AI-visibility platform
Profound and AI Search API sit at different layers. Profound is a finished AI-visibility product; AI Search API is the capture layer you build on when you need the raw observations in your own system.
A fair, axis-by-axis view. Where a difference is a matter of category, we say so.
| Dimension | AI Search API | Profound |
|---|---|---|
| Layer | Capture API (a building block) | Finished platform (dashboards + analytics) |
| Who it is for | Developers and teams building their own visibility product or pipeline | Marketing / brand teams wanting a ready-made view |
| Data ownership | Raw Envelopes in your own store, re-computable | Metrics and reports inside the platform |
| Control | Full programmatic control of prompts, surfaces, regions, schedule | Platform-defined tracking |
Every point below is what we do, verifiable in the contract and the docs, not a claim about anyone else.
Choose Profound (or a similar platform) when you want a ready-made dashboard and managed analytics, and you do not need to own the raw capture data, control the prompt set programmatically, or embed the observations in your own product.
Profound is a polished AI-visibility platform with dashboards, analytics and reporting built for marketing and brand teams. If you want an answer to "how visible are we in AI search" without building anything, a platform like this delivers it out of the box.
It is the layer underneath one. If you want a finished dashboard, a platform like Profound is the fit. If you are building your own AI-visibility product, or need the raw captures in your warehouse, AI Search API is the capture API you would build it on.
Yes, that is the intended use. Submit your prompt set across surfaces and regions on a schedule, store each Envelope, and compute visibility, share of voice and citations on your side.
500 free credits, charged only on success, one Envelope for every surface. Decide from your own captures, not a comparison table.