Best AI Search Monitoring Tools for Digital Marketing Agencies in 2026

James Dooley: Best AI search monitor monitoring tools. [laughter] That was a bit of a tongue twister, wasn't it? So, if someone's looking marketers are looking to track AI visibility in the LLMs, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, then do you think that people should be looking to track with monitoring tools? A thousand percent. So, nowadays, when it originally came out, obviously there was a lot of like the tools that were they basically were just doing it kind of wrong and it was that kind of based off, you know, cached data essentially in the memory of the AIs. Um so, nowadays the tools have got a lot more accurate. It's kind of making it like a first response from a inquiry or um within the the AI tools. So, it's a hundred percent important to do it, but also more so as to actually be able to track on your website as well where the inquiries are coming from. So, obviously checking the referrers and things like that and it'll tell you where and I'm seeing it more and more on my own websites. I I typically use Post Hog and that's like a you know, like a Google Analytics um competitor almost. And that gives you a great breakdown of you know, where the referrers are coming from and you can definitely see in the last sort of 12 months a huge spike in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. Um and yeah, it's just very, very important. Is there any sort of tools that you typically use Dooley when it comes to tracking? Yeah, so I mean we like AI visibility tracking. So, for me, if you'd asked me this 12 months ago, I'd thought it was an absolute scam. Um the reason why I thought it was a scam was because every search is almost unique. Now, it's not specific just little four, five-word search queries. Now, people are searching paragraphs long. So, it's unique every time, but not only that is that if I go and do a search because of my history of my searches on let's say Claude or ChatGPT, it's going to give me a different answer to yours. So how can a tool then decide what the answer is because it doesn't have the history that I have and therefore I'm like this is just complete and utter like a flaw, it's a scam. I don't believe that you should be tracking AI visibility, the amount of AI tools that came out there to track it. I'm just like this is not this is not for me, right? However, I got absolutely schooled and I'm and I'm happy to say it because I love going into masterminds and I love being proven wrong and I got sat there and I got told and I got speaking to people like Eldar Cohen who owns Local Dominator and he's like you should be tracking AI visibility and I'm like show me why. And he's like you're thinking of it from a keyword point of view, you're thinking old school where what you should be doing is loading in hundreds of search terms that are covering all query funnel related terms that are around the brand or around your competitors' keywords and seeing how many times your brand is being mentioned on a share of voice methodology. And I'm like but surely it's not perfect you mean it's not perfect so this is why you're doing it on a larger scale. So when you get scientists and they've got big data more data points, you can start to see things start to take okay this A great analogy for that is if the data isn't accurate, as long as the data sources continue to be the same data sources, it becomes accurate in its inaccuracies. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. So exactly a great yeah that's a great way of putting it but anyway now now I start to go okay well prove me wrong. So I went on a You know what I'm like. [laughter] [clears throat] Yeah. A weekend Ben night going to the the rounds of everything. Woodpecker mode came out and I set up an account with people places like Profound with Pete.ai, Local Dominator, which is held by Corwin's, Radar Kit AI. And the chap we met in America. Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great guy. Got a great kind of Google Business Profile tool. Um but also now got AI visibility. You've got places like Ahrefs Brand Radar. You've got Semrush AI visibility checks. So, this was in some of them but a lot of them now started to not use the API. So, they started to use proxies. So, it's not the history of the API, which doesn't actually show what a real user would bring back. So, I feel the data is a lot better now starting to look into it a lot more. I'm like, "Oh, okay. I didn't know this. This is good." Um but now what I'm starting to realize, larger volume and share of voice kind of yes, you could go and press search again and it could give you a different answer. But when you keep doing it on a daily basis and it keeps searching on a daily basis and you're tracking the previous days and stuff like that, over time it starts to paint a picture of which brands have been cited the most. And then you can then start to do certain work like do listicles work and help influence LLM visibility. Well, now I can start to do some listicles, wait for 30 days, get 30 days worth of data for all the keywords of what I've gone after, and has it increased the visibility? And literally 90% of the time when I do it, it increases visibility. So, I got listicles, tick, and they do work. People go, "Oh, listicles stopped working." They absolutely