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What Are The Best AI Tools for SEO in 2025/2026?
Last Updated:
Nov 17, 2025

What Are The Best AI Tools for SEO in 2025/2026?

The world of SEO is nothing like it was just a few years ago. As AI overviews from Google reduce the number of impressions websites receive by providing answers to questions on the first page, optimizing your content to appear in the top three results has become absolutely essential for survival.

As in all aspects of optimization, speed is paramount, but thankfully, it's now possible to optimize for SEO much faster thanks to smart AI tools.

We're comparing 10 SEO AI tools — what they do, where they shine, and who they're useful for — from keyword research to first drafts to optimization of existing content.

Our goal is to help you choose tools that deliver real SEO impact instead of adding more noise to your workflow.

What Are AI SEO Tools?

An AI SEO tool is a type of online software that uses Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), or some combination of AI & ML to speed up or automate core SEO tasks, such as:

  • Keyword research
  • SEO article Writing
  • On-page optimization
  • Content auditing
  • Performance analysis

(Learn about the difference between AI and ML)

In that sense, instead of manually reviewing SERPs, comparing competitor pages, or clustering thousands of keywords, these tools instantly find patterns you can act on.

Here’s a spoiler — there isn’t one tool that does all of that, at least, not to a high level. Some tools focus on content and on-page SEO, while others focus on technical SEO: indexing, local rankings, or even tracking your visibility inside AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity).

Why that matters: Much like an SEO specialist would, AI-powered SEO tools can understand unstructured data and provide suggestions based on it, leading to better, more targeted optimizations and higher rankings.

In other words, AI tools can act based on your unique context. This was impossible to automate just a few years ago, but now that AI is here, it can be done.

How is AI Changing SEO?

The world of SEO in general is constantly evolving:

  1. SEO specialists find ways to boost rankings
  2. Google updates its algorithms to keep things fair

While writing high-quality content is always essential for good rankings, the name of the game for a long time was optimizing content for SERP with keywords in the right places and building external links.

However, since Google introduced AI Overviews, we’ve seen the biggest shift in the SEO paradigm in over 10 years.

Users now get answers to their questions without clicking on a specific site.

AI overview example

Meanwhile, an increasing number of users are turning to Overchat AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the web search feature of Gemini to find answers online.

This means that SEO is no longer just about ranking in the top 10 on Google. Visibility in AI-generated responses is now equally important, but it largely depends on technical SEO.

In essence, you now have to optimize for two types of SEO: traditional search and AI-driven search.

  • Traditional search is still about optimizing content around user queries, implementing LSI keywords, and writing high-quality content.
  • Optimizing for AI search engines, on the other hand, is much more about technical SEO.

Since AI systems depend on structured data, they are more likely to cite websites that they can easily scan and comprehend.

That’s why, when you perform a web search on ChatGPT, you sometimes see answers from some unknown site. It's not because ChatGPT chose an article that's better in terms of topical depth, but rather because the article it chose was easier for it to understand.

In practical terms, this means that your workload as a content marketer or SEO specialist has almost doubled.

However, it's not all bad news because AI tools can help automate many of the manual SEO tasks, saving hours or even days of work.

Now that we've covered that, let's move on to the most interesting part of this article: an overview of the best tools.

The Best AI SEO Tools in 2025/2026

Now that we’ve covered that, it’s time to look at the tools that really move the needle. We’ve hand-picked 10 great platforms, each with a different purpose — some are for keyword research and writing while others are for technical SEO or AI visibility tracking.

To give you a clear overview before diving into individual reviews, here’s a concise comparison table of the top tools we’ll be covering:

AI SEO Tools Comparison (2025/2026)

Tool Best For Key Strengths Pricing
Overchat AI Writer Fast long-form SEO content Custom outlines, clean drafts, optimization-ready From $4.99/week
Semrush One Complete SEO + AI visibility Keyword research, audits, AI visibility, competitor data From $199/month
Surfer SEO On-page optimization Content Editor, content scoring, AI outlines From $99/month
Search Atlas All-in-one SEO alternative OTTO automation, site explorer, backlink analysis From $99/month
Indexly Indexing & LLM discoverability Instant indexing, bulk indexing, LLM indexability From $14/month
SE Ranking Full SEO platform AI insights, content editor, rank tracking From $65/month
Rankability Deep content updates Content Monitor, optimizer, AI briefs From $149/month
Keywordly Keyword clustering & research Reddit/Quora keyword discovery, clustering From $14/month
Koala AI Quick SEO-optimized drafts Custom tone, outline control, multilingual From $9/month
SEOpital AI content generation WordPress publishing, AI tracking From $49/month

Now that you have a snapshot of how these platforms differ, let’s walk through them one by one. We’ll start with the tool built specifically for fast, SEO-ready content creation.

