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Yonjun Jeong, Co-founder · Last updated: October 21, 2026

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What this article covers

When DecaGEO asked ChatGPT the same 63 US buyer questions about GEO (generative engine optimization) tools each week of Q3 2026, Semrush was the tool it recommended most. In the ten weeks measured on GPT-5.6 Terra, from July 26, Semrush ranked #1 in nine and was recommended in 65.6% of answers. Scrunch AI, Profound, Otterly.AI and Peec.ai were each recommended in at least 40% of those answers.
Summary for citation: In DecaGEO’s data for ChatGPT in the US (GEO category, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026), Semrush ranked #1 in nine of the ten weeks measured on GPT-5.6 Terra, the model DecaGEO measured ChatGPT on from the week of July 26. Profound was #1 in the other week, August 2. Semrush was recommended in 38.8% of answers in the GPT-5.4 weeks and 65.6% in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, Scrunch AI in 30.3% and 54.0%, and Profound in 24.5% and 50.5%.
Key takeaway: From July 26, ChatGPT recommended five GEO tools in at least 40% of its answers to the same questions, and Semrush in about two of every three.

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Top 10 GEO tools ChatGPT recommends at a glance

Table 1: GEO tools ranked by DECA Score in the week of September 27, 2026 (GPT-5.6 Terra), with the number of weeks each made the top 10 under each model. BrightEdge and Writesonic tied for #9 that week, so there is no #10. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026. Definitions in How we measure. DECA Score is DecaGEO’s 0 to 100 score for how often and how high ChatGPT recommends a tool in one category in one week, relative to that week’s #1, which is always 100. Profound at 87.0 means ChatGPT recommended it a little under nine tenths as strongly as Semrush that week. To see whether a tool was recommended more or less often over time, use the share of answers that recommended it. Table 2: Share of ChatGPT answers that recommended each tool, pooled by model period. Same 63 questions each week. Every share is out of all 188 or all 628 answers. In a week a tool was not ranked, its answers are counted as 0. That applies to BrightEdge in the week of July 19 and Rankscale in the week of August 30, so their shares for those periods may be low. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, GEO category, weeks of July 5 to July 19 (GPT-5.4) and July 26 to September 27, 2026 (GPT-5.6 Terra).
Line chart of the weekly share of answers recommending three GEO tools over 13 weeks. Semrush was between 36.5% and 41.9% in the three GPT-5.4 weeks, then between 57.1% and 77.4% from July 26. Scrunch AI went from 25.4% to 38.1% before July 26 to 47.6% to 61.9% after. Profound went from 22.2% to 28.6% before July 26 to 46.0% to 57.1% after.

Share of each week's ChatGPT answers that recommended Semrush, Scrunch AI and Profound. The dashed line marks the week of July 26, the first week measured on GPT-5.6 Terra. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, GEO category, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026.

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The top 10, in detail

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1. Semrush (DECA 100)

#1 in all three GPT-5.4 weeks, recommended in 23 to 26 answers each week. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #1 in nine and #2 in the week of August 2, scoring 94.1 against Profound’s 100. In those nine weeks its lead over #2 ranged from 2.0 to 30.3 DECA points. Its share of recommending answers went from 38.8% to 65.6%, the largest rise among the ten tools ranked in the week of September 27. In that week ChatGPT recommended it in 41 of 63 answers. Semrush is also ranked in ChatGPT’s SEO tool answers, covered in Best SEO Tools.

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2. Profound (DECA 87.0)

#3 in all three GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #1 in the week of August 2, #2 in eight weeks and #3 in the week of September 13. Its share of recommending answers went from 24.5% to 50.5%. In the week of September 27 it was recommended in 34 answers.

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3. Scrunch AI (DECA 80.1)

#4, #4 and #2 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #3 in seven, tied with Peec.ai for #3 in the week of August 23, #2 in the week of September 13 and #4 in the week of September 20. Its share of recommending answers went from 30.3% to 54.0%, higher than Profound’s in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. In the week of September 27 it was recommended in 39 answers to Profound’s 34 and scored 80.1 to Profound’s 87.0. DECA Score also counts where in each answer a tool appears, so more answers do not always mean a higher score.

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4. Otterly.AI (DECA 62.1)

#2 in the weeks of July 5 and July 12 and #4 in the week of July 19. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it ranked #3 to #5, at #4 in seven of them. Its share of recommending answers was about the same in both periods, 38.8% and 40.9%. In the GPT-5.4 weeks it was recommended in as many answers as Semrush, 73 each.

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5. Peec.ai (DECA 56.5)

#5, #8 and #5 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #5 in eight, #4 in the week of August 2 and tied for #3 in the week of August 23. Its share of recommending answers went from 26.1% to 40.6%.

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6. Conductor (DECA 19.3)

#23, #13 and #17 in the GPT-5.4 weeks, then #6 to #10 in all ten GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. Its share of recommending answers went from 6.9% to 9.2%. In the week of September 27 it was recommended in 6 answers.

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7. HubSpot AEO (DECA 16.1)

#6, #7 and #7 in the GPT-5.4 weeks, then #6 to #11 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, in the top 10 in nine of them. Its share of recommending answers went from 10.1% to 15.0%, in both periods the highest of the ten tools here after the top five. In the week of September 27 it was recommended in 10 answers.

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8. Rankscale (DECA 9.9)

#7 in the week of July 5, then outside the top 10 until the week of September 20, when it ranked #9. It was #8 in the week of September 27, recommended in 3 answers. Its share of recommending answers was 3.2% in the GPT-5.4 weeks and 3.3% in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, with the week of August 30, when it was not ranked, counted as 0.

