ThriveFinity vs ASAD for AI Search Optimisation (GEO) in the UAE

Pick ASAD if you're a business in the UAE or the wider Gulf that wants a local team running AI search work every month, in Arabic and English, alongside technical SEO, content and digital PR. Pick ThriveFinity, which is us, if you're a B2B company that wants AI search handled as a defined job first, with a published price, a fixed set of buyer questions and a re-test of the same questions at day 30, and you'll decide on ongoing work after that.

Both firms track the same five AI tools, both say no one can guarantee a citation, and both measure against named competitors. So the choice comes down to the engagement shape, the language and the market you sell into. I'm writing for one of the two firms, so I've kept to what each of us publishes and given ASAD its own section on when it's the better choice.

Facts about ASAD come from its own website, checked on 31 October 2026. Services and terms change, so check its site before you decide. We have a commercial interest in this comparison, and ThriveFinity isn't affiliated with ASAD. Where its pages are silent, the table says "not published". That doesn't mean it doesn't offer the thing. Ask.

A Local AI Search Agency or a Fixed-Scope Studio

ASAD is a Dubai team that runs AI search as an ongoing programme. We sell AI search as scoped pieces of work, from a different country.

ASAD calls itself an "AI SEO Agency in Dubai" on its homepage. Its About page says it was founded in Dubai by Shantanu Pandey, lists an address in Dubai Silicon Oasis and says it works across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the GCC. It describes itself as the focused AI search team inside a wider ASAD practice. Its homepage lists six services: AI Search Optimisation, Technical SEO and Core Web Vitals, AI Content Strategy, Digital PR and Authority, Local AI Search for Dubai and the GCC, and AI Visibility Reporting.

ThriveFinity is a one-person company, ThriveFinity (OPC) Private Limited, registered in Chennai, India, and it serves B2B companies in the UK, the US, the UAE and elsewhere. We sell AI search optimisation (GEO) as defined pieces of work: a free Signal, a fixed-price AI Presence service, an AI Visibility service priced by scoped estimate, and an optional monthly AI Growth plan. A named verifier signs every paid report.

One more difference matters early. ASAD works in Arabic and English. Its Local AI Search service is about your brand surfacing when buyers search in Arabic the way it does in English. Our published services don't mention Arabic. If your buyers ask AI tools in Arabic, that may settle the question.

Side-by-Side Comparison

The table lines up what each firm publishes on the same fourteen points. ASAD's column quotes or summarises its own pages as they read on 31 October 2026, and ours comes from our service pages and published pricing.

"Not published" means the pages we checked didn't say. ThriveFinity prices are shown in GBP with the set USD and AED prices in brackets, plus applicable taxes. None is a conversion of another. Your final price follows your billing country at checkout, as set out on our pricing page, and businesses billed in the UAE pay the AED price.

What ASAD Publishes About Its GEO Work

ASAD publishes a good deal about its process, reporting and terms, though not its prices.

Its GEO services page lists entity optimisation, authoritative content, digital PR, trusted citations, LLM ranking audits and continuous improvement. It says the work covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini at the same time, and names its tracking tools: the prompt aggregators Otterly and Profound, with Ahrefs and SEMrush underneath. The same page lists six situations where it says it isn't a fit, including wanting guaranteed AI rankings, wanting a one-time GEO project, and lacking clear positioning. That last one is worth reading twice. GEO makes a company easier to find, and it can't fix a message that doesn't land.

Its FAQ sets out how an engagement runs. Most start with a 48-hour AI visibility audit. If that finds gaps worth fixing, it proposes "a focused 12-week sprint on one or two priority categories", and most clients then move to a monthly programme with a three-month minimum and 60 days' notice to exit. It signs a mutual NDA before any strategy session, and its homepage says it reports on progress every two weeks.

The FAQ is also direct about what it can't promise. Asked whether it guarantees a top-three citation or an AI Overview placement, it says no, and explains why:

What it guarantees instead is the process: research, publishing cadence, third-party pitches, prompt monitoring and transparent reporting. Every engagement has a structured 60-day review, and its FAQ says that if the process isn't producing results by month two it will tell you, then re-scope or end the engagement. It also says it has ended engagements early and would refund a month rather than carry an unhappy account. I'd ask for that in writing, since it's on an FAQ page and not in a published contract.

Its FAQ gives time ranges for results too. These are ASAD's own expectations, not outcomes we've checked:

Its proposal page says it doesn't publish prices because the right scope depends on you. It lists what moves the number: services in scope, markets served, bilingual or single-language work, sprint or programme, the technical state of your site, and whether it writes or your team writes. A proposal sets out the investment by service and the payment schedule. Its pages also show its own performance figures, which I haven't repeated here.

How Each One Measures Results

Both firms measure how often AI tools name you against competitors. The difference is the cadence and what gets compared with what.

Measurement matters because AI tools rarely give the same answer twice. In a study published in January 2026, SparkToro and Gumshoe had 600 volunteers run 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI a combined 2,961 times. Rand Fishkin reported that the tools gave the same list of brands less than 1 time in 100, and the same list in the same order closer to 1 in 1,000 runs. One run of a question tells you very little. What you want is a rate, measured the same way before and after.

ASAD's FAQ describes weekly citation tracking against your top three competitors on five engines, monthly reports with citation share, citation rank and sentiment, and quarterly reviews that tie citation movement to pipeline figures from your CRM. It also says the dashboard is yours to keep if you stop working with it. That's useful. Ask how many times each prompt is run per week, because I didn't find that number on its pages.

We ask each of 100 to 150 buyer questions several times in each of five AI tools, against 3 to 5 named competitors, before any work starts. Then we fix what we can and run exactly the same set again at day 30. The free Signal is a smaller version, 12 questions across four tools, scored 0 to 100. My post on why a visibility score needs a range explains how to read the result without overreading it.