Overchat AI Writer

Overchat AI Writer is a writing assistant designed to turn short prompts into full, structured drafts. It supports different formats:

  • Blog posts
  • Emails
  • Ads
  • Scripts
  • Product descriptions

And adapts to different tones, including but not limited to:

  • Friendly
  • Professional
  • Entussastic
  • Authoritative
  • And humorous 

Its long-form mode supports drafts up to 10,000 words, which makes it useful for full articles, guides, and landing pages.

For SEO, Overchat provides keyword suggestions, optimized headings, meta descriptions, and structural improvements. It’s also multilingual, generating content in 25+ languages and offering translation support for 100+.

Pros:

✅ Produces long-form drafts up to 10,000 words

✅ Strong rewriting and tone-adjustment capabilities

✅ Built-in SEO suggestions for keywords, headings, metadata

Cons:

❌ No native SERP or competitor analysis features

Available platforms: Web, iOS and Android apps

Semrush One

Semrush One

Semrush One combines Semrush’s traditional SEO toolkit with a newer layer of AI-powered features designed to help you understand how your site performs in both classic search and AI-driven search engines.

In terms of analytics, it’s the most comprehensive platform on this list, covering research, auditing, tracking, and competitive analysis inside one interface.

For day-to-day SEO, you get the usual essentials: keyword research, backlink data, rank tracking, site audits, and topic discovery.

On top of that, the AI Visibility Toolkit monitors how often your brand appears in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLMs — this is something most tools can’t measure yet.

Semrush One also includes an on-page optimization workflow with recommendations for improving structure, technical health, and search intent alignment.

If you create content regularly, the Content Toolkit (formerly ContentShake AI) can generate briefs, outlines, metadata, and draft improvements based on what’s ranking in the SERPs.

Pros:

✅ AI Visibility reports for ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity

✅ Industry-leading keyword, competitive, and backlink data

Cons:

❌ Higher price point than most tools

❌ Can feel overwhelming for beginners

Available platforms: Web browser, iOS app, Android app

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO focuses on on-page optimization and content performance, using AI to analyze what currently ranks and translate that into actionable guidelines for your drafts.

Its Content Editor is the core feature — drop in a brief or outline, generate the article with Surfer AI, and get real-time suggestions on structure, headings, readability, and keyword coverage.

Surfer also helps you update older pages. The Content Audit tool scans your site, identifies underperforming URLs, and recommends fixes such as missing terms, weak structure, or internal link gaps.

For teams publishing at scale, the Topical Map and Domain Planner features highlight content opportunities and cluster ideas you may not be covering yet.

If you’re tracking visibility across AI-driven search, Surfer’s AI Tracker monitors mentions of your brand or products inside AI Overview results, ChatGPT, and Perplexity — useful in a landscape where LLM visibility matters almost as much as traditional rankings.

Pros:

✅ Strong on-page optimization with clear, actionable guidance

✅ Content Audit and AI Tracker streamline ongoing updates

Cons:

❌ AI article generation uses credits that reset monthly

❌ Less suited for deep competitive research or backlink analysis

Available platforms: Web browser

Search Atl

Search Atlas

Search Atlas is a newer all-in-one SEO platform positioned as a leaner, more affordable alternative to Ahrefs and Semrush.

It bundles keyword research, backlink analysis, content tools, and technical auditing into one interface, but what differentiates it is OTTO SEO — an automated AI assistant that continuously monitors your site and recommends improvements without requiring manual setup.

The Site Explorer works similarly to Ahrefs: enter a domain and you’ll see traffic data, keyword rankings, backlinks, and top-performing pages.

For content teams, the SEO Content Assistant generates outlines, drafts, and optimization recommendations based on live SERP data. The platform also includes link-building tools and outreach automation, which many competitors don’t offer natively.

Search Atlas is still evolving, so some users report a learning curve, but its feature set covers most SEO needs in one place. For anyone wanting a full SEO suite without enterprise pricing, it’s a strong contender.

Pros:

✅ OTTO SEO automates technical insights and website monitoring

✅ Solid all-in-one tool covering research, content, backlinks, and audits

Cons:

❌ Interface can feel dense until you learn the layout

❌ Support and documentation aren’t as mature as larger competitors

Available platforms: Web browser

Indexly

Indexly

Indexly focuses on one of the most overlooked parts of SEO: getting your pages discovered and indexed quickly.

