HubSpot AEO grades how your organisation shows up in AI answers. That is useful — and it is Phase 1. The deeper problem is that organisations have lost control over how AI understands them. Kodiac is the control layer for AI-mediated discovery: understand how AI interprets your organisation, improve what it relies on, then participate directly as a system AI depends on. The comparison below sets out the differences capability by capability.
Kodiac is built as three phases of one journey — understand how AI interprets your organisation (Kodiac Audit), improve what it relies on with structured, governed content across your existing systems (Kodiac Content), and participate directly as the system AI depends on (Kodiac Agent). The capabilities below are present in Kodiac and absent or materially weaker in HubSpot AEO.
HubSpot AEO scores brand presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini using their five-dimension framework (sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice, market position). That is one layer - what AI says. Kodiac adds Layer 2 (what AI sees on your website, scored across 10 dimensions) and Layer 3 (what AI reads from third-party sources). Audit-only tools tell you the symptom. Kodiac diagnoses the cause.
University of Toronto research found AI search engines cite third-party publications 74-92% of the time when describing brands - Reddit, Wikipedia, G2, Hacker News, news. HubSpot AEO does not monitor these. Kodiac includes per-source AI weight scoring, sentiment alerts, and intervention playbooks for every source category in every paid tier.
Diagnostics tell you what AI says today. They do not change what AI says tomorrow. Kodiac Agent lets you deploy an MCP/REST endpoint so customer AI systems query your authoritative Brand Agent directly. HubSpot has no equivalent.
Kodiac brings the governance enterprise teams require - approval workflows, a versioned source of truth, auditability - and the depth of a three-phase platform spanning Audit, Content, and Agent. HubSpot AEO is a feature within a broader marketing suite. Different products for different buyers.
A capability-by-capability view of where the two platforms diverge. Kodiac on the right, HubSpot AEO on the left, no padding or rounding.
| Dimension | HubSpot AEO | Kodiac |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Grader tool within the HubSpot suite | Control layer: Audit + Content + Agent + Workspace |
| Pricing | $50 / month | From £499 / month |
| Audit layers monitored | Output only (what AI says) | Output + Input + Ecosystem |
| Source Intelligence | Not included | Included in every paid tier |
| Reddit / Wikipedia / G2 monitoring | Not included | Per-source AI weight + playbooks |
| AI systems tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot |
| Website AI-readiness scoring | Not included | Per-page across 10 dimensions |
| Content layer | None | Kodiac Content (RAG endpoint + connectors) |
| Brand Agent (MCP/REST) | Not available | Kodiac Agent with Playground |
| Multi-brand / agency workspace | Not designed for agencies | Native multi-brand + white-label |
| Best fit | SMB marketers already on HubSpot | Enterprise marketing + agency partners |
The questions buyers ask most often when deciding between the two.
Yes. Kodiac Audit Starter is £499 per month and HubSpot AEO is $50 per month. The two products solve different problems for different buyers. HubSpot AEO is a single-layer monitoring tool aimed at marketers already using HubSpot. Kodiac is a three-phase platform — Audit, Content, Agent — with Source Intelligence built in, designed for enterprise teams running AI-mediated discovery as a discipline.
Yes, the two are complementary in the same way Search Console and a full SEO platform can coexist. Many enterprise teams use the HubSpot Grader for an executive-level snapshot and Kodiac for the operational depth - Source Intelligence interventions, content layer improvements, Brand Agent deployment.
The HubSpot AEO Grader monitors ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Claude and Microsoft Copilot are not currently included. For enterprise B2B brands - particularly in financial services, professional services, and regulated industries - Claude is widely adopted. Kodiac monitors all five major systems.
No. HubSpot AEO scores brand presence directly in AI outputs. It does not crawl, score, or recommend interventions on the third-party sources (Reddit, Wikipedia, G2, news, Hacker News) that drive most AI brand representation. This is the most consequential gap in the audit-only tooling category.
Run the free Kodiac audit. Sixty seconds, no credit card — a clear view of how the major AI systems interpret your organisation today, and what the next two phases would change.