GEO market map tracks 145 companies across 10 layers
The map shows money splitting between pure-play monitoring vendors and incumbent SEO suites bolting on AI modules through acquisition — a consolidation signal most coverage misses. Marketing and SEO teams deciding where to spend can use the layer-by-layer breakdown to compare vendors by funding, revenue and pricing, such as GEO agencies starting at US$2,000/month. The full list and sources are published at ai-geo-map.vercel.app with quarterly updates planned.
A new market map of generative engine optimization (GEO) lists 145 companies organized into 10 layers, with data current as of Nov 2026. Pure-play visibility monitoring is led by Profound at a $1.8B valuation serving 2,500+ brands, while self-serve tools like Peec AI report $10M revenue. Incumbent SEO suites are adding AI modules, with Semrush's AI products at $38M+ ARR and Adobe acquiring Semrush, HubSpot buying XFunnel, and Sitecore buying Scrunch. The map also covers agencies, technical AI-crawler tooling such as llms.txt and Mintlify ($500M valuation), ads inside AI answers, content licensing, AI shopping, and answer engines including ChatGPT Search with ~900M weekly users and Google AI Overviews at 2B+ monthly users.
New market map: GEO (generative engine optimization) in 2026 — 145 companies, 10 layers The money is splitting two ways. Pure-play monitoring is led by Profound ($1.8B valuation, 2,500+ brands), while the incumbent SEO suites are adding AI modules fast: Semrush's AI product is at $38M+ ARR. Adobe is buying Semrush, HubSpot bought XFunnel, Sitecore bought Scrunch. Layer by layer: 1. Visibility monitoring, enterprise (16) — Profound ($1.8B val.), Bluefish AI ($43M raise), Brandlight ($30M). Daily prompt runs across ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. 2. Visibility monitoring, self-serve (31) — Peec AI ($10M rev.), Scrunch ($225M val.), Searchable ($85M), Otterly (~20K users, founder-stated). 3. Content optimization (16) — AirOps ($225M val.), Search Atlas ($30M rev.), Surfer ($15M rev.), Jasper. 4. Agencies (11) — iPullRank, Seer Interactive, First Page Sage (from $2,000/month). GEO audits plus content rewrites plus off-site citations, sold as a service. 5. Technical layer for AI crawlers (10) — Mintlify ($500M val.), Botify, Rank Math (4M+ users), Yoast. llms.txt, schema, pre-rendering. 6. Incumbent SEO suites (14) — Semrush ($38M+ AI ARR), Adobe LLM Optimizer, Ahrefs Brand Radar (3,000+ companies), Conductor, Similarweb. 7. Ads inside AI answers (10) — ChatGPT ads (US test since Feb 2026), Google AI Mode ads, ZeroClick ($55M), Gravity ($30.5M). Perplexity has stepped back from ads. 8. AI crawlers & licensing (11) — Cloudflare Pay per crawl, TollBit ($24M), ProRata/Gist (500+ publications), Microsoft's publisher marketplace. 9. AI shopping (13) — Shopify Agentic Storefronts, Stripe Agentic Commerce Suite, OpenAI Instant Checkout, ReFiBuy ($13.6M), Azoma ($11.2M). 10. Answer engines (13) — ChatGPT Search (~900M weekly users), Gemini (950M monthly), Google AI Overviews (2B+ monthly, second-hand), Perplexity ($20.4B val.). Data as of Nov 2026, public sources; company-reported numbers are labeled as such on the map. Bookmark this — we'll update it every quarter. Full list + sources: ai-geo-map.vercel.app 💬 0 🔄 0 ❤️ 0 👀 219 ⚡
