Which tools reliably track Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

The best Google AI Overviews tracking tools fall into two groups. SEO suites such as SISTRIX, SE Ranking, Semrush and Ahrefs record per keyword whether an overview appears and which URL Google cites. AI visibility tools such as Alexandrya.AI, Peec AI and Otterly.AI run fixed prompts in AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. Large keyword sets suit SISTRIX or SE Ranking; cross-assistant comparisons suit an AI visibility tool.

Sources are vendor pricing, product and help pages and Google's documentation, accessed on 27 October 2026. We have only used Peec AI ourselves, for about six months on client projects, and Alexandrya.AI is our own product. The broader difference between AI monitoring and SEO platforms is covered in AI monitoring vs. SEO tools.

AI Overviews and AI Mode are two separate things to measure

Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode are two separate surfaces, and a tracking setup has to measure them separately. An AI Overview is a generated summary on the normal results page that appears for only some queries. AI Mode is a separate search mode built around follow-up questions. Google says the two may use different models and techniques, so the same question often gets different answers and different links in each.

Google describes this in AI features and your website, as of October 2026, and the Search Console Help adds two counting rules: all links in an AI Overview share a single position, and in AI Mode every follow-up question counts as a new query. A keyword rank tracker sees the overview on the results page; AI Mode only shows up if you query it directly.

How AI Overviews and AI Mode differ for tracking, based on Google Search Central and Search Console Help, as of October 2026.

Why Google AI Overviews tracking needs its own tools

Google AI Overviews tracking needs its own tools because Search Console shows neither the queries that trigger an overview nor the competitors cited in it. Whether an overview appears depends on the query, the country and the language. In Germany, SISTRIX puts the share of queries with an AI Overview at about 20%, as of 22 October 2026. Overviews also shift: Ahrefs found a 70% chance that an overview changes between two observations.

The SISTRIX analysis puts long-tail queries at around 30%. The Ahrefs study of 11 November 2025, based on more than 43,000 keywords, found that overview content lasted 2.15 days on average and that 45.5% of cited sources were new at the next observation. A weekly spot check describes a state that may be gone the next morning.

What Search Console's generative AI report shows

Since 31 August 2026, Google Search Console has offered every website a dedicated generative AI performance report. It shows how often links to a site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, broken down by page, country, device and date. It has no clicks, positions or queries, and it counts both surfaces together. To see which competitor is cited for which query, you still need a tracking tool.

Google introduced the report on 3 June 2026 on the Search Central Blog; the help article says it only appears once a site has enough impressions. Clicks from AI Overviews stay in the standard Performance report under "Web", with no separate filter. As a free cross-check the report still works: if a page gains impressions while your tool reports more citations, both measurements agree.

How many queries a reliable measurement needs

A citation rate for Google AI Overviews becomes reliable at around 50 triggered overviews per measurement. The citation rate is the share of overviews that cite your domain as a source. At a trigger rate of 20%, that takes about 250 tracked queries. With 50 queries you get about ten overviews, and a single citation gained or lost moves the citation rate by ten percentage points.

The worked example uses the SISTRIX figures for Germany as an assumption. Your own query set may trigger more or fewer overviews, so the trigger rate belongs in every report.

SEO suites tracking 500 or more keywords a day therefore have the edge on AI Overview citation rates. A prompt tool with 15 or 50 prompts gives you few data points for AI Overviews, but adds AI Mode and other assistants.

Worked example at a 20% trigger rate based on SISTRIX, as of October 2026.

Six criteria for an AI Overviews tracking tool

An AI Overviews tracking tool should cover six things: the trigger rate, the cited URL, the position inside the overview, AI Mode, the right languages and countries, and daily checks. Without the trigger rate, you cannot tell whether a citation rate rests on three overviews or thirty. Without AI Mode, you only see one of Google's two AI surfaces.

1. Trigger rate: the share of your queries that show an overview at all.
2. Cited URL: which of your pages Google links to and which other domains sit next to it. How source lists come together is explained in our AI source analysis by platform.
3. Position inside the overview: the first link gets noticed differently from the sixth, and Search Console does not separate them.
4. AI Mode with the same queries: only then can you spot a page that is cited in the overview but missing from AI Mode.
5. Languages and countries: Ahrefs itself says its coverage is strongest in English.
6. Daily checks, because Ahrefs measured an average content lifespan of 2.15 days.

