10 Best AI Content Marketing Tools for 2026 (Tried & Tested)

Which AI content marketing tools are best for content creation, AI search optimization, and SEO?

Here are 10 of them, which I’ve tested and benefited from:

Content Creation

The best AI content creation tools include the Semrush Content Toolkit, ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Lumen5:

1. Semrush Content Toolkit

• Best for: Organizations looking to publish search engine-optimized content
• Free basic version available: No
• Pricing: $60/month. Buy an extra 10 SEO-boosted articles for $30/month.
• Free trial period: Seven days

The Semrush Content Toolkit is a suite of tools for discovering article topics, generating SEO briefs and articles, and optimizing article content for higher search rankings—all with the help of AI.

With its AI Article Generator tool, I cut down the time spent creating and publishing an 800-word article on “how to choose avocados” from two hours to just 20 minutes.

Here’s how I did it:

First, I entered my topic into the tool. It provided suggested parameters for the audience location, title, target keywords, word count, and brand voice.

I agreed with the suggestions, so I let the tool proceed with them. And it took just 42 seconds to produce an 833-word draft, complete with a title and meta description.

From there, I reviewed the text, formatted it, and rewrote some of it. I also checked its SEO content score—which was “Perfect,” so I didn’t need to make further optimizations.

I then directly published the article to WordPress using Content Toolkit’s WordPress integration.

Content Toolkit provides an SEO booster feature for optimizing articles for higher search rankings, but this feature may slow down agencies that produce large volumes of content for multiple accounts.

Why? Because SEO-boosted articles take longer to generate.

I created an SEO-boosted article, with all other parameters being the same as my initial test. AI Article Generator took two minutes and 43 seconds to produce the new article—almost 4X slower.

What I Like

The AI Article Generator tool helped me rewrite the article’s original introduction—which I wasn’t fond of—in less than 30 seconds.

I did this by using the AI chat feature to request a new introduction paragraph:

The AI chatbot suggested a new introduction, which I liked. So, I replaced the existing one with it.

2. ChatGPT

• Best for: Users who want a general-purpose AI writing tool
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Plus ($20/month), Pro ($200/month), Business ($30/user/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing)
• Free trial period: Not applicable

ChatGPT is an AI tool that can help outline, write, review, and improve article drafts in a conversational setting.

Through interacting with ChatGPT, I managed to get an outline for an article on “how to choose avocados,” turn the outline into a full draft, and then revise the draft to my liking. All within the tool itself, and in under 15 minutes.

I started off by asking ChatGPT to prepare the article outline. Which it dutifully did.

The outline looked promising, so I had ChatGPT turn it into a full draft.

The article was a good start, but I thought it needed to help readers decide their ideal avocado ripeness. ChatGPT had no problem revising the article to match.

ChatGPT is a powerful article writing tool, and it’s a crowd favorite. In fact, 86% of marketers report that ChatGPT is the most effective AI marketing tool they’ve used, according to a survey by the Digital Marketing Institute.

That said, organizations that want a one-stop writing and publishing tool may not want to use ChatGPT for marketing. Because ChatGPT doesn’t integrate with common content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress out of the box.

After creating my article with ChatGPT, I had to manually copy and paste the text to my CMS for publishing. The work wasn’t difficult and didn’t take long, but I found it tedious.

What I Like

ChatGPT helped enhance my content by providing proactive suggestions for improvement.

After delivering the article I requested, ChatGPT asked if I wanted to optimize it for search engine traffic by adding keywords and a meta description. I thought this was a good idea, so I went ahead with the suggestion.

3. Grammarly

• Best for: Users who want to produce clear and error-free writing
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Pro ($30/member/month) and Enterprise (custom pricing)
• Free trial period: Not applicable

Grammarly is an AI tool that helps correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors and also suggests rewrites for clarity and tone.

And Grammarly works fast. When I pasted an 800+ word piece into the tool, it took less than three seconds to detect issues and recommend improvements.

