When asked for the best competitive intelligence tool, 6 AI assistants named 8 brands between them this month. Semrush was named most often, followed by SimilarWeb and SpyFu. One brand was named by every assistant that answered: Semrush.
Who named whom
| Brand | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Claude | Grok | DeepSeek | Cohere | Named by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 6 of 6 |
| SimilarWeb | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 5 of 6 |
| SpyFu | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | 5 of 6 |
| Ahrefs | · | ✓ | · | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 4 of 6 |
| BuzzSumo | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | · | · | 2 of 6 |
| Google Alerts | · | · | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | 2 of 6 |
| Mention | · | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | 2 of 6 |
| Crayon | · | · | · | · | ✓ | · | 1 of 6 |
Share of voice
What each assistant said
ChatGPT
Named 3 brands, in this order: BuzzSumo, SpyFu, SimilarWeb.
Selecting the best competitive intelligence tool for a small business largely depends on the specific needs and budget constraints of the business.
Perplexity
Named 3 brands, in this order: Semrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu.
For a small business, the best competitive intelligence tool is usually one that focuses on a single, high-value need rather than an expensive all-in-one platform.
Claude
Named 5 brands, in this order: Semrush, SpyFu, Google Alerts, Mention, BuzzSumo.
For most small businesses, starting with free tools (Google Alerts + Similarweb free tier) makes sense before investing in paid platforms.
Grok
Named 4 brands, in this order: SpyFu, Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, Mention.
DeepSeek
Named 5 brands, in this order: Google Alerts, Crayon, Semrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu.
There's no single "best" tool — the right choice depends on what you want to track (competitors' websites, pricing, ads, reviews, social, SEO, etc.), your budget, and how much time you can invest.
Cohere
Named 2 brands, in this order: SimilarWeb, Ahrefs.
Choosing the best competitive intelligence tool for a small business depends on your specific needs, budget, and industry.
Named by only one assistant
Crayon (DeepSeek).
The questions asked
- What is the best competitive intelligence tool for a small business?
Asked between 2026-09-26 and 2026-09-26. Not answering this month: Gemini, Mistral.
Track what AI assistants say about every client, with white-label reports your clients can read.
See the GEO suiteHow this was measured
Each month we ask every assistant the same plain buyer questions, worded the way a person shopping for this kind of product would ask them, with no brand suggested in the question except where the question itself names the market leader to find alternatives to. Each assistant answers in a fresh session with no earlier conversation, so an answer reflects what the assistant says to anyone who asks, not what it was steered towards.
From each answer we keep the product and company names it recommends. A name counts only when it appears in the answer as a proper name, is not a heading such as "Best for" or "Pricing", and is confirmed by a second assistant naming it too, by a website the answer cites, or by being the market leader named in the question. Share of voice is each brand's share of all brand mentions in the category this month. Assistants that could not answer this month are listed as not answering, never counted as naming nobody.
Cite this page
https://mentionfox.com/ai-recommends/competitive-intelligence