AirOps vs Profound: AI Search Tracking and Content Tools Compared (2026)

AirOps and Profound chase the same prize from opposite ends: getting your brand named in AI answers. AirOps puts content work at the center. Its workflows research, write, review and refresh pages, and AI search tracking sits on top. Profound starts from the data. It covers up to 9 answer engines with prompt volumes and AI crawler data, and its AI Marketer drafts work for you to approve.

Pick AirOps if your team ships a lot of content and wants workflows and human review in one place. Pick Profound if you are a large brand that needs deep AI search data with SSO and SOC 2, and you are fine buying through sales. Neither has a public price, so plan on a call with either one.

AirOps vs Profound at a glance

What is AirOps?

airops.com

Founders

Alex Halliday (CEO), Berna Gonzalez and Matt Hammel

Latest funding

$40M Series B, November 2025, led by Greylock

Starts at

Not public

Free plan or trial

“Start for free” on Solo and Pro

Best for

Content teams and SEO teams that publish often

What AirOps does today

AirOps sells a platform plus expert help for your brand’s AI search strategy. The platform runs content workflows where AI agents research, create, publish, review and refresh pages. A part of the product called Insights tracks how AI answers name your brand. Ramp, Webflow, Kayak, Klaviyo and Chime all use AirOps.

AirOps bills by tasks. A task is one action in a workflow, like generating content or pulling data. Solo includes 35,000 tasks and Pro includes 100,000. Its own team also sells strategy services.

AirOps history

Alex Halliday, Berna Gonzalez and Matt Hammel founded AirOps. Before that, the three built products at MasterClass and Bungalow. The company started out in Miami. Its first product, AirOps Apps, went into private beta in late 2022. Apps let teams drop AI tools built for single tasks into the work they already do, from writing content to writing SQL queries.

In April 2023, AirOps raised a $7 million seed round led by Wing VC. A $15.5 million Series A led by Unusual Ventures followed in October 2024. By then, content marketing was the main focus.

In November 2025, AirOps raised a $40 million Series B led by Greylock, which brought its total funding to $60 million. With the round came an end to end content engineering platform built for AI search. It added Insights for AI visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews. It also added Page360, one view of each page’s SEO and AI search data. AirOps Actions then turns those findings into on brand content.

What is Profound?

tryprofound.com

Founded

2024

Founders

James Cadwallader (CEO) and Dylan Babbs (CTO)

Headquarters

New York City

Starts at

Custom price (Enterprise)

Free plan or trial

Free 7 day trial, 50 prompts daily

Best for

Large brands with a big AI search budget

What Profound does today

Profound is an AI marketing platform. It tracks how AI answers describe your category and brand across up to 9 engines. Prompt Volumes shows what people ask AI. ChatGPT Shopping data comes with it, along with Agent Analytics for AI bots on your site.

Its AI Marketer finds work worth doing, drafts it and asks you to approve it. That covers pages, briefs, social posts and corrections to wrong claims about your brand. Ongoing use is Enterprise only, after a 7 day free trial. By September 2026, more than 2,500 brands used Profound, Walmart, Zoom, Stripe and Figma among them.

Profound history

James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs started Profound in 2024. They met at South Park Commons, a startup community and early stage fund. Cadwallader had founded the influencer marketing firm Kyra. Babbs was a software engineer at Uber.

Funding came fast. Profound closed a $3.5 million seed round in August 2024, with Khosla Ventures and South Park Commons among its backers. A $20 million Series A led by Kleiner Perkins followed in June 2025. That same month, Profound earned SOC 2 Type 2. In August 2025, Sequoia led a $35 million Series B.

In February 2026, Lightspeed Venture Partners led a $96 million Series C that valued Profound at $1 billion. Profound had more than 700 enterprise customers by then. The same month brought Profound Agents, which write marketing copy in a brand’s voice. An Agent Template Marketplace came in June 2026.

In September 2026, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins led a $180 million Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation. AI Marketer, also called Aim, is now the heart of the product. A new generation of Agents followed in October 2026.

AirOps vs Profound AI visibility tracking

AI search data is Profound’s core product, and its tracking goes deeper. On Enterprise, prompts run daily across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search. You get all time history, custom regions and languages, and Prompt Volumes built on billions of real user conversations. ChatGPT Shopping tracking is part of Enterprise too.

AirOps Pro covers a wide set of its own: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Grok and Muse Spark. By default, it collects one answer per prompt per engine each day. Enterprise customers can ask for more runs per day. You can track up to 10 competitors. Solo tracks ChatGPT only.

So if AI search data is the main job, Profound gives you more depth. When tracking is only a check on your content work, AirOps covers the main engines on Pro. To see how other trackers handle this, read our guide to the best AI visibility tools.

AirOps vs Profound content tools

AirOps was built around content work, and this is where it pulls ahead.

On AirOps, tasks run your workflows. Brand Kits hold your voice and style, and Knowledge Bases hold facts about your company. There is also an inbox for content work.

Profound’s AI Marketer reads your AI search data, picks the work worth doing and drafts it for you to approve. It builds pages for AI answers and turns briefs into content and channel cutdowns. Social posts come with images sized for each platform. Fixes for wrong claims about your brand come traced to their source. Launch kits pair your messaging with one pagers and FAQs. A Context Manager keeps your company and competitor facts current, along with your audience.