Grammarly color-codes the writing issues it discovers. I found this convenient for differentiating issues relating to correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery.

I could also click any issue to view Grammarly’s suggestion for fixing it. If I agreed with the suggestion, I could easily implement it by clicking “Accept.”

That said, the explanations Grammarly provides for its suggestions tend to be generic. Users less proficient in English may have difficulty understanding how the explanations apply to the current situation. And may end up making the same writing mistakes in the future.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Here, Grammarly has correctly identified that we can delete the word “up” from the phrase “can elevate up your culinary….” But it provides a generic explanation of prepositions that isn’t tailored to the sentence.

I would have found the explanation more helpful if it had been something like “The word ‘elevate’ already indicates an upward motion, and so adding ‘up’ after ‘elevate’ is redundant.” 

What I Like

Grammarly helps me produce error-free writing regardless of whether I’m writing in American or British English.

The tool can check for writing issues in multiple English variants, including American, British, and Canadian English. Making it one of the best AI content writing tools for writers who have to constantly switch between different English variants.

4. Lumen5

• Best for: Marketers who want to create videos with minimal production investment
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Basic ($29/month), Starter ($79/month), Pro ($199/month), Team (custom pricing)
• Free trial period: Not applicable

Lumen5 is an AI video maker that turns text prompts, blog content, and raw media clips into polished, publish-ready videos.

Using the option to generate a video based on a chat, I was able to create a 30-second video on choosing avocados in less than a minute—complete with text, images, and music. The same video would have taken me at least two hours to manually script, film, and edit.

To create the video with Lumen5, I simply described what I wanted the video to be about and how long it should be:

Lumen5 generated the video. I watched it, and then requested edits.

For example, the initial video’s introduction seemed to show a potato instead of an avocado. I asked Lumen5 to correct the issue, and it generated the amended video in less than 10 seconds.

I then made my own edits to the video, like adding media, icons, and voiceover, before downloading it for use.

Using Lumen5’s Blueprint feature, I trained the tool’s AI to create future videos in a style similar to the video I had just created. This is helpful for creating on-brand videos, but only if you create Blueprints with videos made in Lumen5.

To create Blueprints from existing media, you’d need to manually upload and use Lumen5 to create videos out of the media first. Organizations that have a large repository of reference media may find this process cumbersome.

What I Like

Lumen5 helps you generate videos from new blog articles on autopilot.

You can do this by adding your blog’s RSS feed to the tool. Then, as you publish new blog articles, Lumen5 detects and creates videos for them. It also alerts you to the newly created videos via email.

AI Search Optimization

The best AI content marketing tools for boosting AI search visibility include the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Site Audit, and OtterlyAI:

5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

• Best for: Marketers who want to track AI visibility and sentiment
• Free basic version available: No
• Pricing: $99/month
• Free trial period: No

The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is a suite of tools for tracking your brand’s AI visibility, evaluating this visibility against competitors’, and researching prompts about topics relevant to your brand.

Using the Visibility Overview report, I got a bird’s-eye view of my site’s AI visibility across platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. I also learned useful insights like:

• The total number of prompts that resulted in mentions of my brand
• The total search volume for topics that AI tools mentioned my brand for
• The URLs on my site that AI tools cited in their responses

The AI Visibility Toolkit also contains tools for analyzing AI systems’ sentiment toward your brand, your brand’s share of voice across AI tools, and more.

What I Like

The AI Visibility Toolkit’s Brand Performance report helped inform my next steps for improving AI visibility and sentiment.

Based on the data, it generated strategic recommendations ranging from creating a centralized facts library to expanding measurable sustainability reporting. And even labeled each idea based on urgency to help me decide which recommendation to act on first.

