience. It allows you to choose which AI platforms to scan, define specific keywords or URLs to track and review how often your content is being cited across generative search results. It also offers historical trends and competitor tracking, which is ideal for brands with larger content footprints.

While it’s positioned more toward mid-size to enterprise brands, Authoritas remains cost-efficient for the level of tracking it delivers.

Pricing: Plans can start anywhere between $199 and $299/month, depending on which features, keywords and platforms you want to monitor. The price also varies depending on how much monitoring you want.

How to Start Monitoring Your Brand in LLMs

Once you’ve selected a tool or set up a few of the free options, the next step is to build a repeatable process. LLM visibility shifts quickly, and your presence may vary across different platforms or keyword themes.

Here’s how to begin tracking in a way that actually informs content and strategy.

1. Establish a Benchmark: Start by pulling data from Bing’s AI Performance and GA4. This gives you a snapshot of where your content appears today, if at all.
2. Define Priority Content and Keywords: Identify a shortlist of branded terms, product names, or question-based keywords that matter most to your audience. This helps narrow your monitoring focus.
3. Use Paid Tools to Automate Tracking: Choose the tool that fits your needs and budget. Otterly is great for fast, affordable scans. Authoritas and Semrush offer deeper visibility across more platforms.
4. Monitor Changes Over Time: Set a schedule to check LLM visibility weekly or monthly. AI tools evolve quickly, and monitoring trends over time is key to catching changes early.
5. Turn Findings into Action: Use what you learn to adjust your content strategy. If AI tools favor a competitor’s answer, review what makes it stand out. If your content isn’t surfacing, test new formats or rework how you answer common questions.

Visibility Isn’t the Endgame, But It’s Still Worth Tracking

As useful as these tools are, it’s important to remember why you’re monitoring in the first place.

LLM visibility is part of the larger shift toward Zero-Click marketing, where users may engage with your content or brand without ever visiting your site. Just because your name shows up in AI results doesn’t mean traffic or conversions will immediately follow.

That doesn’t make it less valuable. If your broader strategy is focused on being discoverable in more places by more people, visibility can still play a big role in building awareness and credibility over time. These tools are best used as temperature checks, helping you track trends, test new ideas and optimize content strategies — not as direct conversion drivers.