Which tools track Google AI Overviews?

Two groups of tools track Google AI Overviews. SEO suites such as SISTRIX, SE Ranking, Semrush and Ahrefs record at keyword level whether an overview appears and which URL it cites. AI visibility tools such as Alexandrya.AI, Peec AI and Otterly.AI run fixed prompts daily in AI Overviews, AI Mode and other assistants. Entry prices that include AI Overview data run from free to €179 a month, according to vendor pages on 27 October 2026.

Prices on monthly billing as shown on each vendor's pricing page, accessed on 27 October 2026.

The AI Mode column stands out. SEO suites often include AI Overviews in their base plan but need a prompt module for AI Mode. In AI visibility tools, AI Mode is just another model, while the keyword breadth is missing.

Seven tools: strengths and limits

SISTRIX

SISTRIX shows, in a domain's keyword data, which queries trigger an AI Overview, and the "Mit Ranking" (with ranking) checkbox narrows that to queries where your domain is cited. According to the changelog of 25 June 2025, the overview page lists the cited URL and its position inside the box. Prompt Tracking covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and, since 2026, AI Mode. The AI features are in beta and currently included in every plan from €119 a month excluding VAT; SISTRIX may price them separately later. Best for SEO teams in German-speaking markets that already use SISTRIX.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking's Core plan costs €109 a month and includes 2,000 keywords and 100 prompts in daily tracking, according to the pricing page, plus 25 prompts a day for AI visibility across five AI platforms. These are listed as AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, ChatGPT and Copilot. The product page says the tracker shows whether an overview appears, where your site sits inside it and who else is cited. The API documentation returns link position and brand mention position for AI Mode too, but keeps full answer text for only 30 days. In Alexandrya.AI's own measurement, as of 27 October 2026, 43 tracked prompts, seranking.com is the most cited domain with 2,434 citations. Best for teams that want in-overview positions and AI Mode in one tool.

Semrush

Semrush detects AI Overviews in Position Tracking as a SERP feature, and Semrush says this works on any free or paid account. Filters show keywords with an overview, with or without your citation, along with the cited page. The help pages we checked do not describe a position inside the overview. AI Mode tracking needs the AI Visibility Toolkit at $99 a month or a Semrush One plan, such as Starter at €190 with 50 prompts. In the toolkit, every user needs their own licence. Best for teams already working in Semrush.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Ahrefs says Brand Radar runs more than 500 million prompts derived from its keyword database through six AI platforms, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. For those two, it also records which keywords trigger an AI answer in Google Search, and it compares mentions, citations and cited pages with competitors. Brand Radar starts at €179 a month and is available without an Ahrefs subscription. Every paid plan includes a small daily quota of custom prompts, five on Lite at €119. Ahrefs names the limit itself: coverage is strongest in English. Best for teams in English-language markets that want market data without building a prompt list.

Alexandrya.AI

Alexandrya.AI is an AI visibility tool from Munich that measures brand mentions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Bing Copilot and turns them into content and citation tasks. Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode are selectable models, alongside Claude, Meta AI and Grok. Starter costs €79 a month with 50 prompts, three models and one country; Professional costs €199 with 150 prompts, five models and three countries, according to the pricing page. Source analysis shows which domains are cited and their position in the source list, and recommendations become tasks with a status. Limits: Alexandrya.AI tracks prompts rather than keyword sets with thousands of queries, shows no search volume per prompt, and offers its API only on Enterprise. Best for brands that track AI Overviews next to other assistants and want work items from the data.

Peec AI

On its €85 Starter plan, Peec AI runs 50 prompts a day across three models, chosen from options including ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini. Each extra model costs €25 a month on Starter with annual billing. The pricing page lists source analytics, a fan-out overview and a relative demand score per prompt on a scale of 1 to 5. Limit: Starter covers one country; three countries start with Pro at €205 with 150 prompts. Best for marketing teams that track several AI assistants from one prompt list.

