We asked ChatGPT for software recommendations 1225 times. Here is who it named.

Everyone assumes the best-known software brands own AI search. We decided to check. We took 49 SaaS companies that most people in tech could name from memory, asked ChatGPT the questions their buyers actually ask, and counted how often each brand got named. The results were not evenly distributed.

What we tested

Each company got 25 questions, 1225 in total. The important detail is what we did not ask. We never mentioned the brand by name in a discovery question. Asking “is Notion any good?” guarantees ChatGPT says the word Notion, which measures nothing. Instead we asked things like “best no-code database tools” and “which CRM should I use”, then checked whether the brand showed up on its own.

For the head-to-head numbers below, both the brand and its competitors are counted over the same 11 neutral category questions, so nobody gets credit for a question that named them in the first place.

The results

Being loved is not the same as being visible

The clearest finding is the gap at the bottom. Adyen and n8n and Mattermost and Obsidian and Coda and Monday.com and Railway and Workato and Linear and Smartsheet and ActiveCampaign and Confluence and Shortcut and Zulip and Baserow and Superhuman and Missive and Paddle are products with real reputations among the people who use them daily. Ask ChatGPT for the best tools in their categories without naming them, and they score 45/100 and 39/100 and 39/100 and 38/100 and 32/100 and 31/100 and 26/100 and 25/100 and 25/100 and 22/100 and 20/100 and 18/100 and 17/100 and 0/100 and 0/100 and 0/100 and 0/100 and 0/100.

Adyen was named in 8 of 11 neutral category questions. Stripe was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Stripe almost every time and Adyen rarely.

n8n was named in 2 of 11 neutral category questions. Zapier was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Zapier almost every time and n8n rarely.

Mattermost was named in 4 of 11 neutral category questions. Slack was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Slack almost every time and Mattermost rarely.

Obsidian was named in 6 of 11 neutral category questions. Notion was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Notion almost every time and Obsidian rarely.

Coda was named in 3 of 11 neutral category questions. Notion was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Notion almost every time and Coda rarely.

Monday.com was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Airtable was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Airtable almost every time and Monday.com not once.

Railway was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Vercel was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Vercel almost every time and Railway not once.

Workato was named in 1 of 11 neutral category questions. Zapier was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Zapier almost every time and Workato rarely.

Linear was named in 2 of 11 neutral category questions. Jira was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Jira almost every time and Linear rarely.

Smartsheet was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Airtable was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Airtable almost every time and Smartsheet not once.

ActiveCampaign was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. HubSpot was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about HubSpot almost every time and ActiveCampaign not once.

Confluence was named in 1 of 11 neutral category questions. Notion was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Notion almost every time and Confluence rarely.

Shortcut was named in 1 of 11 neutral category questions. Jira was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Jira almost every time and Shortcut rarely.

Zulip was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Slack was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Slack almost every time and Zulip not once.

Baserow was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Airtable was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Airtable almost every time and Baserow not once.

Superhuman was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Outlook was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Outlook almost every time and Superhuman not once.

Missive was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Outlook was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Outlook almost every time and Missive not once.

Paddle was named in 0 of 11 neutral category questions. Stripe was named in 11 of the same 11. A buyer researching this category through ChatGPT hears about Stripe almost every time and Paddle not once.

Why the leaders lead

23 of the 49 brands scored in the strong-to-dominant range. They share something that has little to do with product quality: they are written about constantly, by other people, in the listicles, comparison posts, documentation, forum threads and review sites that models train on. When a model has read a thousand “best tools for X” posts and a brand appears in most of them, that brand becomes the default answer.

The laggards tend to grow through channels models cannot see: word of mouth, private communities, sales conversations, and a beautiful product that people show each other in person. That builds a brand. It does not build a corpus.

What this means for your company

If brands this well known can be invisible in AI answers, brand recognition alone will not carry a smaller company. AI visibility is a separate thing from awareness, from traffic, and from Google rankings, and it has to be measured separately.

The uncomfortable part is that you cannot see this in your analytics. There is no referrer, no impression count, and no ranking position for an answer that never mentioned you. The only way to know is to ask the models directly and count.

Method and limits

Scores weight how often a brand appeared (50%), how high it ranked in the answer (30%), and how positively it was described (20%). Brand matching is whole-word, so “Linear” is not credited for “linearly”, and an answer stating it has never heard of a brand does not count as a mention.

Two honest caveats. This run tested ChatGPT only, so it is not a claim about every AI assistant. And model outputs vary between runs, so treat individual scores as a reading with a margin rather than a fixed number. The gap between a brand named every time and one named never is far larger than that margin.