AI Indexes
GTM AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 15, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Customer › In-app messaging › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

In-app messaging and customer communications for enterprise buyers

Asked as “in-app messaging platform”, and as “customer communications tool for product messaging”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 53 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
15%
Contested · Braze 9%
15Pendo09Braze09Intercom66others

15% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Pendo15%8%26accepted challenger
02Braze9%18%38accepted challenger
03Intercom9%25%40criticized challenger
04Sendbird9%19%21accepted challenger
05CometChat4%0%15accepted challenger
06Stream Chat4%20%20accepted challenger
07Twilio Conversations4%20%15accepted challenger
08Rocket.Chat2%0%12accepted challenger
09Userpilot2%0%13accepted challenger
10Customer.io2%8%12accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
16WhatsApp0%100%12criticized challenger
15Telegram0%100%10criticized challenger
14Microsoft Teams0%50%10criticized challenger
13Slack0%50%10criticized challenger
12OneSignal0%23%22accepted challenger
11Appcues0%13%23accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Pendo15%
02Braze9%
03Intercom9%
04Sendbird9%
05CometChat4%
06Stream Chat4%
07Twilio Conversations4%
08Rocket.Chat2%
09Userpilot2%
10Customer.io2%
11Appcues0%
12OneSignal0%
13Slack0%
14Microsoft Teams0%
15Telegram0%
16WhatsApp0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
WhatsApp
100%
12 of 12 labels negative · 12 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“large enterprises should avoid or require strict risk acceptance for: Any consumer messaging app used for business data, e.g. WhatsApp, standard Teams for sensitive work” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Telegram
100%
10 of 10 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“**WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram**: The CFTC investigated four companies that failed to stop employees ... using unapproved communication methods” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
Signal
100%
8 of 8 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“While **Signal** offers strong end-to-end encryption, it still lacks enterprise management, compliance archiving, and administrative controls.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Intercom
25%
10 of 40 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Avoid platforms with complex variable pricing (like Iterable or Intercom's outcome-based AI pricing)” Claude Haiku 4.5, budget prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1148 links across 341 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Guideflow46 answers · 58 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Userpilot35 answers · 40 citations · 12 models
vendor site · CometChat34 answers · 47 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Knock25 answers · 37 citations · 11 models
21 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Pushwoosh21 answers · 21 citations · 10 models
19 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Rocket.Chat17 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Product Fruits16 answers · 17 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Wire15 answers · 33 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Helply15 answers · 15 citations · 10 models
vendor site · TrueConf13 answers · 19 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best in-app messaging platform”, “in-app messaging platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 days
Pendo pendo.io15%42012,10076119,185$3,60993
Braze braze.com9%50527,1006,39555,552$13,11259
Intercom intercom.com9%44133,1007,16564,348$3,304120
Sendbird sendbird.com9%462,9008647,136$2023
Salesforce parent site
Salesforce Service Cloud 6%
6%199550,00060,632
Knock knock.app
Knock 4%, Knock.app 2%
6%5433,10094,5857,0750
CometChat cometchat.com4%41720129,3297
Stream Chat getstream.io4%425,40055281,47967
Twilio parent site
Twilio Conversations 4%
4%25135,0004,343
Zendesk zendesk.com4%7274,0003,5665,365,445$16,18163

