Marketers Question AI Visibility Tools as Inconsistent Results Fuel Skepticism
Brands are spending thousands monthly on tools that promise to track their visibility in AI chatbots. The results are often contradictory, and no one is sure the money is worth it.
Website traffic is dropping as more users rely on AI chatbots instead of clicking search results. Pew Research Center found that users encountering AI summaries in Google search results clicked through to websites only 8% of the time. Those without AI summaries clicked through nearly twice as often.
The gap has created demand for AI visibility tools-platforms that track when and where brands appear in LLM responses. Vendors like Profound, Peec AI, and Ahrefs Brand Radar have become market leaders. But marketers are discovering these tools often disagree with each other.
The inconsistency problem
"If you use three different tools and give them the same prompts, you get three different answers," said Paul Dyer, CEO of /prompt, an AI native services agency.
The tools work by running thousands of queries through ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity to see how often a brand gets cited. Advanced versions can break down results by device type, location, and keyword. But most only show snapshots in time rather than trends.
AI hallucinations and misattributions remain unsolved problems. Agency executives agree these tools function as benchmarks, not sources of truth.
Heather Physioc, chief discoverability officer at VML, said the industry lacks "a holistic look at trended brand discoverability across channels." VML is testing 17 different emerging AI tools to find reliable ones.
The cost question
Profound's pricing ranges from $99 monthly for basic ChatGPT tracking to $399 for three answer engines and 100 tracked prompts. Enterprise plans cost $1,000 or more per month, according to agency executives.
Ahrefs Brand Radar starts at $129 monthly for 750 tracked keywords and five tracked prompts. The advanced plan runs $449 monthly with 5,000 tracked keywords and 20 tracked prompts.
Some agencies and brands are building internal tracking tools to avoid these costs. Flex, a feminine hygiene brand, uses Semrush but is developing its own internal system. Noise Media Group built Voodoo.ai to track how often client brands appear in LLM responses.
A necessary expense or industry grift?
Joseph Levi, CEO at Noise Media Group, said the field is too early to justify the spending. "We don't know enough of these companies to be charging what they're charging. But it's extremely early days."
Marketers suspect a connection between AI visibility and brand awareness, but they can't prove it. Unlike traditional search traffic, AI visibility doesn't directly link to sales.
Ryan Mason, president and COO at Markacy, views these tools as benchmarkers only. "There's really not much an AI tool can do or tell you to do."
Adobe's $1.9 billion acquisition of Semrush's brand visibility platform signals that major tech companies see opportunity in this space. Microsoft expanded Microsoft Clarity to show which web pages appear in AI-driven answers.
Yet marketers remain skeptical. Without consistent data or proven ROI, many view AI visibility tools as a necessary evil-spending money to avoid the fear of being invisible in AI environments, even if they can't measure the benefit.
For marketing professionals navigating these decisions, understanding AI for Marketing and its practical applications is becoming essential. Those responsible for marketing strategy may benefit from exploring an AI Learning Path for Marketing Managers to make informed tool investments.
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