AirOps and Writer both say they can help your content get cited in AI answers, but only AirOps documents how, with AEO checks on content and a dedicated tracker across several engines. Writer's AEO optimization is partial and it has no dedicated AI visibility tracker, so it suits large teams that build their own workflows. DeepSmith is a strong alternative on one axis, the loop: it shows which of your pages AI cites and which competitor pages win, and Opportunity Agents turn that into ideas for the Writer.
If you are weighing AirOps vs Writer for AI search, the useful question is how much of the work each tool does for you. Getting cited in AI answers takes three jobs: shaping the content so engines can use it, tracking whether engines cite it, and acting on what the tracking shows. AirOps covers all three in one platform. Writer covers the content job well and leaves the other two to whatever you build with its agents. DeepSmith covers all three and connects them, which is the part that tends to decide this kind of purchase. The full comparison of the two is in AirOps vs Writer: Is a General Enterprise Agent Enough for SEO Content?.
AirOps vs Writer for AI search: the short answer
- Choose DeepSmith if you want AI tracking and publish-ready writing on one self-serve plan, from $99 a month with a 7-day free trial, and you want each new article to start from a page AI already cites or a competitor page that is winning.
- Choose AirOps if you want the fuller AI citation toolkit of the two, with a daily tracker and documented AEO checks, and your team can build and maintain workflows.
- Choose Writer if your priority is governed, on-brand content at a large organization and you are fine treating AI visibility monitoring as something you build with agents.
| Criterion | DeepSmith | AirOps | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price (monthly) | $99/mo (Pro) | Not listed | Not listed |
| Free trial | 7 days | 14 days | 14 days, no card |
| Optimizes content to be cited in AI answers | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Tracks mentions and citations in AI answers | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Engines at entry tier | ChatGPT | ChatGPT only | No dedicated tracker |
| Most engines on any plan | 10 (Enterprise) | 6 confirmed, 8 listed in docs | Not listed |
| Finds and updates decaying content | - | Yes | Partial |
| Shows where competitors appear and you do not | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Writes and publishes on a schedule | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| G2 rating | 4.8/5 | 4.7/5 | 4.4/5 |
Pricing and features as of September 2026, from each vendor's site and public reviews.
AirOps
AirOps is an AI search growth platform that sells expert strategy services alongside the software. Its Insights area tracks mention rate, share of voice, average position, citations and sentiment, run daily per prompt, platform, region and persona. Page360 joins AI citation data with Google Search Console and GA4 for each URL, which helps you decide which pages to refresh. On the content side, Quill, Playbooks, Workflows and Grids research, write, review and publish to a CMS.
It is built for marketing and SEO teams at mid-market and enterprise brands that are willing to build workflows or have AirOps build them. The standout for this job is that measurement and production sit in one system. The real limitation is setup, since reviewers report a learning curve and say complex automations can need technical work. Self-serve prices are not published. G2 shows 4.7/5 from about 133 reviews, checked in September 2026.
Writer
Writer is an enterprise AI platform built around an agent, reusable playbooks and a Knowledge Graph of company information. For AI answers, its marketing page lists scheduled visibility monitoring (weekly reports of mentions, citations and sentiment across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity) as a use case you build with agents and playbooks, along with gap and opportunity analysis that you assemble the same way. It also claims AI-optimized content with schema markup for LLMs.
It is built for large organizations, led by marketing and revenue teams, that want governed workflows grounded in their own data and brand rules. The standout is brand voice and style enforcement, which reviewers praise often. The real limitation for this job is that there is no dedicated AI visibility tracker, and the site does not document engines per plan, prompt volumes, cadence or how the data is collected. G2 shows 4.4/5 from 130 reviews, checked in September 2026.
DeepSmith: the alternative that tracks and writes
AirOps does track and optimize, but inside a workflow platform you configure. Writer has a strong content engine and no dedicated tracker. In both cases you assemble part of the loop yourself, and DeepSmith ships the whole loop as one product.
DeepSmith tracks how AI engines answer the questions you define, then reports which of your pages AI actually cites, each page's share of your citations, and which competitor pages win citations for the same prompts.
Opportunity Agents read that data and return content ideas, each carrying the data point that justifies it. The goals include getting cited for a tracked prompt, turning mentions into citations, and taking a competitor's citations. Each idea moves to Planned Content, and the Writer turns it into a finished, brand-grounded article with research, internal and external links, a cover image and publish-ready metadata, all grounded in the context you store in Deep IQ.