New sites, blogs with frequent updates, and ecommerce stores with large product catalogs often run into Crawled – Not Indexed or Discovered – Not Indexed issues. Indexly automates the entire process so your pages appear in search results faster.

  • The platform continuously monitors your site’s indexing status and highlights pages that need attention.
  • With Instant Indexing and Bulk Index, you can submit URLs directly instead of waiting days or weeks for Google to pick them up.
  • Auto-indexing workflow watches for new or changed pages and handles submissions automatically.

Indexly also includes LLM Indexability tools. These show whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other AI systems can properly parse and understand your content.

Pros:

✅ Fast indexing for new content and product pages

✅ Auto-indexing and clear reporting for problem URLs

Cons:

❌ Ranking updates can lag compared to larger platforms

❌ Not a full SEO suite—best used alongside other tools

Available platforms: Web browser

SE Ranking

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a full-stack SEO platform built for teams that want a wide feature set without the complexity or cost of enterprise tools. It covers keyword research, competitive analysis, on-page checks, and rank tracking, but its recent AI-focused updates make it especially relevant in today’s search landscape.

The AI Ranking Reports analyze how your pages appear inside AI Overviews and other AI-powered search layers. You can also track competitor visibility across these same queries, which is increasingly important as generative search reshapes traffic patterns.

Pros:

✅ Strong value for money with broad feature coverage

✅ AI-powered content and visibility insights built into a clean interface

Cons:

❌ Reporting is simpler than what you’d get in premium platforms

❌ Data depth can’t fully match Semrush or Ahrefs

Available platforms: Web browser, iOS app, Android app

Rankability

Rankability

Rankability is an AI-powered content optimization tool built specifically for improving existing pages and keeping them competitive over time.

  • The Content Optimizer evaluates your article against current page-one competitors and calculates a rankability score. It then shows the exact gaps — missing subtopics, weak sections, insufficient keyword coverage, or outdated information.
  • Once you update the content, the Content Monitor tracks how well it holds up daily in both traditional search and AI-generated results.

Rankability also includes tools for keyword discovery, outline generation, and content briefs. These features work, but its real value lies in diagnosing what a page needs to regain or maintain rankings.

It’s one of the few tools built by SEOs for SEOs, and the focus on improving existing content (not just generating new drafts) is what sets it apart.

Pros:

✅ Excellent for updating and rescuing declining content

✅ Content Monitor tracks relevance across organic and AI search

Cons:

❌ Not a full SEO suite—best paired with broader research tools

❌ Outline and brief suggestions may require manual refinement

Available platforms: Web browser

Keywordly

Keywordly is an AI-powered content workflow tool built around keyword discovery, clustering, and topic expansion. It specializes in organizing search data and uncovering opportunities you’d normally have to dig for manually.

The standout feature is its multi-source keyword research.

  • You can pull keyword ideas not just from Google, but also from Reddit, Quora, Amazon, YouTube, and Bing.
  • This is especially useful for identifying real user pain points and early-stage trends before they appear in traditional keyword tools.

Pros:

✅ Strong keyword clustering with multi-platform data sources

✅ LLM visibility and Reddit/Quora research built in

Cons:

❌ Credit system can feel limiting for heavy users

❌ Not designed for technical SEO or deep competitive analysis

Available platforms: Web browser

Koala AI

Koala AI

Koala AI is a lightweight but surprisingly capable SEO writing tool built for fast, customizable content creation.

You can set the tone of voice, define word count, choose the target country, and refine the outline before generation. Once the article is created, Koala integrates your target keyword and suggests semantically related terms to improve on-page optimization — all of this in over 100 languages.

What’s also cool is that you can generate up to 5,000 words per month for free.

Pros:

✅ Fast, customizable SEO drafts with a simple UI

✅ Strong value with flexible pricing and a free monthly quota

Cons:

❌ Not designed for audits, research, or deep optimization

❌ Requires manual editing to avoid formulaic structure

Available platforms: Web browser

SEOpital

SEOpital

SEOpital is an AI-powered SEO content tool designed to streamline both creation and optimization. It’s built for teams that want to generate articles quickly, optimize them, and push them directly to WordPress.

  • The Content Generator lets you define keywords, outline, content type, target language, FAQ section, conclusion, and SEOpital produces a ready-to-edit.
  • The Keyword Projects feature helps you manage batches of topics and turn them into articles efficiently.
  • AI Tracking for ChatGPT and Perplexity shows how often your website appears across LLM-generated results.