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 2 of them are among the sites the models cited here (pushwoosh.com, userpilot.com). The first result for “best in-app messaging platform” is userpilot.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best in-app messaging platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which customer communications tool for product messaging would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade in-app messaging platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best in-app messaging platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating an in-app messaging platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which in-app messaging platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Pendo
Five alternativesAppcues, Gleap, Intercom, Product Fruits, Userflow
no first choiceChangedno first choiceBraze
Two alternativesProduct Fruits, Userpilot
against: Intercom, Iterable
no first choiceagainst: LINE, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Wire
GPT-5.4 miniPendo
Two alternativesAppcues, Intercom
IntercomChanged
Two alternativesAppcues, Pendo
Braze
Two alternativesAirship, Appcues
against: Firebase In-App Messaging
Customer.io
One alternativeBraze
against: Intercom, OneSignal
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashPendo
Six alternativesCometChat, MirrorFly, Sendbird, Stream Chat, WalkMe, Whatfix
Braze, PendoChanged
Two alternativesFront, Zendesk
Braze, Sendbird, Stream Chat
Seven alternativesAppcues, CleverTap, CometChat, MirrorFly, OneSignal, Pendo, PubNub
Product Fruits, TalkJS
Six alternativesChatwoot, Matrix, Rocket.Chat, Synapse, Userflow, Usertour
against: Appcues, Intercom, Pendo, Sendbird, Stream Chat, Zendesk
no first choiceagainst: Appcues, Firebase Realtime Database, Intercom, Pendo, Sendbird, Telegram, WalkMe, WhatsApp, Zoom Chat
Perplexity SonarBraze, Intercom
Three alternativesProduct Fruits, Twilio Conversations, Userpilot
Salesforce Service CloudChanged
Three alternativesOpenText Communications, Quadient Inspire, Zendesk
Braze
Five alternativesCleverTap, CometChat, Knock, OneSignal, Sendbird
TrueConfagainst: Airship, Braze, CleverTap, Intercom, MoEngage, OneSignalno first choiceagainst: Airship, Braze, Microsoft Teams, Signal, Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp
Grok 4.20Intercom
Three alternativesHubSpot Service Hub, Sendbird, Zendesk Sunshine Conversations
against: Drift
Salesforce Marketing CloudChanged
Five alternativesAdobe Marketo Engage, Braze, Front, HubSpot, Intercom
Braze, Iterable
Three alternativesOneSignal, Sendbird, Twilio Conversations
PubNub
Three alternativesMatrix, MirrorFly, Rocket.Chat
against: Ably, Pusher, Slack Enterprise Grid, Twilio Conversations
no first choiceagainst: Discord, Google Chat, Instagram DMs, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, TikTok, WhatsApp, iMessage
Mistral SmallTwilio Conversations, Userpilot
One alternativeBraze
Einstein AI-Powered Customer Communications Management SoftwareChanged
One alternativeSlack Connect
Braze
Eight alternativesAppcues, CleverTap, CometChat, MoEngage, Pendo, Sendbird, Stream Chat, Userpilot
Sendbird, Stream Chat
One alternativeAmity Social Cloud
no first choiceagainst: Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp
DeepSeek V4 FlashCometChat
Three alternativesMirrorFly, Sendbird, Twilio Conversations
PendoChanged
Two alternativesIntercom, WalkMe
CometChat, Intercom, Sendbird
Seven alternativesBraze, Customer.io, OneSignal, PubNub, Stream Chat, Twilio Conversations, Userpilot
Knock.app, Sendbirdagainst: Braze, Intercom, Stream Chat, Twilio Conversationsno first choiceagainst: Discord, Microsoft Teams, Sendbird, Signal, Slack, Stream Chat, Telegram, Twilio Conversations, WhatsApp
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Braze, Signal, Slack, WhatsApp
Qwen 3.7 FlashProduct Fruits
Three alternativesIntercom, OneSignal, Userpilot
LaunchNotesChanged
Three alternativesAnnounceKit, Pendo, Userpilot
Appcues, Braze
Four alternativesCleverTap, Customer.io, Pendo, Product Fruits
Rocket.Chat, Stream Chat
One alternativeMattermost
against: PubNub, Pusher, Twilio Sendbird
Sendbird
Three alternativesCometChat, Stream Chat, Twilio Conversations
against: Facebook Messenger, Firebase, OneSignal, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp
Kimi K2Braze, Sendbird
Three alternativesIntercom, Rocket.Chat, Stream Chat
Salesforce Service CloudChanged
Four alternativesBraze, Gainsight PX, Pendo, Zendesk
against: Intercom
Braze
Seven alternativesAirship, CleverTap, MoEngage, OneSignal, Sendbird, Stream Chat, Twilio Conversations
Mattermost
Two alternativesMicrosoft Teams, Rocket.Chat
against: Braze, CleverTap, Intercom, MoEngage, PubNub, Sendbird, Stream Chat
no first choiceagainst: Facebook Messenger, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage
GLM 4.7 FlashXIntercom, Zendesk
Four alternativesCometChat, Customer.io, Helply, Stream Chat
LaunchNotesChanged
Three alternativesAppcues, Intercom, Pendo
Braze
Nine alternativesAirship, Appcues, CometChat, Customer.io, Firebase, Intercom, OneSignal, Rocket.Chat, Userpilot
Airship, Braze
Two alternativesCourier, Knock
no first choiceagainst: Discord, Messenger, Signal, Snapchat, Telegram, WhatsApp
MiniMax M2.5Drift, Intercom
Three alternativesMattermost, Rocket.Chat, Zendesk
Salesforce Service Cloud, ZendeskChanged
Two alternativesBraze, Intercom
Braze
Four alternativesIntercom, Knock, OneSignal, Twilio Conversations
CometChat, Knock, Sendbird
Two alternativesMattermost, Rocket.Chat
against: MessageDesk
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Teams, Slack, TeleMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:47yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:33yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:09yes1223 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:34yes183 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:17yes2519 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:09yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:27yes2324 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 12:11yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:31yes933 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:20yes1419 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:55yes22129 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:54yes532 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:11no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:54yes36 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:14yes2330 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 13:58yes184 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 12:31yes2212 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:55yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:34yes1839 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:35yes51 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:53yes2067 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:06yes2539 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 13:02yes1728 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:53yes539 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:36yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:45yes76 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 14:07yes1525 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:45yes194 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:32yes1912 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:10yes911 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:42yes2143 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:48yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:09yes1551 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:57yes2036 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:32yes2349 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 14:11yes1225 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:57yes99 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:48yes57 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:00yes1828 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:02yes203 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:08yes2410 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:32yes228 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:35yes2222 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 13:23yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:51no033 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:59yes1828 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 14:01yes1960 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:57yes2256 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:48yes1814 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:36yes26 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:21yes1026 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:55yes197 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:29yes198 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:40no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:22yes2245 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 13:48yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 13:28yes953 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:40yes2332 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:31yes2240 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:14no048 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:56yes189 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:33yes47 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:00yes3130 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:38yes194 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:56yes1910 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:46yes127 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 13:50yes2249 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:24yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:59no033 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:17yes2425 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 12:29yes25100 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 12:24yes547 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
GetStream read as Stream Chat
Stream read as Stream Chat
Stream (GetStream) read as Stream Chat
Stream (GetStream.io) read as Stream Chat
Stream (formerly GetStream) read as Stream Chat
Twilio read as Twilio Conversations
Twilio (Conversations & Messaging) read as Twilio Conversations
Twilio (Flex) read as Twilio Conversations
Twilio (Segment + Messaging APIs) read as Twilio Conversations
Unresolved, counted raw
Amity Social Cloud
BlackBerry Secure
Einstein AI-Powered Customer Communications Management Software
Firebase Realtime Database
Instagram DMs
Knock.app
Microsoft
OpenText Communications (Exstream)
Pendo Product Experience
Slack Connect
Symphony
Threema Work
Twilio Sendbird
Usertour
ViralGain
Zoom Chat
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← Digital adoptionKnowledge base →