6. Site Audit

• Best for: Site administrators who want to monitor for technical issues affecting AI visibility
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Pro ($139.95/month), Guru ($249.95/month), Business ($499.95/month)
• Free trial period: Seven days

Site Audit is a Semrush tool that detects technical issues hindering a site’s visibility in AI tools and search engines, and provides guidance on addressing these issues. It’s included in the AI Visibility Toolkit but is worth discussing on its own. 

I used Site Audit to scan 1,000 pages of an ecommerce site. And within 12 minutes, I discovered seven issues affecting the site’s AI visibility:

I could click any issue to view the affected pages or links. And also click “Why and how to fix it” to learn how to resolve the issue.

I also set up Site Audit to automatically scan my site and email me its findings every week. In case new AI visibility issues crop up in the future.

Trello is the only project management platform Site Audit can directly send detected issues to. Organizations that manage web development work with other platforms can connect Site Audit with their platform via Zapier.

What I Like

Apart from AI visibility issues, Site Audit helped me detect 42 other issues potentially affecting my site’s search engine visibility—including broken links, missing alt text, and thin content.

7. OtterlyAI

• Best for: Marketers who want to monitor AI visibility
• Free basic version available: No
• Pricing: Lite ($29/month), Standard ($189/month), Premium ($489/month)
• Free trial period: 15 days

OtterlyAI is a tool that monitors brand visibility, including mentions and URL citations, within AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Perplexity.

I used it to generate a detailed report of my brand’s AI visibility against my competitors’. To set up the report, I provided information about my brand, AI search prompts relevant to my brand, and my competitors.

OtterlyAI then took about 12 minutes to generate a report containing insights like:

• Brand coverage over time: Each brand’s AI visibility over a specified period
• Brand mentions: The number of times each brand appeared in the tracked AI search prompts
• Top three cited URLs: The top three URLs that AI tools cited

I could then customize the report in ways like adjusting its date range or customizing the AI tools I wanted to see data for.

OtterlyAI sends weekly emails of your brand’s performance for your monitored prompts, so you don’t have to keep checking back.

That said, the tool’s brand report lacks information on the topics that competitors enjoy high visibility for but your brand doesn’t. Limiting the report’s usefulness for marketers looking to identify content opportunities.

What I Like

OtterlyAI helped me come up with AI search prompts I hadn’t thought of before.

When I entered my target SEO keywords, language, and country into the tool’s “AI Keyword Research” feature, it generated AI search prompts and provided details on the prompts’ relevance and estimated monthly intent volume.

I could then add my shortlisted AI search prompts to my brand report for future monitoring.

SEO

The best AI content marketing tools for boosting your rankings and prominence on search engine results pages include the Keyword Magic Tool, Ranking Raccoon, and Local Falcon:

8. Keyword Magic Tool

• Best for: SEOs who want to find high-value keywords
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Pro ($139.95/month), Guru ($249.95/month), Business ($499.95/month)
• Free trial period: Seven days

Keyword Magic Tool is a keyword research tool for discovering keywords at scale, and it uses AI to provide personalized insights on whether these keywords are worth pursuing.

With the Keyword Magic Tool, it took me just 10 minutes to shortlist a list of 10 high-potential keywords to target if I were a travel blogger.

Here’s how I did it:

I entered the seed keyword “travel” into the tool and selected the U.S. as my target country. I also entered my site’s domain to enable the tool’s AI feature for providing keyword difficulty and potential traffic metrics personalized to my domain.

After that, the tool generated a list of keywords based on my seed keyword in less than 10 seconds.

I clicked the “Personal KD%” drop-down menu and entered a custom Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%) score range of “0” to “29.” To filter for keywords that my site can rank in the top 10 Google results for relatively easily.

I then clicked the “Pot. Traffic” (Potential Traffic) table column. To sort the keywords from the highest to the lowest amount of potential traffic if I were to publish quality content targeting them.

Looking at the high-potential-traffic, low-PKD% keywords that were now at the top of the list, I could easily select my preferred keywords to prioritize creating content for.