Pros:

✅ Fast AI content generation with detailed customization

✅ Built-in AI visibility tracking for ChatGPT and Perplexity

Cons:

❌ Limited technical SEO features

❌ Credit-based system may not suit high-volume teams

Available platforms: Web browser, WordPress integration

Honorable Mentions

While the above tools cover the most interesting AI-powered SEO tools, several other platforms deserve a mention but didn’t quite make the top 10. We’d be remiss if we didn’t recommend them. With that in mind, here are five more SEO tools you should consider, especially for traditional content and website optimization. They’ve long been staples of many professional SEO toolkits, and even though the world of SEO is now pivoting towards AI, they’re unlikely to become obsolete anytime soon.

  • Ahrefs — Still one of the best SEO tools for backlink research, competitive analysis, and keyword data. Not AI-focused, but its dataset remains unmatched for link-related insights.
  • BuzzSumo — Excellent for content ideation, trend discovery, and analyzing what topics earn the most engagement across the web.
  • Clearscope — A premium content optimization platform known for high-quality keyword suggestions and readability guidance.
  • AnswerThePublic — Provides unique keyword visualizations and question-based search patterns, making it valuable for uncovering long-tail opportunities and user intent.
  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider — The go-to crawler for technical SEO. Helps you find broken links, duplicate content, redirect chains, and structural issues that impact search visibility.

What Makes the Best AI SEO Tool?

When deciding what AI tool is the best it’s worth to look at a clear set of criteria before adding anything new to your workflow.

Functionality. Does the tool meaningfully improve at least one real part of your SEO process?

  1. Keyword research
  2. Content optimization
  3. Auditing
  4. Technical fixes
  5. Visibility tracking

Make sure that the AI part of it isn’t just a buzzword, otherwise it will only get in the way and slow you down.

Accuracy. SEO decisions rely on trustworthy numbers, so the tool needs to pull data in large enough volumes and from dependable sources. This is why established players like Ahrefs will not become obsolete — dependable data sources and algorithms is what they’re great at.

Easy to learn. SEO is already complex, so adding a difficult-to-learn interface on top of that may be overwhelming. A good UX design will encourage you to use the tool more often, which will lead to more optimizations. Along those lines, make sure the tool not only highlights problems, but also suggests fixes.

Integrations. Integrations with WordPress, Google Search Console, analytics tools, and content systems matter, because the smoother the handoff, the more useful the tool becomes.

Bottom Line

As AI search engines and web browsers become more popular, technical optimization becomes more important for SEO. Meanwhile, topical depth remains as important as ever. This means that you need even more optimization if you want to stay on top. Thankfully, AI SEO tools are now making it easier to identify and act on SEO opportunities, so while the number of things to juggle grows, the number of mundane tasks that may take hours to complete shrinks. Overall, SEO tools offer a significant productivity boost. If you’re not using at least some of the tools on this list, you’re missing out. The work has shifted, and these tools make the shift much easier to handle.

FAQs

What are AI SEO tools?

AI SEO tools use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) to speed up or automate tasks like keyword research, content creation, optimization, auditing, and performance tracking. Instead of manually reviewing SERPs or clustering keywords, these tools analyze large datasets instantly and highlight patterns you can act on.

How does AI impact SEO?

AI has changed how people find information, because Google’s AI Overviews answer user questions directly on the results page. At the same time, AI search engines heavily favoured structured data. This means SEO now rewards clear structure and meticulously marked up pages even more than before.

How do you choose the right AI tool for SEO?

Start by matching the tool to the job you actually need done. Some tools specialize in content optimization, some in technical fixes, and others in keyword research or AI visibility. A good pick should give reliable data, actionable next steps, and integrate smoothly into your workflow.

Is AI-generated content bad for SEO?

Not inherently. Google’s guidance is clear: the issue isn’t how content is created, but whether it’s helpful. AI-generated text becomes a problem when it’s used to manipulate rankings or published without editing. When you fact-check, refine, and align it with search intent and E-E-A-T principles, AI-assisted content can rank just as well as human-written work.

How to use AI for keyword research?

AI tools can speed up keyword research by clustering related terms, analyzing intent, spotting gaps, and surfacing long-tail queries you’d normally miss. Instead of combing through raw keyword lists, you get organized topic groups and clear search patterns. You still need to validate difficulty and competition manually, but AI reduces the time it takes to get from a seed keyword to a workable content plan.