Modern Discovery
vs Profound
Modern Discovery by Modern AI is AI recommendation intelligence software that measures how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers recommend your brand, and why, using AVI (AI Visibility Index) and Recommendation Rate (Top). Profound, per its own pages, is an AI search visibility platform whose AI Marketer tool drafts and stages content, ads, and outreach aimed at AI answer engines. The two overlap on measurement and differ on how much content production each one does for you. Details below, sourced from each company's own pages.
Who Each Is For
Teams that want a documented, versioned measurement methodology for AI recommendations, starting self-serve at $99/mo, with a clear path to sales-led Enterprise coverage as the program scales.
Per Profound's own homepage, marketing teams at larger organizations ("a third of the Fortune 100," with named customers including Plaid, MongoDB, Ramp, and Zoom) that want visibility measurement bundled with content drafting, ad generation, and outreach tooling under one Enterprise contract.
Feature-by-Feature
Detailed Comparison
| Feature | Modern Discovery | Profound |
|---|---|---|
| Surfaces Tracked | Six named surfaces on every plan: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews. | Trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Enterprise tracks up to nine answer engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, and Google AI Overviews, per Profound's own pricing page. |
| Core Metrics | AVI (AI Visibility Index) and Recommendation Rate (Top), which tracks how often a brand is the number one recommendation in AI answers, mapped to five query intent categories. | Answer Engine Insights and Prompt Volumes track visibility and what people ask AI. A top-position recommendation metric equivalent to Recommendation Rate (Top) was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26. |
| Query Selection | Fixed query set built around five documented intent categories with published methodology, so results are comparable run over run. | Prompt tracking is built from Profound's own prompt-volume data and is customizable per plan. The specific query construction and sizing methodology beyond per-tier prompt counts was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26. |
| Cadence | Set per tier: Truth Monitor refreshes monthly. Pro and Enterprise refresh weekly. | Trial runs 50 prompts daily for seven days. Enterprise offers custom, tailored prompt tracking frequencies, including daily, per Profound's pricing page. |
| Prescriptive Action | Every report ships a prioritized playbook tied to a measured gap, with specific content and technical fixes. | AI Marketer drafts content rewrites, briefs, and FAQs, and stages them in a CMS rather than publishing automatically, per Profound's own product page. |
| Implementation Support | Fix-It-For-You bundles ready-to-implement fix artifacts for brands with little to no AI presence, alongside a year of Truth Monitor. | AI Marketer can create multi-channel content from a single brief and generate platform-specific social posts and images, per Profound's own product page. |
| Post-Action Measurement | Weekly and monthly refresh cadences (by tier) re-measure the same query set after a fix ships, so movement is directly attributable. | Command Center tracks agent run volumes and user adoption. A documented before and after re-measurement loop tied to a specific published fix was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26. |
| Pricing and Commitment | Free Snapshot at no cost. Truth Monitor $99/mo, cancel anytime. Pro $499/mo on a 12-month plan (or $599/mo month to month). Enterprise is custom, quoted directly. | A free 7-day trial, then Enterprise at custom pricing. No self-serve paid tier between the trial and Enterprise was identified in publicly available pricing documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26. |
| Source Attribution | Maps which sources AI models cite for each answer and classifies them as owned, competitor, or neutral. | Agent Analytics shows how bots view, cite, and refer to pages, and Profound states it can trace inaccurate claims back to the publisher, per its own product page. |
Surfaces Tracked
Six named surfaces on every plan: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews.
Trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Enterprise tracks up to nine answer engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, and Google AI Overviews, per Profound's own pricing page.
Core Metrics
AVI (AI Visibility Index) and Recommendation Rate (Top), which tracks how often a brand is the number one recommendation in AI answers, mapped to five query intent categories.
Answer Engine Insights and Prompt Volumes track visibility and what people ask AI. A top-position recommendation metric equivalent to Recommendation Rate (Top) was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26.
Query Selection
Fixed query set built around five documented intent categories with published methodology, so results are comparable run over run.
Prompt tracking is built from Profound's own prompt-volume data and is customizable per plan. The specific query construction and sizing methodology beyond per-tier prompt counts was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26.
Cadence
Set per tier: Truth Monitor refreshes monthly. Pro and Enterprise refresh weekly.
Trial runs 50 prompts daily for seven days. Enterprise offers custom, tailored prompt tracking frequencies, including daily, per Profound's pricing page.
Prescriptive Action
Every report ships a prioritized playbook tied to a measured gap, with specific content and technical fixes.
AI Marketer drafts content rewrites, briefs, and FAQs, and stages them in a CMS rather than publishing automatically, per Profound's own product page.
Implementation Support
Fix-It-For-You bundles ready-to-implement fix artifacts for brands with little to no AI presence, alongside a year of Truth Monitor.
AI Marketer can create multi-channel content from a single brief and generate platform-specific social posts and images, per Profound's own product page.
