I tried 11 AI tools for SEO: Here are the 6 that actually work in 2026

The market for "AI SEO tools" is growing, with new platforms launching frequently. Many of these tools are designed to streamline SEO workflows, but their effectiveness can vary. It can be challenging to determine which tools provide a worthwhile investment.

This guide examines several popular platforms to identify those that can deliver tangible SEO results, from creating readable content to monitoring visibility on emerging AI search engines.

AI works best when used for research, outlining, and speeding up drafts while the real ranking power still comes from expertise, strategy, and links.

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For example, using an AI content tool can lead to significant growth in impressions, as seen in cases where daily impressions grew from 700 to over 750,000 in three months. This growth is often attributed to the ability to scale high-quality, publish-ready content.

What are AI tools for SEO?

Previously, "AI SEO" was often associated with content spinners that repurposed existing articles. Modern AI tools for SEO are more advanced and can assist with the entire process, from strategy to publication.

They usually fit into a few main categories, depending on the problem they address:

• Content creation and optimization: This is a common application. These tools can write researched articles from a keyword, build detailed content briefs, or help optimize existing content to match search intent.

• Keyword research and clustering: AI can assist in finding topics and organizing them into content pillars, which helps in creating a more cohesive content strategy.

• Technical SEO: Some tools use AI for technical site audits. They can identify crawl errors, suggest schema markup, and point out other backend issues so search engines can more easily crawl a site.

• Generative engine optimization (GEO): A more recent development is GEO, which focuses on getting content featured in AI answer engines like Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT. Certain tools are now built to help optimize for this and track performance.

To better visualize these functions, here’s a breakdown of how different AI tools address core SEO needs.

Criteria for selecting AI tools for SEO

The tools on this list were evaluated based on several core principles to ensure they offer practical value. The selection is based on criteria that correlate with positive SEO outcomes.

• Quality of output: The ability to produce useful, human-like content, analysis, or insights that require minimal editing.

• Real SEO and GEO impact: The tool's effectiveness in improving Google rankings, generating AI citations, or driving organic traffic, focusing on high-value tasks.

• Ease of use: The platform should be intuitive and straightforward for users to navigate and derive value.

• Unique features: The presence of distinctive features that address specific, important problems, such as GEO and automated asset creation.

Comparison of top AI tools for SEO

Here is a table that breaks down the top contenders. This should help you compare them at a glance and find the right fit for your needs, whether you're focused on content creation, optimization, or tracking your brand in AI search.

The 6 best AI tools for SEO

Choosing the right platform depends on your primary goal. Here’s a detailed breakdown of some effective tools, what they do best, and who they’re for.

1. eesel AI blog writer

The eesel AI blog writer is a content generation platform designed to produce complete, SEO-optimized blog posts from a keyword. The output includes a logical structure, headings, introduction, conclusion, and FAQs. It is also optimized for AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

The tool is designed to address the challenge of creating high-quality content at scale. It aims to deliver articles that are close to publish-ready by automatically generating and adding images, embedding relevant YouTube videos, and incorporating quotes from Reddit to add authenticity.

Pros and cons:

• Pros: Creates comprehensive, context-aware content, saving time on research, writing, and asset creation. It offers a fast workflow from keyword to a complete article.

• Cons: It's focused on content generation. If you need a tool for deep technical audits or complex backlink analysis, you'll need to pair it with something else.

Pricing:

• The Early Bird plan starts at $99 per month.

• You can generate a blog for free to see the quality for yourself.

2. Semrush

Semrush is a comprehensive digital marketing platform that has integrated AI across its toolkit. Its features include keyword research, site audits, and an AI Visibility Toolkit for tracking brand presence in AI-generated answers.

Semrush is suitable for data-driven SEO professionals looking for an all-in-one solution. The platform's AI features, such as the AI Visibility reports, supplement its existing tools. It allows users to track performance in both traditional and AI-powered search results.

Pros and cons:

• Pros: Offers a wide breadth of features and access to a large database of keywords, backlinks, and competitor data.

• Cons: The platform can be complex for beginners, and the pricing may be more suitable for larger teams.

Pricing:

• The Semrush One Starter plan is $165.17/month when billed annually.

3. Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO focuses on on-page optimization. Its Content Editor analyzes top-ranking pages for a target keyword and provides real-time suggestions on keyword inclusion, article structure, and word count. The platform also includes an AI Tracker to monitor brand visibility in AI search engines.

This tool is useful for refining human-written drafts or updating existing content. Its live "Content Score" provides writers with a data-backed target for optimization. The AI Tracker feature adds functionality for managing both on-page SEO and GEO performance.

