If you’ve worked through the Summer of AI series, you’ve given AI assistants a lot more to go on. You’ve added an llms.txt file, described your space and events in the words drinkers use, written FAQs, asked for reviews, and earned mentions in press, forums, social media, and retail locators. Now comes the question every owner asks about any marketing spend: is it working?
AI assistants don’t send you a report. When someone asks ChatGPT for “a dog-friendly brewery near Fort Collins” or asks Gemini for “an Oregon pinot under $40,” you never see the question, the answer, or whether your name made the list. Your web analytics may show a trickle of visits from AI tools. They won’t show the recommendations that sent a guest somewhere else.
What a Monitoring Service Tells You
AI monitoring services, sold under labels like AEO, GEO, and AI visibility, fill that gap. Each one asks AI models the questions your guests ask, on a schedule, and reports what came back. Most measure five things:
- Visibility: How often your brand appears in answers to the questions you track.
- Share of voice: How often you appear compared with the tasting room down the street.
- Sentiment and accuracy: Whether AI describes you correctly. Watch for closed tasting rooms listed as open, retired flagships, and wrong hours.
- Citations: The sources AI leans on when it answers, such as review sites, press coverage, Reddit threads (less so as of August, 2026), and tourism calendars. This shows which earlier tactics in the series are paying off. Muck Rack’s research finds that earned media accounts for 84% of the links ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini cite.
- AI traffic: Visits that arrive from AI tools, which some services track alongside search.
The questions you track matter more than the dashboard. Pick 10 to 15 that sound like real guests: discovery (“best brewery for a bachelorette party in Asheville”), reputation (“is this winery worth the drive?”), and purchase (“where can I buy this gin near me?”). AI answers shift from one run to the next, so judge the trend over several months, not a single snapshot. Once a month, read the report and pick two or three fixes. A missing occasion page, a stale review profile, or a press opportunity is usually enough.
Want a free baseline first? Our AI Discoverability Tool runs a set of drinker-style questions through Claude and scores how your brand shows up.
Six Services Worth a Look
We evaluated six services this fall. They range from $29 a month to more than $20,000 a year, but price is a function of audience and volume of use.
Otterly.AI is built for this one job and priced for small teams. The Lite plan ($29/month) tracks 15 questions across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, with Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Claude available as add-ons. Its reports are thorough on both your brand and your competitors, and it’s our pick for most craft beverage brands starting out.
Gumshoe builds buyer personas for your market, such as a weekend tourist or a loyalty club prospect, and runs conversations as each one across the major AI models. Plans start at $99/month per project for a monthly audit and weekly check-ins. Sentiment, citation, and content audits are included at $299/month. A “project” is one brand plus one focus area.
Semrush AI Visibility comes from one of the original SEO platforms. It costs $99/month per domain and tracks 25 questions daily across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity, plus competitor analysis and an AI-readiness audit of your site. It’s a natural add-on if you already use Semrush, but the depth of data can bury the two or three things you need to act on.
Similarweb AI Search Intelligence starts at $99/month for 150 tracked questions across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity, with sentiment, citations, and AI referral traffic. Higher tiers (pricing) bundle in SEO and ad intelligence, which is the real draw if you’re running digital ads. AI visibility is one piece of a larger suite that’s still being built out.
Muck Rack AI Visibility, powered by Muck Rack’s Generative Pulse research, shows how ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini describe your brand and connects the cited articles to journalists you can pitch. It’s sold through Muck Rack’s Premier plan or as an add-on, priced by quote. It only makes sense if you already run an active PR program on Muck Rack.
Cision Trajaan is an enterprise search intelligence platform behind Cision’s AI Visibility dashboards. It tracks how leading AI models cite your brand across thousands of questions, alongside consumer search trends on Google, Amazon, and TikTok. Pricing is by quote and starts well into five figures a year, which puts it in range only for multi-state brands with a dedicated PR budget and an existing Cision account.
Scorecard at a Glance
| Service | Starting price | Commitment | AI models tracked | Questions tracked (entry plan) | Try before you buy | Best fit |
| Otterly.AI | $29/month | Monthly; 15% off annual | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot (Gemini, AI Mode, Claude extra) | 15 (100 on $189 plan) | Free trial, no card | Single-location producers watching a focused set of questions |
| Gumshoe | $99/month per project | Monthly, cancel anytime | Six per audit, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews | Persona-based | Free one-time sample audit | Producers who want to see visibility by guest type |
| Semrush AI Visibility | $99/month per domain | Billed annually | ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity | 25, updated daily | No free trial | Producers already using Semrush for SEO |
| Similarweb AI Search | $99/month | Monthly | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity | 150 | Free trial | Producers running digital ads who want one view |
| Muck Rack AI Visibility | Quote only | Annual | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini | Not published | Demo | Brands with an active PR program on Muck Rack |
| Cision Trajaan | Quote only (five figures/year) | Annual | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and others | Thousands | Demo | Multi-state brands with a dedicated PR budget |
Prices and features as of November 2026. Vendors change plans often, so confirm on the linked pages before you buy.
How to Choose
Start with your questions, not the tool. Write down the 10 to 15 questions you most want to win, and the competitors you expect to see in those answers. Then match the service to where you are:
- One taproom or tasting room, modest budget: Start with Otterly.AI Lite. Fifteen well-chosen questions cover most local AI discovery.
- Several distinct audiences, such as tourists, locals, and club members: Gumshoe’s personas show which guests find you and which don’t.
- Already paying for Semrush or Similarweb: Try their AI add-on before you add another login.
- Regional or national distribution with an active PR program: Muck Rack or Cision connects what AI says about you to the journalists who shape it.
Give any service three months before you judge it. One month is a snapshot, and three months show a trend.
Monitoring won’t move you up the list on its own. It tells you which of the tactics from this series to work on next. The real work still happens in your tasting room, your inbox, and your reviews: telling a better story, and giving AI something true and specific to repeat.
Have a question about choosing a service? Email us at scott@marketyourcraft.com.
Want to learn more? We’ve been tapped to speak at the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild Annual Conference November 15-17 – our second time presenting to this crew. North Carolina boasts the largest number of craft breweries in the American South, with 400+ independent breweries and brewpubs. Join us Monday at 1:30pm ET for our session titled, “From Options To Answers: How AI Drives Traffic To Your Tasting Room.” You can view the complete schedule here: https://conference-ncbeer.org/sessions.