Just be aware that Keyword Magic Tool can get keyword data at only the country level. As a workaround, add your city to your seed keyword, like “[keyword] new york city.”

What I Like

The Keyword Magic Tool helped me understand the type of content I should create for each target keyword to address user needs.

To do this, I looked at the keyword list’s “Intent” column, which indicates the user’s purpose for the search.

If a keyword had informational intent, for example, this was my cue to create a content resource providing readers with information on the topic. And not a sales landing page to generate purchases—which might be more appropriate for keywords with transactional intent.

9. Ranking Raccoon

• Best for: Marketers looking to build links
• Free basic version available: Yes
• Pricing: Pro ($25/month)
• Free trial period: Seven days

Ranking Raccoon is a tool that provides a platform for sites’ administrators to collaborate on exchanging backlinks, using AI to match sites in the same niche.

With the backlink exchange platform, I was able to network with site administrators from high-quality sites to explore link building opportunities. Without needing to send cold emails.

I signed up for an account with my LinkedIn profile—this is a requirement to improve accountability—and added the sites I wanted to build links to.

Next, the tool’s AI-powered Smart Filtering feature recommended relevant sites in the Ranking Raccoon network to exchange links with. Each site listing indicated the site’s authoritativeness, monthly organic traffic, and niches, helping me decide which site to approach for links.

Then, after the Ranking Raccoon team had approved my sites, I was free to chat with my target sites’ administrators about swapping links.

Ranking Raccoon lets you filter for sites only by industry. Users who want to build links from sites fitting a highly specific profile—like being from a certain industry and having a certain minimum amount of monthly organic traffic, for example—may find shortlisting prospects tedious.

What I Like

The Ranking Raccoon team gave me confidence that its network’s sites are legitimate and trustworthy.

When I indicated my interest in building links to Semrush’s site, a team member reached out to verify my relationship with Semrush before approving my request.

10. Local Falcon

• Best for: Marketers who want to improve local search rankings
• Free basic version available: No
• Pricing: Starter ($24.99/month), Basic ($49.99/month), Pro ($99.99/month), Premium ($199.99/month), Enterprise ($499/month to $4,999/month)
• Free trial period: 100 free credits upon sign-up

Local Falcon is a tool that tracks business’s local rankings in Google Maps, Apple Maps, and AI tools like ChatGPT, and provides AI-powered recommendations for improving these rankings.

The tool makes it convenient to understand a site’s local rankings in various geographical areas at a glance.

To do this for a local bakery’s site, I set up a new “Quick Scan” and selected the extent of geographical coverage I wanted. I also entered the keyword I wanted to track rankings for—“croissant”—and selected Google Maps as my target platform.

Local Falcon completed the scan and produced a visual representation of the bakery’s local rankings on a map:

From the report, I learned that the bakery ranks for “croissant” when searchers are less than two miles away. But the bakery’s rankings drop significantly when searchers are more than three miles away.

Local Falcon also offered AI-generated recommendations for improving the bakery’s rankings. These included:

• Updating the bakery’s Google Business Profile to add missing information, like a phone number
• Improving the bakery’s average star rating
• Collecting reviews on authoritative third-party review sites like Yelp

Local Falcon’s Quick Scan report shows map data for only one keyword at a time. This isn’t ideal for users who want to analyze their overall local SEO performance for multiple keywords.

What I Like

Local Falcon’s Share of Local Voice metric helped me understand a business’s visibility in the Google 3 pack.

The tool generated a percentage for this proprietary metric as part of its Quick Scan. The higher the percentage, the better.

Power Up Your Marketing with AI Content Marketing Tools

Make a list of the content marketing tasks you want to power up with AI. Then, shortlist the AI content marketing tools that meet your needs and budget.

If these tools offer free plans and trials, use them to confirm whether the tools are right for you before you commit to a paid plan.

For example, you can try many of Semrush’s AI tools when you sign up for a free trial of Semrush One.