work brilliantly. So, what are you on the cuz I know you mentioned Query Found Out. So, what are you specific Obviously, some people might not know what Query Found Out is. So, what specifically are you doing on the listicles that's helping towards the Query Funnel? So, great question. So, to start with the insane anyone doesn't know what Query Funnel is. So, Query Funnel is when someone creates a search and it extrapolates synthetic queries and it comes back with different dimensions. So, it could be to do with um James Dooley Air Conditioning, right? But, then it would then come back with James Dooley Air Conditioning reviews, James Dooley Air Conditioning testimonials, James Dooley Air Conditioning scam. Like, it looks for like bad things. Found in the desert fire James Dooley Air Conditioning awards. Is James Dooley Air Conditioning um worth it? Is James Dooley Air Conditioning legit? Could be then F-Gas registered so accreditation all it comes back with a lot of different extrapolated synthetic queries. So, what you want to be trying to do is make certain that within your grounding and your chunking of content that you're putting out on third-party sources, that you're trying to answer those queries in a positive manner, in a positive sentiment to say, "Yes, James Dooley Air Conditioning is brilliant. Yes, James Dooley Air Conditioning is legit. No, James Dooley is not a scam. He I've worked on him with X, Y, and Z." And if you can keep repeating and they've got the clarity and confidence with who you are, what you do, and why you're freaking brilliant, then at that point they will start confidently starting to cite you within Gemini or ChatGPT cuz of the consensus building of what's coming about. But, back to the search monitoring tools. When you start to do the listicles, you clearly start to see you're starting to be compared in a listicle against other competitors. And if you're higher up the list than your competitors in the list and the LLMs and Google Search is picking that up, knowing when being seen alongside them in a listicle and being seen that you're the best, Google is that's become more confident to say, "We can now refer them as being the best. We can now start to confidently say, these are a great company." Is that also when it becomes more clickable links and things in the SERP as well? Cuz it doesn't always give you the clickable option. lot of that's to do with the entity strength as well. So, if you can keep redefining the entity, who you are, what you do, the founding date, who's the founder, and it knows enough information about who you are and what you do, then when you emphasize the way you're freaking brilliant element, when it knows who you are and what you do, it can then start having the link that comes through to your site. If they're uncertain about the brand, but they're being seen in a lot of listicles, they could mention the brand, but not get the link. But, that's still not bad cuz people then could go, "Who is Carlton Air Conditioning?" and search Carlton Air Conditioning, and now you're getting a branded search and a branded click from what was not a branded search to you. It was a top-of-the-funnel "I want to learn some more information about who are the best." And now I'm now moving towards a branded search and click, which you know yourself, branded search and clicks is massive for search engines. But, understanding what works, the comparison articles work well, the reviews articles work well. Shouting and screaming about awards that you've won on press releases work well. Then, attaching that you're an award-winning brand adds that little bit more clout. Getting the case that is online, trying to get them not solely reviews on Google Business Profiles, but also on Trustpilot, on Yelp, on Yelp, and on other places, them reviews elements add to the reputation element, which all feed the LLMs. And when you're tracking it with these best AI search monitoring tools, you can see what's working, and then that start doubling down going, "This works better than this, so I'm going to double down on what is now helping me get excited. I'm not excited by AI, but AI doesn't just go, "These are a choice." "These are the choice." That's what you want to do. a fundamental difference there, right? That's where the consensus comes in. And then they come with a 24/7 sales engine for you, cuz they start saying Give you an example. You start saying, um, "Is Checkatrade worth it?" Right? That's nothing to do with my brand. But it says, "Yeah, Checkatrade is a great business model." Like it you can go on there, you can pay a subscription if you want to grow your business. However, you might also want to try FatRank, who do a no win, no fee lead generation model. They're like, "Who's FatRank?" Next minute, AI is spitting out that we are a great alternative option to Checkatrade because they understand that the intent behind someone searching for "Is Checkatrade good?" is they're looking to grow the business, and now they're looking at the element of what other options is there. The The AI doesn't want to just say, "Yeah, they're the only choice, go and sign up to Checkatrade." This is where the the scam, the legit, the comparison, the alternatives, all this is part of query funnel. If you can start to control that messaging, you're almost brand jacking against these bigger