OtterlyAI
Updated 2026-05-26Bootstrapped, product-led AI-search monitoring platform positioned as 'Semrush for AI search,' tracking brand visibility across six AI engines. Customers include Videoloft and Bacula Enterprise. Recent moves: a European Search Awards 2026 win, a top-10 G2 Best New Software finish, and a 2025 Gartner Cool Vendor nod.
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 product-led AI-search monitoring platform that positions itself as 'Semrush for AI search.' It tracks where a brand shows up, what's 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 AEO/GEO audit scores 25+ on-page factors (content, page speed, structured data, AI readiness) to tie 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 incumbent's installed base via single sign-on. It crossed 10,000 users in September 2025 and reported 30,000+ active users by May 2026, all while fully bootstrapped with no external funding sought.
The category POV comes from CEO Thomas Peham: 'When people search with AI, they're not clicking links anymore. They're reading answers.' Within AEO, Otterly plays the bootstrapped self-serve floor against venture-funded peers Profound and Peec AI.
Best for
SEO and marketing teams that want self-serve AI-search visibility tracking at the low-cost end, especially existing Semrush users.
Pricing & trial
Self-serve PLG from $29/month (Lite) up to $489/month (Premium), with sales-only Enterprise; no free plan, but a 7-day / 3-prompt free trial with no card required. Pricing.
Agent Experience
How you build on this platform (or wire it into your own agents):
| Surface | Available | Docs |
|---|---|---|
| API | No | — |
| MCP | No | — |
| SDK | No | — |
| CLI | No | — |
| llms.txt | No | — |
There is no public API, MCP, or SDK; Otterly integrates via the Semrush App Center (single sign-on) and a Looker Studio connector, so it reads as a monitoring tool to consume rather than a platform to build agents on.
Reference customers
Videoloft, Bacula Enterprise, Skale, Downtown Ecommerce.
Recent moves
- 2026-05-22Won the Best AI Search Software Solution category at the European Search Awards 2026 in Porto, with the release reporting 30,000+ active users and reiterating the no-VC, product-led posture. 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
- 2025-11-13Press Ranger, an AI-powered PR platform, partnered with OtterlyAI as its preferred PR partner, with Otterly supplying AI-search tracking to Press Ranger's clients. source
- 2025-11-04Named one of five vendors in the 2025 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI for Marketing report, its first analyst-house recognition. source
- 2025-09-23Crossed 10,000 users, up from ~1,000 at the December 2024 stealth exit, roughly nine months later. source
- 2025-01-15Launched its AI Search Monitoring app in the Semrush App Center, accessible inside Semrush via single sign-on starting at $27/month. 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 supported Otterly). Trauner and Schremser sold Usersnap to saas.group in 2023; the company exited stealth in December 2024 with 1,000+ users and reported 30,000+ active users by May 2026, fully bootstrapped throughout.
Analyst placement
Named one of five vendors in the 2025 Gartner Cool Vendors in AI for Marketing report (source), and placed 10th on G2's 2026 Best New Software Awards, the only AEO vendor in the overall top 10 (source).