Semrush doesn’t sell one AI product. It has spread AI across a dashboard assistant, a site audit score, a prompt tracker, a content workspace and a set of keyword metrics, and each one sits behind a different price tag. We opened a free Semrush account, wrote down every AI feature we actually saw, and then read Semrush’s own documentation for the rest, so you can tell which is which.
Where Semrush Uses AI in 2026
Semrush now builds AI into almost every toolkit it sells, and its own research explains why: in the press release for its 2026 AI Visibility Index, Semrush reported that 45% of marketing leaders cannot accurately measure their brand’s visibility in AI-generated answers, and only 9% have tools that track every relevant metric across platforms (Semrush, June 26, 2026). Semrush sells tools for exactly that gap, so read the figure as a vendor study, not a market census.
That same press release introduces Semrush as “an Adobe company,” and the product lineup reflects the new focus. The AI features fall into two groups. Some help you get found by AI search engines, like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Mode. Others use AI to help you do SEO work faster, like writing drafts, scoring content or sorting keywords.
Here’s how this guide separates evidence. On October 21, 2026, we created a free Semrush account with Google sign-in and no card, then ran a site audit, a keyword lookup and a rank-tracking setup on a small marketing website our own team runs. Those screens give us first-hand data on three AI touches: the AI Search Health score, the AI engines in Position Tracking and a machine-learned intent label. Everything else on this page comes from Semrush’s documentation, read on October 23, 2026, and we say so in each section.
Why the split? Because a feature list reads the same whether someone used the tool or copied the brochure. For the non-AI parts of the free account, our review of what a free Semrush account gets you covers all four tools we ran.
Key Takeaways
Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99 a month for 25 tracked prompts and has no free trial (Semrush KB: AI Visibility Toolkit). On our free account, the AI features we could actually use were the AI Search Health score in Site Audit (our site scored 95%) and an engine picker in Position Tracking that listed ChatGPT and Gemini. Copilot, the content tools and prompt tracking all need either a project, a trial or a paid plan to show much.
Semrush AI in Brief: Where AI Shows Up in the Platform
Semrush’s AI features live in at least six places, from the dashboard to the keyword tools, and our free account showed three of them on screen. Semrush’s subscriptions page describes its current plans as combining “the SEO Toolkit and the AI Visibility Toolkit in a single subscription” (Semrush KB: Subscriptions), and specialist toolkits such as Content sit on top.
So where should you look first? This map puts every AI feature in one place, with what the free account gets and how much of it we saw ourselves.
| AI feature | Where it lives | Free account, per Semrush | Our evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot | Dashboard | “Basic Copilot functionality” | Docs only |
| AI Search Health | Site Audit | Included in the 100-page audit | Seen: 95% (beta) |
| ChatGPT and Gemini engines | Position Tracking, Prompt Tracking | Engine picker visible; Prompt Tracking needs the AI Visibility Toolkit | Seen: picker only |
| AI Visibility Toolkit | AI Visibility | “A limited set of AI Visibility features” | Docs only |
| Free AI writing tools | Free tools | Three uses a day in a December 2025 post | Pages gone on October 23, 2026 |
| Content Toolkit (formerly ContentShake AI) | Content | 7-day trial, then $60/month | Docs only |
| SEO Writing Assistant | SEO Toolkit | Up to 2 documents | Docs only |
| Intent, Personal Keyword Difficulty, Strategy Builder | Keyword research | Intent label visible; the AI metrics are paid | Seen: intent label |
| Semrush MCP | Your own AI assistant | Depends on subscription and API access | Docs only |
Sources for the free-account column: Semrush’s free account guide (December 10, 2025), the subscriptions page and the toolkit pages linked in each section below.
Semrush Copilot: The AI Assistant in Your Dashboard
Semrush Copilot is an AI assistant that reads six Semrush tools and turns their data into a prioritized list of SEO recommendations on your dashboard. Semrush lists those six as Backlinks, Organic Rankings, Keyword Gap, Backlink Gap, Position Tracking and Site Audit, and says Copilot is “provided as part of every Semrush subscription” (Semrush blog, March 19, 2024).