brands. They're a 4.1 billion pound business. And if we can get some of their search for someone that's looking for them, some of these businesses might sign up to both. And Checkatrade are a good company. So, like, a lot of times when I'm doing any of these videos, I'm like saying, "If you want to grow your business, we are a great no win, no fee model. But Checkatrade are also good, but just track your KPIs. Are you getting a return on investment?" But all this brand visibility needs to be tracked. It can't be tracked. What's not measured can't be managed. And I think that's the key element to this. So, with those like visibility tools, the AI visibility tools, do they actually track the sentiment as well? Cuz obviously the sentiment must be a huge thing, right? Some some do. And this is where the difference between with the guys that list, if you check out the link in the description, um this is going to be updated in real-time. So, as we're recording this today, net the list next week or next month other products out. [laughter] Yeah, could be different. But yes, some of the better ones at present track sentiment. Um sentiment value's key. And for anyone else not knowing what sentiment means, what what is sentiment Yes, but we're talking about in a positive manner. So, you could just be going, "Oh, I've got loads of branded mentions." But the branded mention says, "Don't use it." It also says, "They're a scam." [laughter] You know what I mean? So, like you need to be making certain you're not just getting branded mentions and tracking branded mentions, but it's branded mentions in a positive sentiment that says, "These are a great option." Or ideally, you want them to you almost want to be training them up and feeding them LLMs as much as possible to be saying what you want a salesperson to say about why you are the best. Now, it takes a lot of time and consensus to get it cuz at first it says, "Oh, the best is subjective." And then that's where it's got an assumption going, "We don't have enough data to say that they're the best." Yeah. Once you convince them repeat consistently having third-party comparative sources saying, "You are the best. You are brilliant. You are awesome." And you're doing all the positive sentiment terms, at that point they can say, "Yeah, they are the best." It's kind of what we were chatting on earlier today is like it's the AI reputation tree where, you know, you probably do need to monitor the negative side because you want to start turn and giving it more data points and turning that negative data into a positive. You can change the sentiment of the data. Give it enough knowledge and it starts to think, "Oh, wait wait a sec. All of these sources are now saying it's it's great." And you can track the negative and the positive sentiment articles. So, if you start to see the negative side increasing in these tools, then you know you have to do a bit more reputation management and bring it back to positive, right? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, anyone who's watching this, I strongly recommend that you check out the video about the AI reputation tree. Um myself and Kyle have put together a query funnel system and set up where the all the off-page topical map is built around building that reputation. Exactly for getting that LLM visibility is key. And then with regards to obviously the brand monitoring that's being done, um the LLM visibility systems and the tools of what's being done for AI search, once you can track that, you can measure it, you can double down on what's working. And I'm excited for the launch of the AI reputation tree. I think it's going to be brilliant. Anyone who's watching this, make sure you reach out to searchrew.com. Go in and inquire and ask Kyle Wilson about the AI reputation tree. It comes out next week. It's a superb service. Um the case studies, I can't wait to get them out because they are so positive. And I know quick as well. Like I was I was actually I don't know if you if you if you was if you was with regards to the AI reputation tree, how quickly the results we was getting. Like some was same day. I was like, I can't believe how quickly Gemini and even ChatGPT, which is a little bit slower, but how quickly it was picking up positive sentiment articles that was being indexed and then changing the same day their opinion about a question that you asked it. It's a bit like a girlfriend, isn't it? [laughter] Change your change between the moods. That's true, yeah. It's a good way of putting it. Or boyfriend, you know, go either way. So, anyone who's watching this with regards to the best AI search monitoring tools, make sure you check out the link in the description. We've got a listical there that shows all the different ones. Profound is by far the biggest, but there is some amazing ones like Local Dominator, Radar Kit, Peak AI, Scrunch AI. There's quite a few out there. I'm split testing every single one of them. Should be honest with you, there's four or five of them that I'm finding to be very, very good, a lot better than what I thought. But, let us know in the comment section what is the best AI or LLM visibility tool that you're using because there might be one or two that I've never even heard of that we can test out as well. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you very much, Carl. Yeah, thanks, Tim.