Frase alternatives for content teams optimizing for ChatGPT and Google AI: what we moved to

Content teams usually look for Frase alternatives for one of two reasons. Either they want to write for AI answers and a brief-and-score tool is not telling them enough, or they want fewer tools. Both are fair. Here is how we think about the switch for teams optimizing for ChatGPT and Google AI, and what we use in practice.

What a brief-and-score tool does well

Tools in this family, Frase, Surfer, Clearscope and similar, are good at one job. They read what ranks, suggest questions and terms, and grade a draft. Writers like the immediate feedback, and for classic search that feedback is useful.

The gap appears with AI answers. A score tells you how closely a draft matches existing top results. It does not tell you whether ChatGPT cites the page, which sources it prefers for the topic, or whether its crawler can read the page. For AI search those are the questions that decide the outcome.

What we need instead

For content teams working on ChatGPT and Google AI, we put the work in a different order.

Measure which prompts matter and where you are named.
Find the gaps and see what is cited instead.
Check that crawlers can reach the pages.
Refresh before you write new.
Draft and publish with approval.
Attribute visits.

A grader helps at step five. The earlier steps are where most of the value sits.

How we run it in Promptwatch

Promptwatch is the platform we run client content programs on, because it covers all six steps.

For steps one and two, prompt panels track ChatGPT (Search), Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode through real interfaces, with Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Meta AI alongside. Content gap analysis gives coverage scores per prompt. Citation analytics show the pages and domains engines cite instead of ours, and Citation Trends classify citations by content type and source type, so we know whether to write a comparison page, a guide or a glossary entry.

For step three, Agent Analytics logs real AI crawlers with IP verification, including GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. Crawler logs start on Professional.

For step four, Content Refresh produces diff-style update suggestions for existing pages. Editors accept or reject each change. We find this the cheapest win, since an existing page already has links and history.

For step five, on-demand Content Creation writes from a brief, and the Knowledge Base, available from Professional, keeps facts consistent. On Business and Enterprise, the Content Agent plans, writes and publishes on a schedule, with a review inbox, to WordPress, Webflow or Framer. We keep the review inbox on for client work. One thing to remember: Framer has no per-item publish, so going live redeploys the whole Framer site.

For step six, visitor analytics tracks AI-referred visits and conversions.

Using a grader alongside

We do not tell writers to drop their grader. Surfer and Clearscope both remain good at draft feedback, and both have added AI tracking, though the plan limits are modest. If the writers love one, keep it for polishing. Just do not let it decide the topic.

AthenaHQ and Goodie are credible tools that turn visibility gaps into actions, on credit-based plans. Agentic writers can raise output, but output without gap analysis is just more pages.

Plan notes

Professional at $245 a month includes 5 AEO articles and the Knowledge Base. Business at $579 includes 10 AEO articles and the Content Agent. Agency plans, from $199, do not include AEO articles, the Knowledge Base or the Content Agent, so a content-heavy team should look at the brand plans.

What to tell stakeholders

No tool guarantees a citation. Engines change answers between runs, and pages take time to be picked up. We show a trend over four to eight weeks, and we link changes to evidence from crawler logs and citation data.

Start by moving ten priority pages through the sequence. Measure, refresh, check access, then judge.