2025 pushed SEO teams into a new era. Google changed how rankings behave. AI assistants became default discovery tools, delivering direct answers instead of lists of links. And small teams faced pressure to keep up with both classic SEO and a completely new visibility channel: AI search.
This shift is exactly why we built AI Signal, our new visibility layer for AI search.
It shows how tools like ChatGPT describe your brand, which competitors they prefer, and what information is missing, outdated, or incorrect. For many teams, this became as important as Google rankings in 2025.
Here is XOVI’s look back at what changed, what we shipped, and what’s coming in 2026.
TLDR:
- AI assistants became a new visibility channel. They deliver answers, not links, and if your brand isn’t mentioned, you’re invisible.
- Teams lost control. AI outputs are often outdated, incomplete, or wrong, and checking them manually doesn’t scale.
- AI Signal fills this gap. It makes your AI visibility measurable and fixable, showing how ChatGPT and others describe your brand and where competitors replace you.
- Google removed the num=100 parameter. XOVI rebuilt rank tracking and now delivers daily Top 50 data without changing plans or pricing.
- XOVI got faster. Big upgrades: JavaScript crawling, faster onboarding, quicker dashboards, 8x faster keyword analysis, and improved navigation. Create your XOVI account.
- Momentum is strong. Growth across DACH, early traction in the US, and positive AI Signal beta results with 40 users and 100 projects.
- 2026 roadmap. Full AI Signal rollout, weekly scans, alerts, historic trends, Vision Mode, expanded datasets, and more workflow speed improvements.
The SEO Landscape in 2025
Google results became less predictable
Google rolled out multiple core updates, tightened spam signals, and introduced more AI-supported snippets.
What teams saw:
- More ranking volatility
- Faster “reshuffling” in Top-100 results
- Harder client forecasting
- Stronger weight on engagement, brand clarity, and content depth
AI assistants turned into search engines
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot increasingly replace classic search steps.
Users now ask questions and get direct answers, not a list of links.
This shift matters because:
- If AI doesn’t mention your brand, you don’t exist in that answer
- Incorrect or outdated info spreads fast
- Competitors can beat you without outranking you on Google
This is exactly the visibility gap AI Signal was built to solve.
AI Signal shows how AI tools describe your brand, where you appear, and where information is missing.
Instead of guessing, teams now get clear visibility scores, competitor comparisons, and concrete suggestions to improve their AI presence.
Google Changes Rank Tracking: XOVI’s Top 50 Upgrade
In September’25, Google removed the num=100 parameter used by SEO tools to retrieve deep rankings. Overnight, the entire industry lost easy access to positions 11–100.
Instead of reducing depth or raising prices, XOVI rebuilt its tracking engine.
The result:
✔ Daily Top 50 tracking for all users
✔ Stable visibility data
✔ Faster dashboards
✔ No price changes
This update required 5–10× more crawling capacity, but it ensures that agencies, freelancers, and SMBs get reliable visibility data without complexity or cost increases.
Why this matters for agencies, freelancers, and SMBs
SEO is no longer just “rank higher on Google.”
Visibility now spans:
- Search engines
- AI assistants
- Aggregated content sources
- User-generated platforms
Teams need fewer tools, faster insights, and cross-channel visibility. This is why XOVI focuses on simplifying SEO for small teams, bringing all key visibility signals into one platform without extra complexity.
This defined the direction of XOVI’s 2025 product year.
XOVI Product Highlights 2025
AI Signal: Your brand in AI search
Our biggest release of the year.
AI Signal shows how AI models describe your brand, your products, and your competitors. It turns AI-generated answers into something measurable, trackable, and fixable.
Why it matters:
If a competitor replaces you in AI responses, you lose visibility instantly. AI Signal helps you catch these shifts early and gives you clear steps to correct outdated or missing information.
What it includes:
- AI Visibility Score that shows how clearly your brand appears in AI-generated answers
- Information completeness checks to flag missing, outdated, or incorrect business details
- Competitor mentions to show when another brand appears instead of you
- Fact highlights based on what AI tools emphasize about your company or products
- Actionable improvement suggestions that turn AI findings into practical SEO tasks
- Brand, product, and service descriptions written by AI assistants so you can see how you’re represented today
The AI Signal beta program included 40 users and 100 projects across agencies, freelancers, SMBs, SaaS, and e-commerce businesses.
Across all segments, the demand was clear. Users finally had a way to measure how AI tools describe their brand.
With a great conversion rate in its first cycle and highly positive feedback, AI Signal proved its relevance and commercial potential.
JavaScript Site Audit: Full JS crawling
Modern sites rely heavily on JavaScript frameworks, but many crawlers still struggle with them or charge extra for JS rendering. XOVI now fully renders JavaScript so you can audit SPAs, e-commerce frontends, and dynamic content without missing data.
This closes a gap highlighted in regional SEO tool comparisons. Agencies and freelancers get complete, accurate audits without needing separate crawling tools, paid add-ons, or manual workarounds.
(*) JS crawling is available across all XOVI plans and does not require an upgrade.
How XOVI crawls JavaScript websites
New onboarding: Faster start, clearer setup
We redesigned onboarding so users can:
- Set up their first project in minutes
- Connect GA + GSC without friction
- Get instant audit insights
- Understand key metrics immediately
This supports our positioning as the all-in-one SEO suite built for small teams who want simplicity, not complexity.
Set up your first project in minutes
Major infrastructure upgrade: Faster everything
This upgrade touched almost every layer of the platform.
Results:
- Faster dashboards
- Improved crawler stability
- Quicker data refresh cycles
- Better performance on larger sites
This foundation powers all speed improvements shipped this year.
Domain filter in Rank Tracker Overview: Better for agencies
Based on agency feedback, users can now filter by domain directly in the Rank Tracker overview.
This makes multi-client management faster and far more intuitive.
Navigation improvements: Built around real workflows
We reorganized XOVI’s navigation to:
- Reduce click paths
- Group related tools
- Highlight the most-used workflows
Less searching, more doing.
Keyword Analysis – now 8x faster
We reduced query processing time from several minutes to roughly 10 seconds, making keyword research much more fluid for:
- Agencies juggling many clients
- Freelancers working in short time blocks
- SMBs needing quick insights
Speed is a core expectation for people who need immediate data to act on.
XOVI’s Momentum in 2025
Growing user base across DACH
XOVI strengthened its role as the all-in-one SEO suite for small agencies, freelancers, and SMBs — supported by local market knowledge, GDPR compliance, and a simple workflow-first design.
Our support is 100% human. No AI chatbots, no automated flows. Users get direct access to real support specialists and individual account managers, and we will keep it this way in 2026.
All core systems, servers, and data processing are in Germany. This matters for larger customers, agencies with sensitive accounts, and teams in regulated sectors such as government, finance, and healthcare. It keeps data local, secure, and compliant.
Expansion into the US
US agencies testing XOVI appreciated the speed, clarity, and affordability compared to enterprise-priced SEO tools.
These insights informed improvements in onboarding, reporting, and user guidance.
What’s Coming in 2026
Full rollout of AI Signal
Planned enhancements include weekly automated scans, alerts for visibility changes, and historic trendlines, with additional improvements under evaluation.
International expansion
We will extend keyword databases and competitive datasets and add more languages for AI analysis.
More speed and workflow improvements
We continue investing in faster audits, improved dashboards, simplified reporting, and better support for multi-client agencies.
Thank you for your continued support!
2025 was a turning point for SEO and AI search.
Thank you for being part of the XOVI community this year.
We’re building 2026 around one core goal: giving all teams the visibility they deserve across search and AI.