The Good Tech Companies - AI Search Is Breaking SEO—Here’s the Platform Built to Replace It

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/ai-search-is-breaking-seoheres-the-platform-built-to-replace-it. Profound outperforms AthenaHQ with 34.4% AI visibility vs. just 0.2%, giving enterprise brands a major edge in AI-driven search results. Check more stories related to machine-learning at: https://hackernoon.com/c/machine-learning. You can also check exclusive content about #ai, #seo, #aeo, #chatgpt, #profound, #athenahq, #profound-vs-athenahq, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @profound. Learn more about this writer by checking @profound's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Profound outperforms AthenaHQ with 34.4% AI visibility vs. just 0.2%, giving enterprise brands a major edge in AI-driven search results.

This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. AI Search is breaking SEO. Here's the platform built to replace it, by Profound. AI Answer Engines are transforming how your customers discover and interact with brands online. Profound's data shows that Chagipedi's AI Search results only overlapped 12% with Google's traditional search. This creates new optimization challenges that conventional CEO tactics can't address. Profound and Athena HQ have both developed Answer Engine Optimization AEO platforms to help enterprise brands navigate this shift. But their approaches and capabilities reveal major differences.

Profound provides enterprise-scale AI visibility and works with some of the largest brands in the world. Unlimited unique prompts analyzed daily, exclusive capabilities like real-time AI crawler tracking and AI conversation analysis, a dedicated AI search strategist, and up to a 5-minute SLA. Athena HQ offers enterprise subscriptions with credit-based scaling but lacks many large or well-known customers, AI content creation and outreach capabilities, access to AI experts, and a two-hour SLA. For enterprise organizations that require scalable, reliable, and agile AI search optimization, Profound offers superior value, strategic partnership, and significantly more experience in helping

larger brands win. Profound vs. Athena HQ Overview Profound built from the ground up for enterprise brands, exclusive capabilities like real-time AI bot tracking, AI Search Volume insights, product visibility optimization for AI commerce, and automated content creation. Enterprise volume that supports up to 200,000 unique prompts analyzed daily. Strategic partnerships via weekly syncs with a dedicated AI search strategist team.

Global coverage across 50 plus countries and 15 plus languages, with more added weekly. Enterprise-grade security with SOC2 Type 2 compliance and SSO functionality. White glove support with dedicated Slack channels and up to 5-minute SLAs. Proven enterprise results helping brands like Ramp, 1840 & Company, MongoDB, DocuSign, and many others control their AI presence. Measurable performance difference with profound achieving 34. 4% visibility in eye-generated answers about AEO compared to AthenaQ's 0. 2% score. AthenaQ designed for self-service needs with a pay-as-you scale model. Flexible scaling with a credit-based model for additional usage.

Automated workflows for insights, content creation, and outreach. Industry standard support with 2-hour enterprise response times. Capability comparison. Profound vs. Athena HQ, Capability Profound Athena HQ pricing model custom enterprise pricing subscription plus extra credits team access unlimited unlimited response analysis unlimited unlimited AI engines Chad GPT, Google AI mode, Gemini, Google AIO, Perplexity, and Copilot, Claude, MetaAI, DeepSeq, Grok, and more in development, ChadGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Google AIO, Perplexity,

Copilot, Claude Global Coverage, 50-plus countries and 15-plus languages, with more added weekly unlimited languages in region's key features Agent Analytics, Conversationation Explorer Shopping Analytics Content Briefs Actions Automated Outreach Content Creation Analytics Depth Advanced Sentiment Themes Citation Categorization

Competitive Analysis Automated Optimization Focus Security SOC 2 Type 2 SSO Role-based Access Control Unlimited Data Retention SSO Unlimited Data Ret retention support up to

5-minute SLA, dedicated AI search strategist team 2-hour SLA, expert network access API access real-time data exchange with no rate limits custom enterprise access. Why enterprise brands prefer Profound? Get the insights you need to outperform competitors in AI Search Profound's agent analytics provides real-time AI bot tracking on your domain with GA4 integration for complete customer journey analysis. Answer Engine Insights tracks brand mentions and reveals what AI is saying about your brand. Conversation Explorer analyzes AI keyword and topic volume, and shopping optimizes product visibility in AI commerce. Athena HQ focuses on automated workflows rather than deep analytical insights.

