AEO Competitor Analysis: Find Out Who AI Recommends Instead

AI is already recommending someone — is it you?

Right now, someone is asking ChatGPT for a recommendation in your industry. Perplexity is answering a comparison query about your product category. Google AI Overview is summarizing the best options for your service.

The question isn’t whether AI is making these recommendations — it’s who AI is recommending. An AEO competitor analysis tells you exactly that: who shows up, how often, and why.

Why traditional competitor analysis fails for AEO

Your SEO competitor analysis — keyword rankings, backlink profiles, domain authority scores — tells you nothing about AI recommendations. A company can rank #1 on Google for a target keyword and still be completely absent from ChatGPT’s recommendations.

Answer Engine Optimization operates on different signals. The brands AI recommends often aren’t the ones with the highest domain authority. They’re the ones with the clearest, most specific, most well-structured content about the exact topic being queried.

This means your AEO competitors might be different from your SEO competitors. That’s exactly what a proper analysis reveals.

How to run an AEO competitor analysis

Step 1: Build your prompt bank

Create a list of 30-50 prompts that your ideal customers might ask AI. Organize them by category:

Discovery prompts:

• “What is [your category]?”
• “Do I need [your type of product/service]?”
• “What are the best [category] tools?”

Comparison prompts:

• “[Your brand] vs [competitor]”
• “Best [category] for [specific use case]”
• “Compare [category] tools for [industry]”

Decision prompts:

• “How much does [category] cost?”
• “Which [category] tool is best for [company size]?”
• “Reviews of [category] software”

Industry-specific prompts:

• “[Category] for [industry]”
• “Best [service] in [city]”
• “[Solution] for [specific problem]“

Step 2: Run prompts across AI platforms

Test each prompt on at least three platforms:

• ChatGPT (GPT-4o or latest model)
• Perplexity (with web search enabled)
• Google AI Overview (search queries that trigger AI responses)
• Claude (for additional perspective)
• Gemini (Google’s standalone AI)

Record every brand mentioned in each response. Note whether your brand appears and in what position.

Step 3: Score the results

For each prompt, create a scorecard:

Calculate:

• Mention rate — what percentage of prompts include your brand?
• Average position — when mentioned, where do you rank?
• Share of voice — how many total mentions do you get versus each competitor?
• Platform variance — do results differ significantly across AI platforms?

Step 4: Identify patterns

Look for trends in the data:

• Which competitors dominate? Are the same 2-3 brands mentioned everywhere?
• Where are your gaps? Are there prompt categories where you never appear?
• Where are you strong? Are there prompts where you consistently appear?
• Platform differences? Does one AI platform favor you more than others?
• Opportunity prompts? Are there prompts where no clear winner exists?

Step 5: Analyze why competitors win

For the top 3-5 competitors that dominate AI recommendations, investigate their AEO strategies:

Content audit:

• Do they have comprehensive pages on the queried topics?
• Is their content structured as Q&A?
• How frequently is their content updated?
• Do they have comparison pages?

Technical audit:

• Do they use schema markup? Which types?
• Do they have a llms.txt file?
• Is their site fast and crawlable?

Authority audit:

• How many third-party mentions and reviews do they have?
• Are they cited in industry publications?
• What’s their review volume on G2, Trustpilot, etc.?

Specificity audit:

• Does their content include specific features, pricing, and use cases?
• Can AI easily extract quotable recommendations from their pages?

Building your counter-strategy

Once you understand who AI recommends and why, build a targeted strategy to close the gap.

For prompts where you’re not mentioned at all

Create dedicated content targeting those exact prompts. If AI doesn’t mention you for “best project management tool for remote teams,” build a page specifically about your product for remote teams. Structure it with clear headings, direct answers, and specific features.

For prompts where competitors dominate

Analyze what their cited content does that yours doesn’t:

• More specific? Add details and data to your content.
• Better structured? Restructure your pages with Q&A format and lists.
• More authoritative? Build third-party mentions and reviews.
• More current? Update your content with fresh examples and data.

For prompts where you rank low

Improve your content depth and specificity for those topics. Add schema markup. Build supporting content that links to your target page. Earn mentions from third-party sources.

For prompts where no one dominates

These are your biggest opportunities. Create the definitive content for these topics before competitors do. The first business to establish strong AEO for an underserved prompt often maintains that position.

How often to repeat the analysis

AEO competitive landscapes change faster than SEO rankings. AI models update regularly, new content gets indexed, and competitor strategies shift.

• Monthly: Re-test your top 10 highest-priority prompts
• Quarterly: Run the full 30-50 prompt analysis
• After major changes: Test immediately after you publish significant new content or a competitor launches updates

Tools for AEO competitor analysis

Several platforms automate parts of this process:

• Otterly.ai — tracks brand mentions across AI platforms
• Profound — runs large-scale prompt analysis with competitor scoring
• Peec AI — monitors competitor AI visibility alongside your own

For businesses not ready to invest in tools, the manual process outlined above provides the same insights — it just takes more time.

At WeLead Lab, we run AEO competitor analyses for clients before building optimization strategies. It’s the difference between guessing what to fix and knowing exactly where the gaps are.

Start with your own audit

Before analyzing competitors, understand your own baseline. Run your site through our Website Analyzer to assess your technical foundation, then layer an AEO competitor analysis on top to build a complete picture of where you stand.