If you’ve been using these tools to write non-readable content and purely stick to what they say you’ve been using them wrong. Tools like this are always just a guideline that can help you with your writers block to help speed things up but in the end it still needs to be a human writing content for other humans.

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Pros and cons:

• Pros: Provides data-driven guidance for on-page factors and includes a feature to track visibility in AI search.

• Cons: If you follow its suggestions too rigidly, you can risk over-optimizing your content and making it sound robotic. Also, the AI Tracker is an add-on for the base plan.

Pricing:

• Plans start at $99/month for the Essential plan.

4. Frase

Frase is designed to accelerate the content research and briefing process with a focus on both SEO and GEO. By entering a keyword, it analyzes the SERPs to generate a detailed brief that includes competitor headings, common questions, and topic gaps.

I love Frase for doing research, generating content briefs to hand off to writers, and for optimizing existing content.

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This tool can save time for content managers and strategists by automating parts of the research process. A key feature is its dual scoring system for SEO and GEO, which helps users structure content for performance in both traditional search and AI engines.

Pros and cons:

• Pros: Quickly creates structured, data-driven outlines and briefs. The dual optimization focus is suitable for modern content strategies.

• Cons: Its keyword data isn't as deep as what you'd find in specialized tools like Semrush, and it's primarily focused on the pre-writing and optimization phases of content production.

Pricing:

• Offers a free trial to create 3 documents. Paid plans start at $38/month when billed annually.

5. Rankscale.ai

Rankscale.ai is a specialized Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tool. It focuses on tracking a brand's visibility, sentiment, and ranking within AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews for specific keywords.

Tracking traditional Google rankings may not be sufficient as the search landscape evolves. Rankscale provides granular data to help understand performance in an AI-driven search environment. The tool is designed to help with future-proofing an SEO strategy by showing how AI models perceive brand and content.

Pros and cons:

• Pros: Specializes in GEO tracking. The flexible pay-as-you-go model is suitable for targeted campaigns.

• Cons: It's a niche tool. It doesn't offer the broad features of a full SEO platform, so you won't find keyword research or technical audit tools here.

Pricing:

• It uses a credit-based model. The Essentials plan starts at $20/month.

6. Search Atlas

Search Atlas is an all-in-one SEO platform that combines standard SEO features with a heavy emphasis on AI automation. This includes its "OTTO SEO" agent, which can automate technical site fixes, and its LLM Visibility tool for tracking your presence in AI search.

This platform is an option for teams looking to consolidate their tool stack. It provides features to track AI visibility and an AI agent to deploy technical fixes.

Pros and cons:

• Pros: Can replace multiple tools with a single subscription and offers unique automation features.

• Cons: As a newer platform, some users have noted a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of everything it can do. It's also priced more for teams than for solo users or freelancers.

Pricing:

• The Starter plan begins at $99/month.

How to choose the right AI tools for SEO needs

Choosing the right tool can be simplified by identifying your primary goal. This helps in selecting a platform with relevant features.

• For automated content at scale: For those whose main bottleneck is producing a high volume of complete blog posts, a tool like the eesel AI blog writer can be suitable. It handles research, writing, and sourcing assets.

• For optimizing existing content: If you already have a team of writers but want to make their work more effective, a tool like Surfer SEO or Frase can provide the data-driven guidance they need to improve their output.

• For comprehensive data and tracking: For deep competitive analysis, backlink data, and tracking both SEO and GEO visibility, an all-in-one suite like Semrush provides these capabilities.

• For future-proofing with GEO: For those focusing on performance in the next wave of search, a dedicated GEO tool like Rankscale.ai provides specialized data.

This visual guide can help you match your needs to the right type of tool.

Getting started with AI tools for SEO

AI is becoming a key part of the modern SEO toolkit. The goal is to augment human expertise, not replace it. These tools can automate time-consuming tasks, allowing more time for high-level strategy and creativity.

A significant opportunity lies in scaling the production of high-quality, optimized content for both traditional search engines and new AI platforms. To see how these platforms work, consider trying a free tool. For example, you can generate a blog post for free to evaluate its output quality.

For a practical look at how top professionals integrate these platforms into their daily workflows, the following video offers valuable insights. It covers several powerful tools and demonstrates how they can be used for everything from discovering trends to planning entire SEO-optimized websites.

This video covers several powerful AI tools and demonstrates how they can be used for everything from discovering trends to planning entire SEO-optimized websites.