Scale without slowdowns and maintain your competitive advantage profound analyzes up to 200,000 unique prompts daily per customer with unlimited data retention. Our plans are tailored to enterprise needs, analyzing AI visibility and providing actionable insights without the unpredictable pricing that credit-based upgrades create. Athenicue's credit-based model leads to inconsistent spending as you scale, potentially forcing expensive plan changes. Solve critical problems in minutes and get expert advice with dedicated Slack channels and up to a five-minute SLA. Profound offers the support that fast-moving enterprise

teams require. Our dedicated AI search strategist teams share competitive intelligence and tailored recommendations, forming a strategic partnership. Athena HQ offers a 2-hour SLA and access to an expert network. Protect sensitive data and meet compliance requirements. Profound offers SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, SSO integration, role-based access control, and automated daily backups, supporting the security standards and audit capabilities that enterprise brands require.

Athena HQ provides basic SSO but lacks SOC2 Type 2 compliance and comprehensive audit capabilities. Achieve measurable ROI that justifies enterprise investment with Profound, Ramp became the eighth most visible fintech brand, growing AI visibility by 7x and doubling citations. 1840 and company went from invisible toon of the five most visible brands in remote staffing, achieving 11% AI visibility. Performance testing shows a clear divide, with Profound achieving 34.4% AI visibility versus AthenaQ's 0.2%. Simplify operations across distributed teams and regions with support

for 50-plus countries and 15-plus languages, expanding weekly, plus AN agency-focused, GodView, for multi-client management. Profound is built to scale along with complex enterprise operations. Athena HQ claims unlimited regions but lacks the specialized enterprise infrastructure for complex global operations. What makes Profound different? Answer Engine Insights track AI visibility and see where and how AI mentions your brand across Chad GPT, Perplexity, Google AIO, and other major platforms. Measure visibility and share of voice, analyze how AI describes your brand, and identify which websites influence AI-generated answers. Compare your performance to competitors and build a competitive advantage. Agent analytics understand exactly how AI

crawlers and answer engines interact with your website. See when, how often, and which AI bots access your content. See when, how often, and which AI bots access your content. Identify which pages AI models prefer, optimize your site's technical structure for eye indexing, and measure how AI search influences clicks to your site with our GA4 integration. Conversation Explorer discover how often relevant topics are discussed across chat GPT, perplexity, and Copilot, insights no other platform provides. Profound has access to the largest data set of real user conversations in the world, besides

the LLMs themselves. Spot trending topics and guide your AI visibility strategy with real conversation data. Shopping analysis optimize how your products appear in chat GPT shopping and other AI commerce features. Track product visibility, find high impact keywords to increase product exposure, analyze competing products and retailers, and refine how your products are represented in eye-powered shopping recommendations. Content creation and powerful actions get strategic recommendations across earned, social, and owned channels based on influential content signals. Profound helps you create world-class content briefs based on its billions of AI signals. Go from brief to finished content in minutes.

How Profound helps enterprise brands improve AI visibility. RampRamp achieved 7x AI visibility growth in accounts payable, increasing from 3.2% to 22.2% within one month and moving from 19th to 8th place among Fintech Branson the accounts payable sector with help from Profound's Answer Engine Insights. 1840 and COMPANY1840 and company increased AI visibility from 0% to 11% in remote staffing within one month, becoming a top 5 player in eye-driven searches and successfully competing against established players' top-talent upwork with help from Profound's citation analysis.

The clear choice for enterprise AI search optimization. While Athena HQ offers solid automation capabilities for AI search optimization, Profound is the comprehensive enterprise solution that leading brands need toe-in AI visibility. Profound delivers what no other platform can. The ability to see exactly how your brand and topics are searched in AI engines, track every AI bot that visits your website in real time, and analyze how your products appear in AI commerce results, with automated content creation and an AI-powered copilot to simplify your workflows.

See for yourself why enterprise brands choose Profound, and join industry leaders who have already made the switch to enterprise-grade AEO. Get a demo and discover how Profound can transform your AI search visibility. Thank you for listening to this HackerNoon story, read by Artificial Intelligence. Visit HackerNoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.