Top 39 CRM Software in AI Answers — August 2026

HubSpot leads decisively, appearing in 65.4% of answers with an 11.1-point margin over second place. It achieved a best list position of 1 and was cited from its own domain in 22.1% of cases. Across engines, it ranges from 27.3% on Google Gemini to 87.5% on ChatGPT, a gap that reflects Google Gemini's overall reluctance to name any single brand heavily. Zoho CRM ranks second at 54.2%, also reaching best list position 1, though it was cited from its own domain in only 7.6% of answers. Pipedrive follows at 52.9% with 18.3% self-citations, and Salesforce closes the top four at 49% with 23.8% self-citations. All four top brands recorded one negative mention each.

Below the dominant tier, Freshsales drops to 31.4%, establishing a clear second tier of CRM recommendations. Microsoft Dynamics 365 (22.2%) and Monday CRM (20.3%) form the start of a third tier. Less Annoying CRM appears in 9.8% of answers, Copper at 9.2%, and Creatio at 5.9%. SugarCRM also reaches 5.9%, tying Creatio, while Airtable, Capsule CRM, and Notion each appear in 5.2% of answers. The field widens considerably here: these brands are named infrequently enough that small fluctuations in engine behavior produce large percentage swings. Notion and Airtable, while non-traditional CRMs, compete for mentions alongside purpose-built platforms.

A long tail of 15 brands each appears in fewer than 5% of answers. Streak (4.6%), Insightly (3.9%), Keap (3.9%), and SuiteCRM (3.9%) anchor the top of this group, followed by Bitrix24, EspoCRM, Follow Up Boss, Odoo CRM, Wise Agent, and Zendesk Sell—all at exactly 3.3%. ActiveCampaign (2.6%), Attio (2.6%), and Nutshell (2.6%) appear slightly less often. Bloomerang, CiviCRM, and Folk each appear in 2% of answers. Salesflare, DonorPerfect, Vtiger, and Nimble round out the named brands, each appearing in 1.3% or fewer answers. Most of these brands' self-citation rates are negligible; the exceptions are Nutshell (13.4% self-citations), Insightly (7.3%), and Zendesk Sell (5.8%), suggesting they earn mentions but engines rarely reference their own websites as sources.

Five brands tracked received zero mentions: Apptivo, Close, Copper CRM, Pipeliner CRM, and RankMonster. These represent either niche positioning, newer market entrants, or brands that failed to surface in AI training data or ranking algorithms. The absence of any data points for these brands across all six engines is notably different from the tail brands that appear in 1–2% of answers; it suggests a threshold effect rather than gradual decline in visibility.

The six engines vary substantially in breadth and concentration. ChatGPT named 30 distinct brands—the widest reach—while Google Gemini named only 16. Claude (26), Perplexity (25), Grok (24), and Google AI Overview (22) fall in between. Despite this variation, all six engines agree on HubSpot's leadership; however, the margin differs dramatically. ChatGPT names HubSpot in 87.5% of answers, Grok in 85%, and Perplexity in 75%, while Google Gemini names it in only 27.3%. This 60-point spread reflects Google Gemini's preference for a more diversified recommendation set rather than a smaller concentration around a single leader.

Citation patterns also diverge sharply. Perplexity cites brands' own domains most frequently, at 8.6% of answers; Google AI Overview follows at 5.9%; and ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude cluster between 2.1% and 3.3%. Notably, Grok returns no citations at all despite naming 24 distinct brands. This suggests Grok functions as a generative recommender without linked sources, while Perplexity operates more like a search-augmented engine that references original material. The distribution of citations across top sources—with Reddit and YouTube dominating—is consistent across engines, indicating that third-party content (reviews, discussions, tutorials) shapes recommendations regardless of the AI model.