Deployed agents, not a workbench
Profound is the most data-rich AEO platform on the market. Its node-based agent builder gives technically capable teams complete workflow control. Lantern is built for marketing teams who don't need to build — they need results. Agents deployed, content published, citations earned.
Profound's agent builder is a node canvas. To run an agent that monitors visibility, drafts content, and publishes to your CMS, you connect nodes manually — a Profound data node, an LLM node, a CMS publish node, a Slack notification node. For teams with developer resource or a technical marketing ops lead, this is powerful. For a content manager or SEO lead working without technical support, this is a project before it becomes a tool.
How Lantern fixes this
Lantern Agents are deployed, not built. You activate an agent, it monitors, researches, writes, and publishes. No canvas. No node configuration. No setup sprint.
Profound's most capable agent integrations — Webflow, v0, Gamma, advanced node types — are listed as available to Enterprise customers. Self-serve users get limited trial runs. For teams below enterprise scale, the agent capability they're evaluating in demos may not be what they access on the plan they can afford.
How Lantern fixes this
Lantern's Pro plan at $229/month includes agents, CMS publishing, and full content pipelines. No enterprise gate.
Profound's 400M+ prompt dataset is genuinely differentiated. It tells you what users are actually asking AI engines. But access to this data, and the agents that act on it, is structured toward higher tiers. Teams at earlier stages get monitoring without the full intelligence layer.
How Lantern fixes this
Lantern tracks the prompts that matter for your brand continuously, daily, at the Pro level — without a separate enterprise data tier.
Lantern
Pre-built agents that deploy in one click. No canvas, no nodes, no pipeline assembly. Agents monitor continuously, research gaps, generate AI-optimized content, and publish to your CMS automatically. Built for marketing teams without developer support.
Profound
Node-based visual builder where you assemble custom workflows on a canvas — like n8n or Make, but for AEO. Drag and connect nodes (web scraping, LLM prompting, CMS publishing, Slack notifications) to create pipelines. Powerful and flexible for technically capable teams with setup time and workflow thinking capacity.
Lantern
Real-time monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude — the four engines that drive the majority of AI search volume. Tracks the prompts you configure for your brand, updated continuously.
Profound
Profound tracks 10+ AI engines including DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. 400M+ real user conversations (proprietary dataset) shows what people are actually asking AI engines. Server-log level AI crawler analytics tracks how bots crawl your site at infrastructure level. Industry-leading data depth backed by $35M Series B from Sequoia Capital.
Lantern
Lantern's Pro plan at $229/month includes full agent capabilities, content generation, CMS publishing, and real-time monitoring. 7-day free trial with no credit card required. No enterprise gate — marketing teams get the full platform.
Profound
Profound offers a Starter plan, but full agent capabilities — including most CMS integrations like Webflow, v0, and Gamma — are primarily available to Enterprise customers. Self-serve users get limited trial agent runs. Enterprise pricing scales with data access and node library features.
Lantern
SOC2 compliance in progress. Built for marketing and content teams at growth-stage companies who need AI search visibility and autonomous execution without enterprise infrastructure requirements.
Profound
SOC2 Type II + HIPAA certified. G2 Winter 2026 AEO Leader. Built for enterprise teams that need compliance certification, server-log analytics, broadest AI engine coverage, and custom workflow flexibility with developer support. Right Side Capital and Sequoia-backed.
7x
increase in AI citations
“We saw a 7x increase in AI citations within the first month. Lantern found the gaps and handled the content — our team didn't have to do anything extra.”
1B+ people search with AI every day. If you're not included, you are invisible. Lantern Agents keep your brand visible without the operational overhead.