Autowrite can write on a schedule and land the article in Produced Content, and you can publish straight to WordPress, Webflow, Strapi, Sanity or Contentful. Plans run $99, $199 and $399 a month ($80, $160 and $299 billed annually), with a 7-day free trial and no long-term contracts. Pro tracks ChatGPT, Grow adds Perplexity, Scale adds Gemini, and Enterprise covers all ten engines.
Optimizing content for citations
AirOps is the stronger of the two at optimizing content for AI answers. Its documented method is a set of AEO checks on claim support, information gain and structure before content ships, with Content Review and Quality Scores on every plan, followed by tracking how citations change after each update. AirOps says it does not copy the term-based content score that tools like Surfer offer, so the checks are about the substance of the page and not keyword density.
Writer's marketing page claims AI-optimized content with schema markup for LLMs and an SEO, AEO and GEO playbook area. The research found a claim without a documented method behind it, which is why the table says Partial. For AirOps vs Writer for AI citations, that difference is the first thing to weigh, because a check you can read about is easier to trust than a claim.
What DeepSmith does: citation-ready structure is part of the writing pipeline from the start. Crisp answers near the top, clear headings, schema markup, internal linking and metadata are built into each article as it is written, so there is no separate optimization pass to run afterward.
Tracking and engine coverage
AirOps wins on tracking because it has a dedicated tracker and Writer does not. AirOps runs its tracking daily per prompt, platform, region and persona. Its analytics docs list eight engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Grok), but billing and API docs name six, and Copilot and Grok are not confirmed for any plan. Solo covers ChatGPT only, Pro advertises 7+ engines, and Claude is on by default only for Enterprise workspaces, at four billing units per answer.
Writer's version is the playbook use case described above. Neither the site nor third-party research documents which engines it covers by plan, how many prompts it can run, how often, or how the answers are collected. If you need numbers you can compare month to month, that gap matters more than the engine list.
What DeepSmith does: it tracks mention rate, citation rate, share of voice, sentiment and visibility trend, with per-prompt rates and full answer history. Competitor citations show who wins each prompt and on which exact pages. Coverage rises by plan, from ChatGPT on Pro to Perplexity on Grow and Gemini on Scale, with all ten engines on Enterprise.
From insight to action
AirOps is ahead of Writer here, because its Insights, Page360, Opportunities and Campaigns feed Playbooks, Workflows and Grids that publish to a CMS. Reviewers praise that consolidation, and the Content Updates feature tracks what changed afterward.
Writer can reach a similar place. Its agents can write content and push it to Webflow, Adobe Experience Manager and Contentful, and its Semrush connector can feed gap analysis. The difference is that you design each step, and Writer's own pages describe the gap and opportunity work as agent or playbook use cases and not a dedicated tool.
What DeepSmith does: the loop is built in, with no workflow to design. Your cited pages and competitor pages become Opportunity Agent ideas that carry their evidence, those ideas become Planned Content, and the Writer produces a publish-ready article from each one. With Autowrite, an article can go from a scheduled date to Produced Content without anyone in the app, and the same data then shows whether the new page earns citations.
Pricing and plan limits
Neither tool wins on pricing clarity, because neither publishes self-serve prices. AirOps shows Solo at 35,000 tasks a month and Pro at 100,000, with no price on the page and custom Enterprise pricing. Writer's Starter plan allows up to 5 users with fixed credit limits and no published seat price, and Enterprise is quote-only and credit-metered. Both offer a 14-day trial, and Writer's needs no card.
What DeepSmith does: prices are published. Pro is $99 a month for 20 articles and 50 tracked prompts, Grow is $199 for 40 articles and 100 prompts, and Scale is $399 for 90 articles and 200 prompts. Tracking and writing are on the same plan, so one subscription covers both jobs.
Which should you choose
- DeepSmith: the broad fit for marketing teams that want to see where AI cites them, find what competitors win, and publish the content that closes the gap, all on one self-serve plan with published prices.
- AirOps: the stronger of the two for a team that wants documented AEO checks and daily multi-engine tracking, and has the people to build and maintain workflows, or to work with AirOps strategists.
- Writer: the better fit of the two for a large organization that wants governed, on-brand content tied to company data, and will build any AI visibility monitoring itself.
Start a DeepSmith free trial to see which of your pages AI already cites and what to write next.
