SEO tools are adding GEO. It isn't the same job.
Your SEO agency now has an "AI visibility" tab. Here's what the research actually says — and why we built Ghostart differently.
The fact that changes everything
When researchers compared what AI platforms cite against what ranks on Google, only about 12% of the URLs cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot appeared in Google's top 10 for the same question. They draw on different sources entirely.
Source: Ahrefs, 2026.
That one finding is why a GEO tab on a keyword tool doesn't work. It's measuring the wrong thing.
What SEO tools are genuinely good at
Semrush, Ahrefs and the restare excellent at what they were built for: keywords, backlinks, technical audits, rankings. If you want to rank on Google, use them. We're not here to tell you SEO is dead.
Why the bolt-on doesn't transfer
The bolt-on assumes AI visibility is an extension of search ranking: rank well, get cited. The evidence says otherwise. Google's own AI Overviews do lean on top-ranking pages, but ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity go elsewhere — personal posts, community discussions, first-hand accounts. Optimising a page for position three doesn't put you in the answer.
And most small businesses can't reach the data anyway
There's a practical problem too. The APIs behind that GEO tab are priced for agencies and enterprises: Semrush API access starts around $549 a month, Ahrefs from roughly $949. For a small business, the numbers are behind a wall you can't afford.
What getting recommended by AI actually takes
Specific, first-hand content from real people. A business AI can confidently identify. Published where AI actually looks. Measured across the engines that matter, not just Google.
What Ghostart does instead
Ghostart runs the whole loop. It finds where you're missing from AI answers, builds a strategy, gives each person in your team topics they can credibly own, drafts in their voice, scores it so it doesn't come out generic, publishes it, then re-checks whether you're being named across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
Everyone else hands you a scoreboard.
We've run employee advocacy programmes for some of Britain's best-known organisations. We know what happens when you ask real people to publish.
Logos reference clients of Togethr, our employee advocacy training and platform business.
The honest bit
You still want SEO. It's a different job from getting recommended by AI. Doing GEO properly doesn't cost you your search presence; it moves you to where search is heading. We just think that deserves a platform built for it, rather than a tab added to one that wasn't.
Launching soon. Join the waitlist for the founding discount.