How does it decide what to show? According to that launch post, Copilot’s AI was trained on data from Semrush’s own databases, and it “pulls from project data.” That’s the catch for new users. Copilot needs a project for your domain, and Semrush recommends setting up both a Site Audit and a Position Tracking campaign so its advice has something to work with. Recommendations come with a link to the source tool, a copy button for sharing with a team or client, and thumbs up or down buttons for feedback.
Semrush’s examples of what Copilot flags include technical issues, lost keyword rankings, lost backlinks, broken links, new keyword ideas and keywords your competitors rank for. It ranks next steps by urgency and potential impact.
What a free account gets
Semrush’s free account guide says: “With your free account, you get basic Copilot functionality within your SEO Dashboard,” and that recommendations start once you launch tools like Position Tracking or Site Audit (Semrush). We did launch both on our free account, but our test log doesn’t record a Copilot panel, so we can’t tell you what it showed.
One more detail worth knowing. When we checked on October 23, 2026, Semrush’s knowledge base article about Copilot (kb/1425) redirected to a general page about Semrush toolkits. The blog posts still describe the feature. If Copilot matters to your decision, confirm in the dashboard during a trial that it’s still there in the form described.
AI Search Health in Site Audit: What a Free Account Shows
AI Search Health is a score in Site Audit that rates how ready your site is for AI search, and on our free account it gave our site 95%, marked beta. Semrush defines it as “a score that reflects how optimized your website is for AI search” (Semrush KB: AI Search Health).
This is the one AI feature we watched work end to end. Our free audit crawled 100 of 100 pages with default settings, and next to the usual Site Health score of 89% sat a separate AI Search Health widget at 95%. The top issues list included “Content not optimized for AI Search” on 4 pages.
Semrush builds the score from three inputs:
- AI search checks in Site Audit, such as crawlability, structured data and internal linking
- AI bot access, meaning whether your robots.txt blocks crawlers like OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot
- Technical readiness, such as schema markup, crawlable navigation, internal links and llms.txt
The Blocked from AI Search panel
Next to the score, a Blocked from AI Search panel listed four bots by name: ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot and Google-Extended. Semrush’s guide to the panel includes a sample robots.txt that allows eight AI bots from OpenAI, Google, Perplexity and Anthropic (Semrush KB: Blocked from AI Search). Our panel named the OpenAI and Google ones. We didn’t open its detail view, so we can’t say how it treated the Perplexity and Claude bots.
Want to see your site the way ChatGPT search sees it? Semrush’s guide suggests one setting change: in the crawler settings, set the user agent to OpenAI-Search before you run the audit, then filter the Issues tab for AI Search (Semrush). We kept the default user agent, so our 95% comes from the standard crawl.
Is a high score proof that AI answers will mention you? No. It measures whether AI crawlers can reach and read your pages, not whether ChatGPT cites them. What earns a citation is a separate question, which our guide on how to rank in ChatGPT takes on. For every setting and issue in this audit, see what a free Semrush Site Audit found on the same site.
Tracking ChatGPT and Gemini in Position Tracking
Semrush lets you pick ChatGPT and Gemini as search engines, but tracking your brand in their answers needs a paid AI Visibility Toolkit subscription. When we set up Position Tracking on our free account, the search engine choices included Google, ChatGPT and Gemini, and the keyword step showed “Keyword limit 1/10”.
We picked Google, Desktop, United States and English, added one keyword and pressed “Start Tracking.” The screen then read “Gathering keywords data: 0/1,” and we had no ranking result when we closed our log. We did not try to start a ChatGPT or Gemini campaign.
So what happens if you do? Semrush’s Prompt Tracking page answers it: “To access this feature, you need a subscription to the AI Visibility Toolkit” (Semrush KB: Prompt Tracking). Seeing the engines in the picker doesn’t mean a free account can track them.
