How often each brand is named, across unbranded questions and all five engines
BRANDS
SHARE
ChatGPT
Claude
Gemini
Perplexity
Google AI Overviews
Powered by daydreamEvery question changed this edition. The previous editions asked a set we wrote for the category; this one asks questions derived from what buyers actually searched or posted, so a month-over-month figure would compare two different questions and read as movement. Comparison returns next edition, when there are two mined runs to set against each other.
The same question asked at each company size
Share of answers naming the brand
BRANDS
SMBShare of answers naming this brand when the question is asked at this company size50-person startup
ENTERPRISEShare of answers naming this brand when the question is asked at this company size2,000-person company
SPREADThe gap between the highest and lowest column in this row, in percentage points
Powered by daydreamThe engines that name a brand least and most often, and the gap between them
BRANDS
LOWEST ENGINEThe engine that names this brand least often, and its share
HIGHEST ENGINEThe engine that names this brand most often, and its share
SPREADThe gap between the highest and lowest column in this row, in percentage points
PerplexityClaudePerplexityClaudePerplexityClaudeAI OverviewsClaudeAI OverviewsClaudePerplexityClaudePerplexityClaudePerplexityClaudePowered by daydreamThe sites the engines linked to when they answered
SOURCES
REACHShare of all answers that cited this source at least once% of all answers
LINKSEvery link to this source, counted across all answerstotal
DEPTHLinks to this source per answer that cited itlinks/answer
gartner.comPowered by daydream
How we measure this3 of 12 questions published
We write a fixed set of category questions, none of which names a brand, and count how often each brand comes up. A brand is present in an answer only when one of its names literally appears in the text, because a string match cannot hallucinate.
Every question starts from one somebody already asked. Some come from search demand, where the figure is how many people typed that phrasing in a month. The rest come from a public forum post, and we link to the page it was written on. We rewrite each one into a plain question, because a search string is a fragment and a forum post is written the way people type, and neither is a fair thing to ask an engine. We change the wording and never the subject, and the original is published beside every question we disclose. The set is frozen before a single answer is collected, so every engine and every edition is asked exactly the same thing.
The 3 we publish, of 12
Chosen to span both where the questions come from and how they are shaped, so the sample describes the battery rather than one corner of it. That is 25% of the questions the ranking comes from.
- What is the best approach to global payroll compliance for US companies expanding overseasas asked: Best approach to global payroll compliance for US companies expanding overseas?reddit.com
- What is the best employer of recordas asked: best employer of record140/mo
- What has your experience been using a global payroll vendoras asked: Experience using a global payroll vendor?reddit.com
Each is asked 3 ways
- … for a 50-person startup hiring its first international employees
- … for a 2,000-person company with employees in many countries
- … at the lowest cost, with transparent per-employee pricing
Why the rest stays private
A published battery invites brands to write pages against the exact wording, at which point a score moves without the brand’s actual standing moving and the measurement stops describing anything. Benchmark suites keep a held-out set for the same reason. The method is public so it can be judged, a quarter of the questions are public so it can be checked, and the rest stays private so the numbers stay worth checking.
What the numbers are, and aren’t
- The August 2026 edition is one dated run, not a rolling average.
- Share is averaged across the engines rather than pooled, so an engine that returned fewer answers cannot look like a brand losing ground.
- A move is marked only when a two-proportion test puts it outside what the sample size can explain. A few points between neighbouring brands is a tie.
- Rankings reflect how often AI engines name a brand. They are not endorsements by daydream.
- 16 further questions name competitors directly. None of them feeds the ranking, because a question that already names the contenders cannot measure who gets recommended. They do count towards the citation trail, which is measured over every answer we collected rather than the unbranded ones alone.
