Similarweb Launches AI Ads Tracking Tool
Similarweb
Similarweb built a tool that spies on rivals' ads inside ChatGPT and Google AI answers. It shows who's paying to be recommended before you even ask.
Based on reporting by Similarweb — read the original for the full story.
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Advertising just found a new hiding spot, and Similarweb wants to shine a light into it. The company has rolled out an AI Ads Intelligence tool that tracks sponsored placements showing up inside ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews. Instead of guessing who's buying visibility in these AI answers, marketers can now see the actual creatives, copy, headlines, and landing pages competitors are running.
The pitch centers on timing as much as visibility. Similarweb argues that most existing tracking tools rely on bots that fire a single query and grab whatever ad pops up first. But real conversations with AI tools don't work that way — people go back and forth, and a lot of the sponsored placements only appear once someone shifts from researching to actually deciding. Bots miss that shift entirely, according to Similarweb, because they don't converse, they just query. To get around that, the company says its data comes from real user panels having actual multi-turn conversations, which lets it catch ads that show up deeper in the exchange.
Beyond spying on creative, the tool also benchmarks share of voice, letting a brand see how it stacks up against category leaders across the three platforms and where it's underspending or losing ground. Jonathan Bar Vardi, Head of Strategy at Natural Intelligence, is quoted saying his team was 'flying blind' when they started advertising on ChatGPT, with no idea who else was in the auction or which creatives were actually working. That's the gap Similarweb is positioning itself to fill.
For now the coverage is limited to ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews, though Similarweb says Microsoft Copilot is on its roadmap. The company also stresses that brands don't need to already be running AI ads to get value from it — several customers apparently use it beforehand to scope out pricing and competitive dynamics before committing any budget. And the FAQ makes clear this isn't just a paid-media plaything: GEO teams, organic search folks, and agencies juggling multiple clients are all named as potential users, treating AI conversations as one more surface to fight for attention on.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
AI chat interfaces were supposed to be the antidote to ad-cluttered search results, and here comes the ad-tracking tooling before the ink is even dry on the ad formats themselves. Once someone builds a dashboard for spying on your competitors' AI ad spend, you know the format has already gone mainstream, whether users asked for it or not. The real tell is that panel data beats bots here — synthetic testing keeps failing to capture how people actually behave, and marketers are learning that lesson all over again in a new channel.
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