How AI positions are counted
Prompt Tracking monitors your daily visibility for a custom list of prompts in ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini. Instead of Estimated Traffic and Share of Voice, it reports AI Visibility, Mentions, Owned Sources, Topic Volume and Average Position. Position works differently in each engine, according to Semrush:
| Engine | How Semrush assigns positions |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT Search | Each domain in the citation area, ranked top to bottom |
| Google AI Mode | The answer itself is position 1; citations follow as 2, 3 and so on |
| Gemini | Each cited source in order; the first citation acts as position 1 |
Source: Semrush KB: Prompt Tracking. You can also open a snapshot of the actual AI answer for each prompt, which shows which domains it cited.
The classic Google side of Position Tracking stays free at 10 keywords. If that’s your main need, our walkthrough of Semrush Position Tracking setup and its free limits covers each step, and our guide to the best rank tracker software compares other options.
The AI Visibility Toolkit in One Section
The AI Visibility Toolkit is Semrush’s paid product for seeing how AI platforms mention your brand, and it costs $99 a month with no free trial. Semrush’s toolkit page says “a paid subscription is required to access the toolkit” and lists 25 Prompt Tracking prompts in the base plan (Semrush KB: AI Visibility Toolkit).
The toolkit bundles six reports:
- Visibility Overview benchmarks your brand with an AI Visibility Score, worldwide or by region.
- Competitor Research shows prompts where competitors are cited and you aren’t.
- Prompt Research works like keyword research for prompts, with topic volume, difficulty and intent.
- Brand Performance covers share of voice, sentiment and narratives, with AI-based recommendations.
- Prompt Tracking monitors chosen prompts day by day.
- AI Search Site Audit runs the AI checks behind the AI Search Health widget.
The base plan also includes 1 project, 1 domain for Brand Performance, 300 daily queries in AI Analysis reports, 1,000 daily queries in Prompt Research and AI search checks for up to 100 pages. Add-ons cost $60 a month for 50 more prompts and $99 a month for each extra Brand Performance domain.
What if you already pay for Semrush One? Its Starter, Pro+ and Advanced plans bundle the SEO and AI Visibility toolkits, with 50, 100 and 200 prompts. Our in-app subscription page priced those plans at $199, $299 and $549 a month.
Two free ways to look
The free account shows some AI data without the toolkit. Semrush says Domain Overview, at 10 queries a day, includes an AI Visibility Score, mentions, cited pages and a breakdown by platform (Semrush). Separately, the AI Search Visibility Checker reports a 0 to 100 visibility score across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews, and Semrush says it works three times a day without an account. We haven’t run either, so we can’t vouch for the numbers.
This section is a summary on purpose. Our roundup of the best AI search visibility tools puts Semrush next to Otterly.AI, Writesonic and SE Ranking, with prices and prompt limits side by side.
Free AI Writing Tools: Paraphrasing, Rewriting and Text Generation
Semrush’s free AI writing tools were a set of eight no-login tools, each limited to three uses a day and 300 words, but their English pages were gone when we checked them on October 23, 2026. Semrush’s free account guide, dated December 10, 2025, lists them in three groups (Semrush):
- Generate: AI Text Generator, Title Generator and Summary Generator
- Rewrite: Paraphrasing Tool, Paragraph Rewriter and Sentence Rewriter
- Analyze: Proofreader and Word Counter
The same guide says “Each tool offers three free uses per day and can generate up to 300 words of text.”
What we found on October 23, 2026
We requested the English pages for these tools as an anonymous visitor. The old /free-tools/ addresses for the Paraphrasing Tool, Paragraph Rewriter, Sentence Rewriter, AI Text Generator, Title Generator, Summary Generator, Proofreader and Word Counter returned “not found,” and the older /goodcontent/ addresses sent us to the Content Toolkit page. The free tools hub still carries a one-line blurb about “free AI writing tools,” but the tools it actually links to are SEO, AI visibility and local tools, such as a Sitemap Generator, a Plagiarism Checker and a Google Business Profile description generator (Semrush free tools).