Both approaches build on ordinary search work. Google says it plainly in its guidance for site owners:

That covers Google's AI features, one of the five tools on both firms' lists. It doesn't speak for ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity, which is one more reason to measure each tool separately and repeatedly.

When ASAD Is the Better Choice

ASAD is the better choice when you want a local team running AI search continuously, especially in Arabic. These are the situations where I'd point you there rather than to us.

• Your buyers search in Arabic. Its Local AI Search service covers Arabic and English. Ours doesn't list Arabic.
• You want someone in Dubai. It lists a Dubai Silicon Oasis address and work across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the GCC. We work remotely from India.
• You want technical SEO, content and digital PR done by the same team that tracks your AI visibility. It lists all of them as in-house services.
• You want weekly tracking and reporting every two weeks, rather than a before and after.
• You want AI citations tied to your CRM pipeline in quarterly reviews.
• You're ready to commit to a programme of at least three months, with 60 days' notice, after a 12-week sprint.

The trade-off is the usual one for an agency that prices by proposal. You won't know the cost until you've briefed it, and the refund line sits in an FAQ. Get the scope, the price and the exit terms in writing.

When ThriveFinity Is the Better Choice

We're the better choice when you want AI search treated as a measured project first, at a price you can see, before you commit to anything monthly.

• You want the price on the page. AI Presence is £849 ($1,099, AED 4,199), AI Visibility starts from £2,250 ($2,949, AED 11,149) and AI Growth from £2,250 ($2,949, AED 11,149) a month.
• You want a baseline before any spend. The free AI Presence Signal takes under an hour.
• You'd rather buy one fixed job and see a day-30 re-test before you sign up for monthly work. ASAD's own not-a-fit list includes wanting a one-time GEO project.
• You sell to buyers outside the Gulf as well. We serve B2B companies in the UK, the US, the UAE and elsewhere.
• You want every report signed by a named verifier, with errors corrected within 5 working days or that fee refunded or credited.

If you want to try it yourself first, my guide to running an AI visibility check shows how to build a small baseline in an afternoon.

Questions to Ask Any Provider

Ask each firm the same questions and get the answers in writing. Google's page on whether you need an SEO, updated in June 2026, now suggests asking anyone offering AEO or GEO services whether their advice is aligned with Google Search's official guidance on generative AI features. It also suggests asking what results to expect and in what timeframe, and how they measure success.

1. Which buyer questions will you track, and can I see the full list before we start?
2. Which AI tools do you test, and how many times do you run each question per check?
3. Which competitors are we measured against, and who chooses them?
4. When is the re-test, and will it use exactly the same questions and settings as the baseline?
5. What does it cost, what's the minimum term and what's the notice period?
6. Which languages do you cover, and do Arabic and English answers get tracked separately?
7. What happens if a report contains a factual error, or the numbers don't move?

The longer version, with red flags, is in our GEO agency buyer's guide. It's written for UK buyers, but the questions travel.

How We Wrote This Comparison

This page names a competitor, so UK advertising rules apply to it. Section 3 of the CAP Code says a comparison with an identifiable competitor must "compare products meeting the same needs or intended for the same purpose" and must objectively compare features that are material, relevant, verifiable and representative. Regulation 4 of the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 sets the same conditions and bars comparisons that discredit or denigrate a competitor.

The shared need here is buying AI search optimisation for a B2B company that sells in the UAE. Every fact about ASAD links to the page it came from and was checked on 31 October 2026. Its site shows performance figures, project and brand counts, reviews and case studies. I haven't repeated any of them, because I can't verify them and quoting them would only repeat its marketing.

Why this firm? When we asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity best AI visibility agencies in the UAE three times each on 31 October 2026, ASAD was named in 3 of 12 answers. ThriveFinity was named in none. We ran the test through each provider's API, and it measures how often a firm is mentioned, nothing about the quality of its work.

Spotted something out of date or wrong? Email om@thrivefinity.uk. We respond within 5 working days, and corrections are logged on our errata page. The next scheduled recheck of every fact here is due by 29 January 2027.

Where ThriveFinity Fits

We fit when you want AI search work as a defined job with a known price and a measured before and after.

• AI Presence Signal (free, under an hour): 12 buyer questions across GPT (OpenAI), Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, scored 0 to 100. It's automated and unsigned, and you can run the free AI Presence Signal now.
• AI Presence (£849 ($1,099, AED 4,199), 5 working days): a signed fact sheet, a scored audit of the 15 to 20 places AI learns who you are, and up to 10 profiles created or claimed in your name. Credited in full to AI Visibility booked within 30 days.
• AI Visibility (from £2,250 ($2,949, AED 11,149), 10 working days): 100 to 150 buyer questions across five AI tools, your top 10 pages fixed, 5 briefs for new pages and a re-test at day 30.
• AI Growth (from £2,250 ($2,949, AED 11,149) a month) or Quarterly Re-measurement (£595 ($799, AED 2,899)): ongoing tracking after AI Visibility. AI Growth has a 3-month minimum, then 30 days' notice.

We're not the right choice if you need Arabic-language work, a team in Dubai, or technical SEO and digital PR run every week by the same people. A local agency like ASAD will serve you better there. We also don't buy links or placements, and we won't promise that any AI tool will name you. Our sample AI visibility report shows what you'd get, and every comparison we've published is on the comparisons hub.

Pranav Unni

Founder · ThriveFinity Connect on LinkedIn →

Pranav Unni is the founder and lead verifier of ThriveFinity. He reads and signs every paid deliverable personally, and writes about go-to-market decisions for established B2B companies.