Otterly.AI

At €29 a month, Otterly.AI is the cheapest AI visibility tool in this list. Lite includes 15 prompts, with AI Overviews part of the standard set alongside ChatGPT, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, and no limit on countries or languages. AI Mode costs an extra €9 a month on Lite and €59 on Standard, which costs €189 with 100 prompts. Limit: with 15 prompts and a trigger rate of around 20%, you get about three overviews a day, too few for a citation rate. Best for small teams taking a first look.

How does Google AI Mode tracking work?

Google AI Mode tracking needs queries run inside AI Mode itself, because Google says the mode may use different models and techniques from the results page, and it counts every follow-up question as a new query. As of 27 October 2026, AI Mode is covered by SE Ranking, SISTRIX Prompt Tracking, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Semrush with the AI Visibility Toolkit or Semrush One, Alexandrya.AI and Peec AI as a selectable model, and Otterly.AI as an add-on from €9 a month.

How to track brand visibility in Google AI Overviews

To track brand visibility in Google AI Overviews, run a fixed list of queries through Google every day. For each query, record whether an overview appears, whether your brand is named, which of your URLs is cited and in which position. That gives you a trigger rate and a citation rate. At a trigger rate of around 20%, you need about 250 queries before a single citation moves the citation rate by only two percentage points.

1. Choose queries: keywords from Search Console and questions from your sales team, split by country and language.
2. Measure the trigger rate: the share of queries that show an overview.
3. Check citations: your URL, its position and the other domains in the same overview.
4. Add AI Mode: run the same questions there.
5. Cross-check: compare tool figures with impressions in Search Console's generative AI report.

Which of these numbers belong in a report is covered in our guide to GEO metrics and KPIs.

Five-step measurement process for AI Overviews, our own illustration.

Which tool fits which team?

The choice depends on whether you mainly track keywords on Google's results page or prompts across several AI assistants.

• Your SEO team already works in SISTRIX: SISTRIX, while the AI features stay in the plan.
• You want in-overview positions and AI Mode on one plan at around €110: SE Ranking Core.
• You already pay for Semrush: Position Tracking for AI Overviews, with AI Mode only via the toolkit or Semrush One.
• You need market data for English-language markets: Ahrefs Brand Radar.
• You track AI Overviews next to other assistants and want tasks out of the data: Alexandrya.AI or Peec AI.
• You are testing on a small budget: Otterly.AI Lite, with more options in AI visibility tools under €100.

One open question is whether Google will add queries as a dimension to the generative AI report. Google's blog post hints at more metrics without naming them. If queries arrive, keyword tracking in SEO suites loses part of its lead.

Frequently asked questions

Can you track Google AI Overviews for free?

Partly. Since August 2026, Search Console shows for free how often your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode, but without queries. Semrush detects AI Overviews in Position Tracking on its free account with 10 keywords, and SE Ranking checks five keywords a day for free. Alexandrya.AI offers a seven-day trial without a credit card.

Does Google Search Console show AI Overviews clicks?

Yes, but not separately. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of the Performance report under the "Web" search type, with no dedicated filter, and all links in one overview share a single position. The generative AI report shows impressions only, by page, country, device and date, and counts AI Overviews and AI Mode together.

How often should you check AI Overviews?

Daily. An Ahrefs study of more than 43,000 keywords found a 70% chance that an AI Overview changes between two observations, with content lasting 2.15 days on average. Weekly spot checks miss most of those changes. Track daily and report rolling averages over seven or 28 days rather than single days.

How many searches show an AI Overview?

The share depends on the market and the query type. In Germany, SISTRIX puts the share at about 20% of all queries and around 30% for long-tail queries, as of 22 October 2026, and says the share has been stable for several months. Google's own documentation only says that AI Overviews often do not trigger.

Does Alexandrya.AI track Google AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Yes. Alexandrya.AI lists Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode as selectable models next to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Claude. Your prompts run daily, on three models of your choice on the Starter plan. Source analysis shows cited domains and their position in the source list, and recommendations turn into tasks.

Free GEO audit for AI Overviews and AI Mode

Add your most important buying-intent prompts to Alexandrya.AI, pick Google AI Overviews and AI Mode as models, and see after the first runs which sources Google cites instead of your pages. Seven days free, no credit card needed. Start a trial with your prompts