What does that mean for you? If you were searching for the free Semrush paraphrasing tool, the likely answer is that it no longer exists as a standalone page in English. We haven’t seen an announcement, so we can’t say whether this is permanent. The AI rewriting that remains sits inside paid or trial products: the Rephraser in the SEO Writing Assistant and the rewriting tools in the Content Toolkit, both covered next.
ContentShake AI, the Content Toolkit and the SEO Writing Assistant
Semrush’s main AI writing product is now the Content Toolkit, priced at $60 a month with a 7-day free trial and unlimited standard articles (Semrush KB: Content Toolkit pricing). It replaced ContentShake AI: Semrush’s old ContentShake addresses now open the Content Toolkit page, and the toolkit documentation no longer uses the ContentShake name.
What the Content Toolkit does
Semrush describes the Content Toolkit as “an all-in-one workspace” that covers topic research, briefs, article generation, optimization, repurposing and publishing (Semrush KB: Getting Started with Content Toolkit). Everything runs through a chat window and a board view. You start in one of three ways: create content, optimize an existing article, or repurpose an article into social posts, an email newsletter or a Google Business Profile post.
The $60 plan lists these pieces:
- Topic Finder for content ideas based on search data
- SEO Brief Generator for keywords, outlines and competitor notes
- AI Article Generator, with 5 SEO-boosted articles a month; 10 more cost $30 a month
- Content Optimizer for SEO, tone and readability suggestions
- AI chat, AI rewriting and AI image generation
- Up to 50 saved brand voices
- Google Docs transfer and one-click WordPress publishing to up to 100 sites
The Content Optimizer is the part closest to AI search. Semrush says it combines organic SEO and AI visibility into one Content Score, accepts up to 30 target keywords, and splits suggestions into an AI search group (authorship, Q&A formatting, summaries) and a classic SEO group (titles, keywords, meta descriptions, alt text) (Semrush KB: Content Optimizer). An Optimize button applies the AI’s suggested changes, and a side-by-side view shows the original and the new version before you accept or reject them.
The SEO Writing Assistant
The SEO Writing Assistant (SWA) is the older content tool, and it belongs to the SEO Toolkit rather than the Content Toolkit. Semrush says it “analyzes your content in real time” and scores readability, SEO, originality and tone of voice (Semrush KB: SEO Writing Assistant). It runs inside Semrush or as an add-on for Google Docs, WordPress and Microsoft Word.
Its overall score runs toward 10. Readability uses the Flesch reading ease formula with a target set from your top 10 Google competitors. Originality uses a plagiarism checker based on Copyleaks. Three AI features sit on top:
| AI feature | What it does | Where it works |
|---|---|---|
| Rephraser | Rephrase, simplify, expand or summarize selected text; works best on 20 to 130 words | No platform limit listed |
| Compose | Writes new text on a topic you give it | Semrush and Google Docs only |
| Ask AI | Answers questions about your topic | Semrush and Google Docs only |
These features spend Smart Writer Words. The same page lists 500 words as a lifetime limit on the Pro tier, 1,000 a month on Guru and 2,000 a month on Business, using Semrush’s older tier names. Free users and Pro users can create up to 2 SWA documents per account.
Which one should a beginner try? If you write in Google Docs and want feedback on a draft you wrote yourself, the SEO Writing Assistant fits. If you want AI to draft for you, the Content Toolkit is the tool Semrush is building around now. We haven’t used either, so treat this as a map, not a verdict.
AI in Keyword Research: Intent, Personal Keyword Difficulty and Strategy Builder
Semrush uses AI in keyword research in three ways: machine-learned intent labels, Personal Keyword Difficulty and the Keyword Strategy Builder, and only the intent label showed up in our free lookup. Semrush says it “uses a machine-learning algorithm” to assign intent, based on the SERP features shown, intent words in the keyword (such as buy or how) and whether the keyword is branded (Semrush KB: Keyword intent).
