Competitive intelligence tools
Asked as “competitive intelligence tool”, and as “competitor tracking platform for product marketing”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
38%
Contested · Klue 26%
38Kompyte26Klue12Crayon24others
38% of first choices, contested.
The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince September 2026
06
Google Alerts Lab in the set4%7%14accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 4% now.
Google Alerts Lab in the set4%7%14accepted challengernewNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 4% now.Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
The floor is 12 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. How the floor is measured
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.
Google Alerts is made by Google, whose model Gemini 3.1 Pro is in the set. On the four share prompts that model made it the first choice zero times of 4; the other five models zero times of 20. Lab treatment is defined on the method page; the row is marked, not excluded.
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
0506O07
08
09
10
11
12Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Kompyte38%
Kompyte38%02Klue26%
Klue26%03Crayon12%
Crayon12%04SpyFu6%
SpyFu6%05Visualping4%
Visualping4%06Google Alerts4%
Google Alerts4%07Owler2%
08Similarweb0%
Similarweb0%09Semrush0%
Semrush0%10AlphaSense0%
AlphaSense0%11Contify0%
Contify0%12Ahrefs0%
Ahrefs0%What they warned about
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.
Crayon24%
13 of 55 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“**Enterprise tools** (Crayon, Klue) typically start at $25K+/year — avoid these on a limited budget” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Klue16%
9 of 55 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“**Enterprise tools** (Crayon, Klue) typically start at $25K+/year — avoid these on a limited budget” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Semrush20%
8 of 41 labels negative · 7 of 6 models
“While slightly pricier, it offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can be worth the investment. However, if budget is truly limited, SpyFu might be a better choice.” MiniMax M2.5, budget prompt
Contify23%
5 of 22 labels negative · 5 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid unless you have a large enterprise IT budget and a dedicated analyst” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
77 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1047 links across 246 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.
vendor site · ZoomInfo38 answers · 49 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Klue34 answers · 40 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Contify33 answers · 46 citations · 14 models
vendor site · Improvado31 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
29 answers · 30 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Copy.ai28 answers · 41 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Kompyte24 answers · 32 citations · 11 models
21 answers · 23 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Hootsuite20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
18 answers · 21 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Prospeo17 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 31 citations · 10 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.
30 answers · 11 models
30 answers · 10 models
28 answers · 10 models
26 answers · 8 models
23 answers · 10 models
20 answers · 10 models
19 answers · 10 models
19 answers · 10 models
13 answers · 9 models
13 answers · 9 models
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 competitive intelligence tool”, “competitive intelligence tool”. 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 products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days | Best Google position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kompyte kompyte.com | 38% | 167 | 320 | 5 | 4,269 | |||
| Klue klue.com | 26% | 288 | 2,900 | 168 | 10,357 | 5 | 1 | |
| Crayon crayon.co | 12% | 291 | 90,500 | 38,108 | 8,355 | |||
| SpyFu spyfu.com | 6% | 72 | 8,100 | 160 | 87,009 | 36 | ||
| Visualping visualping.io | 4% | 98 | 6,600 | 120 | 76,126 | 2 | 9 | |
| Google parent site Google Alerts 4%, Google Ads Transparency Center 0% | 4% | 122 | 74,000 | 2,448 | ||||
| Owler | 2% | 1,300 | 9 | |||||
| ZoomInfo zoominfo.com | 2% | 846 | 135,000 | 1,810 | 6,376,738 | $1,140 | 120 | |
| Competitors App | 2% | |||||||
| Cotera cotera.co | 2% | 6 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 16 sites; 2 of them are among the sites the models cited here (copy.ai, klue.com). The first result for “best competitive intelligence tool” is optimizegeo.ai.
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
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.
ShowHideModelDirect“What is the best competitive intelligence tool for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which competitor tracking platform for product marketing would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top competitive intelligence tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best competitive intelligence tool for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a competitive intelligence tool. What should we look at?”Negative“Which competitive intelligence tools should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
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
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
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
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
BattleReady
Cendyn/Rainmaker
ClientCues
Crush Analytics (formerly Crayon)
DoubleCheck
Gemni / CompTIA
Google Ads Transparency
Google's Ads Transparency Center
HubSpot's grader
LinkedIn
RivalSignal
SEMrush Free Version
Semrush Free Tier
SimilarWeb Free Extension
SnitchFeed
WideNarrow
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.