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9. BrightEdge (DECA 9.3)

Outside the top 10 in the GPT-5.4 weeks, then #8 to #14 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, in the top 10 in seven of them. Its share of recommending answers was 2.1% in the GPT-5.4 weeks, with the week of July 19, when it was not ranked, counted as 0, and 6.4% in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. A head-to-head with Semrush is in Semrush vs BrightEdge.

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9. Writesonic (DECA 9.3)

#15, #32 and #20 in the GPT-5.4 weeks, then #7 to #18 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, in the top 10 in seven of them. Its share of recommending answers went from 4.8% to 8.3%.

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What changed at the July 26 model switch

The week of July 26 was the first measured on GPT-5.6 Terra. The same set of 63 questions was asked in all 13 weeks.
  • Semrush stayed #1 in most weeks. It was #1 in all three GPT-5.4 weeks and in nine of the ten GPT-5.6 Terra weeks.
  • The top three were named in more answers. Semrush went from 38.8% to 65.6%, Scrunch AI from 30.3% to 54.0% and Profound from 24.5% to 50.5%. In the three GPT-5.4 weeks Semrush was recommended in 23 to 26 answers a week, and from July 26 in 36 to 48.
  • Otterly.AI moved down while its share held. It was #2 in two of the three GPT-5.4 weeks and #3 to #5 afterwards. Its share went from 38.8% to 40.9% while Semrush, Scrunch AI and Profound were recommended in more answers.
  • Profound moved up to #2. It was #3 in all three GPT-5.4 weeks and #2 in eight of the ten GPT-5.6 Terra weeks.
These are differences between the two periods, so read each tool’s rank against the model it was measured on.

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Notable: MentionGEO and Evertune

MentionGEO ranked #5 in the week of July 12 and #6 in the week of July 19, both GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was ranked in two weeks, at #18 and #25. Evertune was tied for #9 in the week of July 5 and made the top 10 in four of the first five GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, at #6 to #8. From September 6 it ranked #11 or lower, and it was #15 in the week of September 27 with a DECA Score of 6.2.

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What the top tools’ cited pages have in common

DecaGEO checks the tools’ own pages that ChatGPT cited in its GEO tool answers for on-page patterns. The category’s Weekly Breakouts tab shows these patterns by name for the tools that broke in or climbed that week. Here are five of them, counted across the top-10 tools of the week of September 27. Table 3: A tool counts if at least one of its cited pages has the pattern. All ten top-10 tools are counted. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, GEO category, week of September 27, 2026. Meta descriptions are on at least one cited page of all ten tools, canonical links and robots.txt show for nine and Schema.org types for seven. Content freshness shows for three. These counts describe the pages ChatGPT cited, so use the table as a list to check on your own pages, not as the reason for any tool’s rank.

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What you can do with this list

If you are choosing a GEO tool, from July 26 Semrush ranked #1 in DecaGEO’s ChatGPT data in nine of ten weeks, and ChatGPT recommended five tools in at least 40% of its answers. This is a ranking of recommendations, not a review of features, so use it to build a shortlist and test from there. If your brand is in this category, check the pages you want ChatGPT to cite against the five patterns in Table 3.

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FAQ

Which GEO tool does ChatGPT recommend most? Semrush. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks of Q3 2026 it was recommended in 65.6% of answers and was #1 in nine of the ten weeks. Under GPT-5.4 it was #1 in all three weeks and recommended in 38.8% of answers, the same share as Otterly.AI. Is Profound or Scrunch AI ranked higher by ChatGPT? Profound, in most weeks. Under GPT-5.4, Profound was #3 in all three weeks and Scrunch AI was #4, #4 and #2. Under GPT-5.6 Terra, Profound was #1 or #2 in nine weeks and Scrunch AI was #2 once. Scrunch AI was recommended in more of the GPT-5.6 Terra answers, 54.0% to Profound’s 50.5%. Where does HubSpot AEO rank? #6 or #7 in the GPT-5.4 weeks and #6 to #11 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. It was #7 in the week of September 27. Is DecaGEO in this ranking? Yes. DecaGEO is one of the tools tracked in this category and is measured with the same questions as every other tool here. It was outside the top 10 in every week of Q3 2026. What is DECA Score? A 0 to 100 score for how often and how high ChatGPT recommends a tool within one category in one week. The week’s #1 is 100. Details are in How we measure and the methodology. Are these rankings stable? Semrush was #1 in all three GPT-5.4 weeks and in nine of the ten GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. Below #1, places moved at the July 26 model switch. Otterly.AI, for example, went from #2 in two GPT-5.4 weeks to #3 to #5, and Profound from #3 to #2 in most weeks. Is this a features review? No, it ranks tools by how ChatGPT recommends them, not by feature quality, price or results.

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How we measure

The common method, including how questions are built and how DECA Score is calculated, is on the methodology page.
  • Window: 13 weeks, July 5 to September 27, 2026, ChatGPT, US, English. The weeks of July 5, 12 and 19 were measured on GPT-5.4 and the weeks from July 26 on GPT-5.6 Terra. Figures from the two periods are shown side by side and not combined.
  • Sample: the same 63 GEO tool questions every week. 188 answers are counted in the GPT-5.4 weeks and 628 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks.
  • DECA Score is shown for one week only, because it is relative to that week’s #1. The distance between #1 and #2 in DECA points can be compared across weeks.
  • Recommended in counts answers that recommended the tool. Passing or negative mentions are not counted.
  • Top-10 weeks counts weeks with a rank of 10 or better, including ties.
  • Page patterns are from the week of September 27, on each tool’s own pages cited in that week’s GEO tool answers.
  • The live board updates every Sunday, so it shows weeks after September 27.

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Sources