On our free account, a Keyword Overview lookup for “generative engine optimization” in the US database returned Intent: Informational, along with Keyword Difficulty 72% “Hard”. The page also showed an upsell: “Go beyond basic volume and discover advanced metrics with Semrush Pro.”
Personal Keyword Difficulty and Topical Authority
Standard Keyword Difficulty is an average for everyone. Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD) estimates how hard it would be for your domain to reach the top 10. Semrush says PKD is “calculated using our proprietary AI algorithm,” which weighs the topical fit between your domain and the keyword, the competition in the topic, and your domain’s metrics against the sites on the SERP (Semrush KB: Personal Keyword Difficulty). It uses six levels, from Very easy (0 to 14%) to Very hard (85 to 100%).
The same AI update added Topical Authority and Potential SERP Positions to Keyword Overview, and it rebuilt the old Keyword Manager as the Keyword Strategy Builder, which turns seed keywords into a map of pillar pages and subpages (Semrush blog, May 21, 2024). Semrush says these features “are included in any paid Semrush subscription.”
Would PKD have changed our read of that 72% keyword? Maybe. A small, young site like ours would likely see a higher personal score than the industry average, but we couldn’t check it on a free account. For the seven metrics our single lookup did show, see what one free Semrush keyword lookup returned.
Semrush MCP and the Prompt Library
Semrush MCP connects your own AI assistant, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity, to live Semrush data, so you can ask keyword and traffic questions in plain language. Semrush says the connection is read-only and works through OAuth or an API key, and what you can query “depends on your Semrush subscription and API access” (Semrush KB: Understanding Semrush MCP).
Why would a small team care? Because it flips the usual setup. Instead of Semrush adding a chatbot, your existing assistant pulls Semrush numbers into its answers. Semrush lists official apps in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, and the same connection also works in Cursor, VS Code and Claude Code. Semrush’s pricing page lists MCP access in the Starter plan, at $199 a month (Semrush pricing). If you’d rather pull Semrush data into your own scripts, our guide to the Semrush API and its API units covers that route.
The Semrush AI prompt library is a companion page of ready-made prompts for MCP. Semrush splits it into three levels: use cases (goals such as finding content gaps), workflows (guided sequences for each goal) and steps (single prompts you can run) (Semrush MCP Prompt Library). The examples range from content gap roadmaps to tracing organic traffic losses. We haven’t connected MCP, so we can’t say how well the prompts perform.
Which Semrush AI Features Are Free and Which Are Paid
On a free account you get AI Search Health, intent labels, a basic Copilot and limited AI visibility metrics; prompt tracking, the Content Toolkit and the AI keyword metrics are paid or trial-only. Our in-app subscription page listed only paid plans, from Starter at $199 a month, and listed AI visibility and prompt tracking under those plans.
| Feature | Free account | Paid or trial | Price we can confirm |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Search Health in Site Audit | Yes, 100 pages (seen) | More pages on paid tiers | $0 |
| Intent labels | Yes (seen) | Same | $0 |
| Copilot | Basic, per Semrush | Included with every subscription | Not priced separately |
| ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode prompt tracking | No | AI Visibility Toolkit or Semrush One | $99/month toolkit; $199/month Starter (in-app) |
| AI visibility metrics | Limited, in Domain Overview | AI Visibility Toolkit | $99/month |
| Content Toolkit | No | 7-day trial | $60/month |
| SEO Writing Assistant | Up to 2 documents | More on higher tiers | Part of the SEO Toolkit |
| PKD, Topical Authority, Strategy Builder | No | Any paid subscription | Included in paid plans, per Semrush |
| Free AI writing tools | Listed in 2025; pages gone on October 23, 2026 | None | $0 |
Sources: our free account (October 21, 2026) and the Semrush pages linked in each section. Prices change and can differ by region, so check the pricing page in your own account before you buy. For every plan, trial and renewal detail, see our plan-by-plan breakdown of what Semrush costs.
