HubSpot AEO vs. Semrush AI Visibility: Which is right for your team?
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Marketing Hub Marketing automation software Free and premium plans Service Hub Customer service software Free and premium plans Content Hub Content marketing software Free and premium plans Revenue Hub CPQ, billing, and payments software Free and premium plans Agent Hub Your central home for building and managing AI agents across the platform Learn more AEO (Beta) Answer engine optimization tools that track and improve your brand's visibility in AI results Learn more Home Marketing HubSpot AEO vs. Semrush AI Visibility: Which is right for your team? HubSpot AEO vs. Semrush AI Visibility: Which is right for your team? Written by: Amy Rigby HUBSPOT AEO TOOL See exactly where your brand shows up in answer engines and take action to close AI visibility gaps. If you’re comparing HubSpot AEO vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, I tested both for you as a marketing and AEO practitioner myself and will share my detailed review. To run the experiment, I used one of the niche websites in my portfolio (a golf website) that hasn’t yet been optimized for AI search. Below, you’ll get screenshots and information from my personal experience testing both HubSpot AEO and Semrush One (which includes Semrush’s AI Visibility features). Then, I’ll walk you through the pros and cons of both AEO tools and help you pick the best one based on your team’s needs. But first, let me demystify AEO, GEO, and all things AI visibility so we’re working from the same definitions. AEO stands for answer engine optimization, and it’s the practice of creating and modifying online content so that it is more likely to be mentioned and cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. You might also hear people refer to AEO as GEO (generative engine optimization) or AI SEO, but here at HubSpot, we stick with the term AEO. AEO matters because, as AI becomes more popular, people are turning to answer engines to do their buyer research, in addition to Google. In 2026, nearly half of U.S. adults use AI chatbots, up from one-third in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center. Further, Pew found that 60% of American adults read the AI-generated summaries at the top of search results, while only 30% say they do not. Brands that learn and leverage AEO will gain a competitive advantage. AI visibility is an umbrella term for the metrics that measure how your brand shows up in AI search, including share of voice, sentiment, citations, and mentions. It matters because this is how marketers and SEOs track their AEO progress. Pro tip: To get a baseline snapshot of your AI visibility, use the free AI Search Grader tool. Prompts are to AEO what keywords are to SEO. Prompts are the phrases that users type into answer engines to get information about their query. Marketers use AEO tools like HubSpot AEO to track the prompts their brands should show up for. Citations are the websites that the AI consulted to generate its answer. They may or may not be linked. Coverage is shorthand for “answer engine coverage,” which refers to which LLMs the AEO tool tracks. For example, HubSpot AEO covers ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. See exactly where your brand shows up in answer engines and take action to close AI visibility gaps. First, let me clarify the product naming and tiers, so you understand which one you need to buy. HubSpot AEO is available to purchase on its own, without another HubSpot subscription. Additionally, AEO is the name of the CRM-connected product included within Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is available to purchase on its own or as an add-on to an existing Semrush subscription. Semrush SEO + AI Search is also known as Semrush One, and it’s the bundled product with SEO and AEO features. This article (and the quick comparison table below) primarily compares HubSpot AEO and Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit (the products available for purchase on their own). But I’ll also include additional information about AEO in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise and Semrush One (the integrated/bundled products). Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit or Semrush One: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity Semrush for Enterprise: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek AEO within Marketing Hub (Pro & Enterprise): 25 and 50 prompts
Source: HubSpot
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