OtterlyAI
Updated 2026-07-16OtterlyAI is a bootstrapped AEO/GEO monitoring platform, "Semrush for AI search," tracking brand visibility across six AI engines for 30,000-plus users including BenQ, Stella Rising, and RDA. Recent moves: a Public API, a packaged Claude Skill, and a 101-workflow Marketplace.
Three scores, refreshed weekly from live market signals rather than a once-a-year analyst report. Presence is how established a vendor is in the market right now. Velocity is how fast they are shipping, raising, and winning customers. Agent Readiness is how easily your own agents can build on them through an API, MCP server, SDK, or CLI. Scores are relative across the vendors we track; the raw inputs ship in the downloadable dataset.
The Solution & Approach
OtterlyAI is a bottom-up, product-led AI-search monitoring platform that positions itself as "Semrush for AI search." It tracks where a brand shows up, what gets said about it, and which sites get cited across six AI search engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Its GEO Audit tool scores 25-plus on-page factors, from content and page speed to structured data and AI readiness, tying monitoring to actionable optimization.
The angle is distribution through an incumbent rather than against it. Otterly launched inside the Semrush App Center in January 2025, reaching the SEO installed base directly, and it stayed fully bootstrapped. In the AEO/GEO category it is the self-serve floor against venture-funded peers Profound and Peec AI, priced from $29 a month with a card-free trial.
Through 2026 the product turned from monitoring toward a programmatic surface: a Public API, a packaged Claude Skill, and a Marketplace of 101-plus marketing workflows, with an MCP server announced as pending. Otterly also uses original research to make its case, reporting that 95% of AI search citations draw from third-party sources and that YouTube is the No. 2 social platform for AI citations.
Best for
SEO teams and agencies that want affordable, self-serve AI-search monitoring and on-page GEO auditing without an enterprise contract.
Pricing & trial
Self-serve and product-led: paid tiers run from $29/month (Enterprise is sales-only), with no free plan but a card-free 7-day, 3-prompt trial. Pricing.
Agent Experience
How you build on this platform (or wire it into your own agents):
| Surface | Available | Docs |
|---|---|---|
| API | Yes | docs |
| MCP | No | — |
| SDK | No | — |
| CLI | No | — |
| llms.txt | No | — |
Solid and improving: a versioned public REST API (data.otterly.ai/v1) with bearer-token read-only and read-write keys plus a packaged Claude Skill, though the announced MCP server had not yet launched as of mid-2026.
Reference customers
Videoloft, Bacula Enterprise, BenQ, Stella Rising, RDA, Skale, Downtown Ecommerce.
Recent moves
- 2026-06-24Became headline sponsor of BrightonSEO San Diego 2026, its first major US conference sponsorship, with North America now 47% of its customer base. source
- 2026-06-01Formalized its Public API and Claude Skill and launched a Marketplace of 101-plus production-tested marketing workflows open for community submissions. source
- 2026-05-27Launched a Public REST API and a packaged Claude Skill giving programmatic access to every brand report, prompt, citation, recommendation, and GEO audit. source
- 2026-05-22Won Best AI Search Software Solution at the European Search Awards 2026 in Porto, and reported passing 30,000 active users. source
- 2026-03-02Published a YouTube Citation Study of 100-plus million AI citations, finding YouTube is the No. 2 social platform for AI citations behind Reddit. source
- 2026-02-25Placed 10th on G2's 2026 Best New Software Awards, the only Answer Engine Optimization vendor in the overall top 10. source
Company, Financials & Funding History
Founded in 2024 in Vienna, Austria by Thomas Peham (CEO, ex-Storyblok VP Marketing and first growth hire at Usersnap), Josef Trauner (ex-Usersnap CEO), and Klaus-M. Schremser (ex-Usersnap head of growth, who runs the GroWTF incubator that backed Otterly). Trauner and Schremser had sold Usersnap to saas.group in 2023; Otterly exited stealth in December 2024 with 1,000-plus users and passed 30,000 by May 2026.
Analyst placement
Named one of five 2025 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI for Marketing, and the only Answer Engine Optimization vendor in the overall top 10 of G2's 2026 Best New Software Awards.