Is $99 a month for 25 prompts good value? It depends on what you compare it to. In our hands-on comparison of Otterly.AI and Writesonic, both dedicated trackers offered short no-card trials, which Semrush’s toolkit doesn’t. If you’re new to the idea of optimizing for AI answers, start with our explainer on what generative engine optimization is.
Limits and What We Could Not Test
We saw three Semrush AI features on a free account, only one of them working end to end, and had to rely on documentation for the other seven. Our rule is no card and no paid plan, and Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit “does not currently offer a free trial,” so prompt tracking stayed out of reach (Semrush KB: AI Visibility Toolkit).
Here’s what that leaves out:
- Copilot. Our log has no Copilot panel, and its knowledge base article redirected when we checked.
- Prompt Tracking in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode. We saw the engines in the picker but tracked Google only.
- AI Visibility Toolkit reports. Paid only, no trial.
- Content Toolkit and SEO Writing Assistant. The Content Toolkit needs a 7-day trial, and Semrush’s free account guide says its trials ask for card details; we didn’t open the SWA editor.
- The free AI writing tools. Their pages were gone, so there was nothing left to try.
- PKD and Keyword Strategy Builder. Both need a paid subscription.
- Semrush MCP. Not connected.
We also have only one data point for AI Search Health: one audit, default settings, one small site. A different site, or the OpenAI-Search user agent, could score differently.
Why publish a guide with this many gaps? Because the gaps are the useful part for a free user. They show exactly where the free account stops and the bill starts. When we test a trial, we’ll add the results here.
Who Gets the Most From Semrush’s AI Tools
Semrush’s AI tools pay off most for teams that already use Semrush for SEO and want AI search data in the same place; a solo creator on a free account gets one useful AI score and little else. This section is our judgment, based on what we saw and what Semrush documents.
Here’s how we’d sort readers:
- Bloggers and solo creators on the free plan. Run the free Site Audit once a month and read the AI Search Health widget and the Blocked from AI Search panel. That’s the most useful free AI feature Semrush has.
- Small businesses that want to know if ChatGPT mentions them. Try the free AI Search Visibility Checker first. Pay for prompt tracking only once you know which prompts matter, and compare Semrush with dedicated trackers that offer trials.
- Content teams writing every week. The Content Toolkit’s 7-day trial is the cheapest way to judge its drafts and optimizer against your current workflow.
- Agencies and in-house SEO teams already on Semrush One. Prompt Tracking, Copilot and MCP sit inside a plan you may already pay for, so turn them on before you buy a separate AI tool.
Not sure Semrush is the right base at all? Our guide to what Semrush is explains the platform from the ground up, our roundup of SE Ranking, Mangools and Ubersuggest covers cheaper suites, and our list of the best AI SEO tools shows what dedicated AI tools do instead.
Whatever you choose, start from the free features we could verify. Fix what blocks AI crawlers first. Paying to track AI answers makes sense only after those crawlers can read your pages.
References
- Semrush: 2026 AI Visibility Index press release
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Subscriptions and Toolkits
- Semrush: What Can You Do with a Free Semrush Account?
- Semrush: Semrush Copilot, Your AI Assistant for Faster SEO Insights
- Semrush Knowledge Base: AI Search Health in Site Audit
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Blocked from AI Search in Site Audit
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Prompt Tracking
- Semrush Knowledge Base: AI Visibility Toolkit
- Semrush: AI Search Visibility Checker
- Semrush: Free Tools
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Content Toolkit Pricing and Plans
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Getting Started with Content Toolkit
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Content Optimizer
- Semrush Knowledge Base: SEO Writing Assistant
- Semrush Knowledge Base: How is keyword intent calculated?
- Semrush Knowledge Base: How is Personal Keyword Difficulty calculated?
- Semrush: AI-Driven Insights to Transform Keyword Research
- Semrush: SEO and AI Search Plans and Pricing
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Understanding Semrush MCP
- Semrush: MCP Prompt Library