AirOps suits a team that wants to design its own content system and run it at volume. If you would rather have an assistant turn AI search data into drafts, that is what Profound does.

AirOps vs Profound AI crawler analytics

Profound spells out where Agent Analytics runs and what it connects to. AirOps has a feature with the same name, but which plans include it is not public.

Profound’s Agent Analytics shows how AI bots view and cite your pages, and which ones send you visits. If AI crawler data matters to you, ask AirOps to show Agent Analytics on your plan before you buy.

Before you look at bot logs, check that AI bots can reach your site at all. The free AI crawler checker shows which AI bots your robots.txt allows.

AirOps vs Profound offsite and paid AI search

Each tool now reaches past your own site, in its own direction.

Profound’s AI Marketer can run sponsored campaigns on prompts where your brand is not cited. Ad platform support moves fast in this area, so ask each vendor which platforms they cover today.

AirOps vs Profound support and setup

Profound sets Enterprise support per contract. For a security review, it gives you more up front, with SSO/SAML and SOC 2 on Enterprise. AirOps has SSO too, but which plan includes it is not public.

AirOps vs Profound pricing

Neither tool has a public price, so this table shows what each plan includes.

AirOps Solo also includes 1 Brand Kit and 3 Knowledge Bases, with basic CMS and SEO integrations. Pro has 1 Brand Kit and 5 Knowledge Bases, plus AEO, social and project integrations. Enterprise has unlimited Brand Kits and Knowledge Bases, a dedicated account manager and 1:1 onboarding. You add no payment details until the trial ends. Confirm the trial terms with AirOps before you start.

Profound’s trial runs in 1 language and 1 region, and you can’t change the prompts. Credits are limited, and exports and the API are left out. Enterprise adds custom prompts, regions and languages, all time history, CSV and JSON exports and custom support. Agency Growth is a self serve plan for agencies, and its price is not public. If you run an agency, see how Arrowsterr works for agencies.

Arrowsterr: an AirOps and Profound alternative for AI search

Arrowsterr is an AI visibility and SEO research platform. It shows how AI answers talk about your brand, then gives you the keywords and the content plan to grow that share.

It fits AirOps users who want AI tracking and keyword research next to their writing, at a public price. It also fits teams that like Profound’s data but want to start today on a self serve plan, with Claude and Perplexity tracked from $39.

arrowsterr.com

Arrowsterr features

• AI Visibility tracks your brand on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode daily, and on Claude and Perplexity weekly. See AI Visibility.
• Organic Search gives you keyword research with volume, difficulty, intent, questions and the Google top 10 with AI Overview sources. It also finds competitor keyword gaps. See Organic Search.
• The Sources report shows which sites AI answers cite, so you know where to get mentioned.
• Topic Bank and Content Plan turn gaps into a plan. On Pro and up, the Agentic Writer drafts and publishes. See Agentic Content.
• Site audit crawls up to 200 pages and flags AI crawler blocks and page issues. Zippie, its AI agent, fixes them through your CMS.
• MCP and API pull your data into Claude and other AI tools with the MCP server, or into your own apps with the API.

Arrowsterr pricing

Every account starts with a 7 day trial of both toolsets, no card needed.

Arrowsterr vs AirOps and Profound

For more options in this space, see our list of Profound alternatives or the full Arrowsterr vs Profound comparison.

Start your free trial of Arrowsterr, with both toolsets for 7 days and no card.

Which should you choose: AirOps or Profound?

Pick AirOps if:

• Your team publishes and refreshes a lot of content.
• You want to build your own workflows with brand rules and review steps.
• You want unlimited seats on a plan below Enterprise.
• AI search tracking is a check on your content work, and you don’t need every engine.

Pick Profound if:

• AI search data is the main job, and you need up to 9 engines.
• You need DeepSeek, Exa Search or ChatGPT Shopping data.
• You want AI crawler data tied to your CDN or host.
• You need SSO, SOC 2 and a support SLA on a custom contract.

AirOps vs Profound FAQ

Is AirOps cheaper than Profound?

There is no way to compare yet, since neither AirOps nor Profound has a public price. AirOps sells Solo and Pro below Enterprise, while Profound sells ongoing use as Enterprise only. Ask both for a quote on the same prompt count and engine list.

Does AirOps track AI search visibility?

Yes, through AirOps Insights. Solo covers ChatGPT only. Pro covers 10+ answer engines, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Claude, Copilot, Grok and Muse Spark.

Can Profound write content?

Yes. Profound’s AI Marketer drafts pages, briefs, social posts and launch kits, then asks you to approve them. It also drafts fixes for wrong claims about your brand. AirOps gives you more control over how content workflows are built and reviewed.

Does Profound have a free plan?

No. Profound has a free 7 day trial with 50 fixed prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. After that, you need an Enterprise contract or the Agency Growth plan.

Which tool tracks more AI engines?

It depends on the engines you need. Profound Enterprise covers 9, including DeepSeek and Exa Search. AirOps Pro covers 10+, including Grok and Muse Spark. Match the list to the AI tools your buyers use.

Summary: AirOps vs Profound

The choice comes down to what your team does all day. If it writes and refreshes pages, AirOps fits the work, with Brand Kits and review steps built in. If it reports on AI search, Profound gives it up to 9 engines and crawler data on one Enterprise contract.

Book demos with both and ask each to run the same test on your own prompts and competitors. If you want public prices and keyword research next to AI tracking, try Arrowsterr free for 7 days.