Post-Action Measurement
Weekly and monthly refresh cadences (by tier) re-measure the same query set after a fix ships, so movement is directly attributable.
Command Center tracks agent run volumes and user adoption. A documented before and after re-measurement loop tied to a specific published fix was not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26.
Pricing and Commitment
Free Snapshot at no cost. Truth Monitor $99/mo, cancel anytime. Pro $499/mo on a 12-month plan (or $599/mo month to month). Enterprise is custom, quoted directly.
A free 7-day trial, then Enterprise at custom pricing. No self-serve paid tier between the trial and Enterprise was identified in publicly available pricing documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26.
Source Attribution
Maps which sources AI models cite for each answer and classifies them as owned, competitor, or neutral.
Agent Analytics shows how bots view, cite, and refer to pages, and Profound states it can trace inaccurate claims back to the publisher, per its own product page.
An Honest Read
Where Each Is Stronger
Where Profound is stronger
Profound's own product page describes AI Marketer producing content, ads, and outreach on the strength of the same visibility data it collects, drafting multi-channel content from a single brief, generating platform-specific social assets, and preparing personalized media outreach for corrections. Modern Discovery does not publish an equivalent in-house content or ad-generation toolkit; it hands off fixes for your team to implement.
Where Modern Discovery is stronger
Modern Discovery publishes a versioned AVI methodology with query-level scoring across five intent categories and a named Recommendation Rate (Top) metric, on a published self-serve pricing ladder starting at $99/mo. Profound's own pages do not publish an equivalent top-position metric, a query-level intent breakdown, or a self-serve paid tier below Enterprise, as of 2026-09-26.
Choosing Between Them
Choose Profound if
- You want visibility measurement bundled with content drafting, ad generation, and outreach tooling in one Enterprise contract
- Your team already operates at the scale Profound's Enterprise tier is built for and prefers a custom-quoted engagement
- Tracking up to nine answer engines matters more to you than a fixed, published six-surface set
Choose Modern Discovery if
- You want a documented, versioned measurement methodology with query-level scoring across five intent categories
- You want to start self-serve at $99/mo and scale up, rather than starting on a custom Enterprise quote
- Recommendation Rate (Top), your rate of being the number one recommendation, is the metric your team is accountable to
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ
Is Modern Discovery by Modern AI a replacement for Profound?
They overlap in what they measure (AI answer visibility) and differ in depth and delivery. Profound's own pages describe AI Marketer, a tool that drafts and stages content changes and can generate paid ads and outreach for AI search. Modern Discovery is a dedicated measurement and diagnostic platform built around a documented AVI methodology and Recommendation Rate (Top). Teams evaluating both should compare the specific capability they need, not just the category.
Does Profound track Recommendation Rate (Top)?
Not by that name. A metric equivalent to Recommendation Rate (Top), the fraction of recommendation queries where a brand is the number one answer, was not identified in Profound's publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26. Profound's own pages describe Answer Engine Insights and Prompt Volumes as its primary visibility metrics.
How many AI surfaces does each tool cover?
Modern Discovery covers six named surfaces on every paid plan: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews. Profound's own pricing page states its Trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, and its Enterprise tier tracks up to nine answer engines including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, and Claude.
What does Profound cost compared to Modern Discovery?
Profound's own pricing page lists a free 7-day Trial and a custom-quoted Enterprise tier, with no self-serve paid tier published between them as of 2026-09-26. Modern Discovery publishes self-serve pricing: Free Snapshot at no cost, Truth Monitor at $99/mo, and Pro at $499/mo on a 12-month plan (or $599/mo month to month), with Enterprise quoted directly for larger accounts.
Where is Profound stronger than Modern Discovery?
Profound's own pages describe a broader content-production toolkit under AI Marketer, including drafting multi-channel content, generating social assets, preparing paid ads targeted at AI search demand, and drafting personalized media outreach for corrections. Modern Discovery does not publish equivalent content-generation or ad-generation tooling; its playbooks point to fixes rather than producing the content itself.
Where is Modern Discovery stronger than Profound?
Modern Discovery publishes a documented, versioned AVI methodology with query-level scoring across five intent categories and a named Recommendation Rate (Top) metric, on self-serve pricing starting at $99/mo. A comparable published top-position metric or query-level intent methodology was not identified on Profound's own pages reviewed on 2026-09-26, and Profound's paid tier structure below Enterprise was not published there either.
Every Profound fact on this page is sourced from Profound's own site: tryprofound.com and tryprofound.com/pricing, reviewed on 2026-09-26. A feature not found on those pages is written here as "not identified in publicly available documentation reviewed on 2026-09-26" rather than assumed absent. Profound is a trademark of its respective owner; Modern Discovery is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Profound. This page is published by Modern AI, Inc. as part of a head-to-head comparison series.
Last verified: September 2026. This page is rechecked against both companies' current published pages on a monthly cadence.
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See It In Action
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