Semrush for AI search: the AI Visibility Toolkit and what is free

What the free checker found on two Moroccan brands

Semrush's free AI visibility checker takes a domain and looks at four platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews. It allows three checks a day without an account. We ran it on 5 November 2026.

• Semrush looked at the airline from the United States. Its cited pages were the US versions of the site, its competitor was Air France's US site, and one topic was flights from New York. That fits Semrush's own figures: in May 2026, 126 million of the 261 million questions in its AI database were US questions.
• For the hotel, the topics are useful. "Luxury hotels in Marrakech" is exactly the market La Mamounia competes in, and the cited pages show which of its pages answers carry.
• Never compare across tools. The same day, Ahrefs' free checker counted 20,000 mentions for La Mamounia, Semrush 350. Each counts its own questions. Our Ahrefs test has the other half.

What is free, and what is not

The details come from Semrush's own list of its AI features. Prices are on Semrush's pricing page.

The AI-readiness audit: read its flags with care

The free audit checks whether your robots.txt blocks eight crawlers: ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot, Google-Extended, Perplexity-User, PerplexityBot, Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot. They do not all matter in the same way.

• Fix first: Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot. These are the crawlers that decide whether you can appear in Google, ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Claude.
• Your choice: Google-Extended. Google says it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search": it concerns Gemini's training and grounding.
• Little effect either way: ChatGPT-User, Perplexity-User and Claude-User fetch a page when a person asks. OpenAI and Perplexity both say robots.txt may not apply to these user requests.
• Optional: Semrush's audit guide lists a missing llms.txt file as an issue. Google writes that "Google Search itself doesn't use them". Add one if you like, after the rest.

Semrush's six-step AI visibility audit

Semrush published its own audit method in September 2026. In short:

1. Set a baseline of your visibility and your competitors'.
2. Find the pages that already earn citations.
3. Find the topics and questions where you are missing.
4. Read the sentiment of what AI says about you.
5. Find the outside sites that shape those answers.
6. Check site-level issues that stop AI crawlers.

Step five is the one most Moroccan businesses skip, and our test shows why it matters: for both brands, the answers leaned on other sites.

What Semrush's own study found

Its 2026 AI Visibility Index analysed 126 million US questions asked between January and April 2026, across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. ChatGPT cited 15 sources per answer on average, Gemini 3. Only 36 brands held a place in the top 100 on all four platforms every month. The lesson carries over even if the questions were American: being cited by one assistant does not mean being cited by the others.

Does Semrush cover Morocco?

We could not confirm it. Semrush announced in May 2026 that its AI database covers 32 countries and listed the 17 new ones, Morocco not among them. Our test points the same way: a Moroccan airline read through American questions. For a site in Morocco we use Semrush for its crawler audit and as a direction, and we take AI Overviews and AI Mode figures from Search Console's generative AI report, which is Google's own data. Our guide to GEO and SEO shows where these tools fit.