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The Crackle 100 — 100 most-cited B2B tech brands in AI search

  • Annual index of the B2B technology brands large language models cite most when buyers ask vendor-selection questions. Computed from 4 AI search engines × 200 buyer-intent prompts × 3 runs. 2026 edition. CC BY 4.0.
  • 100 B2B tech brands ranked by AI-search citation share
  • CC BY 4.0 — republish freely with attribution

The Crackle 100 — 100 most-cited B2B tech brands in AI search

Annual index of the B2B technology brands large language models cite most when buyers ask vendor-selection questions. Computed from 4 AI search engines × 200 buyer-intent prompts × 3 runs. 2026 edition. CC BY 4.0.

The Crackle 100 exists because AI search is now the default vendor-discovery surface for B2B tech buyers, and there was no shared benchmark for which brands the models cite. Every brand claims strong AI visibility. Nobody publishes the receipts. This index publishes the receipts — for our own clients, our competitors' clients, and every brand in between — and commits to an annual refresh cadence so the numbers are worth citing.

If your brand is not on the list and should be, email hello@cracklepr.com. Inclusion is decided by scan output, not commercial relationship — brands that were scanned but scored below rank 100 are listed in the CSV appendix. If your brand is on the list and your score should be higher, the CSV shows exactly which prompts you missed. That is the roadmap.

The Crackle 100 is designed to become the category's shared reference number. Journalists, analysts, and other agencies are actively encouraged to republish it. Attribution is the only requirement. That is how the number stays worth citing.

The Crackle 100 for 2026

Full ranked table below. Column definitions: Citation Index is a 0–100 score indexed to the top brand in the scan window. YoY is the change in rank position vs the 2025 edition; '+' means the brand moved up, '-' means down, '—' means unchanged, 'new' means the brand entered the top 100 this year.

Methodology

Prompt set: 200 buyer-intent queries spanning 9 verticals — cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, data platform, martech, fintech, HR tech, developer tools, and horizontal SaaS. Prompts were selected from Semrush and Google Search Console for buyer-intent commercial queries with monthly search volume > 500. Full prompt list published in the CSV.

Models: ChatGPT (gpt-4o + gpt-5 grounded), Perplexity (sonar-pro), Gemini (gemini-2.5-pro), Google AI Overviews (US, incognito, desktop). Each prompt run three times per model; scores averaged.

Scoring: 1 point per top-3 brand citation in the model's answer. Aggregated across all 4 models × 200 prompts × 3 runs. Total citation share indexed to the top brand = 100.

Reproducibility: any team can re-run this exact prompt set. Methodology diffs and pull requests welcome at hello@cracklepr.com; corrections publish in the next annual refresh.

What the 2026 data actually says

The top 10 brands capture 88.5% of all top-3 citations. Concentration is highest in AI infrastructure (OpenAI, Anthropic, NVIDIA) and cloud (Microsoft, Google Cloud, AWS). Every other vertical shows a longer tail — the #1 brand in cybersecurity (CrowdStrike, 73.4) does not dominate its category the way OpenAI dominates AI infrastructure.

Fastest risers in 2026: Cursor (+38), Perplexity (+22), Wiz (+18), ElevenLabs (+16), Supabase (+15), Chainguard (+12), Vercel (+11). Every top-riser earned coverage in a category-defining media narrative during the scan window (AI coding IDE, AI search, cloud security consolidation, generative voice, edge developer platform, container security, edge deploy).

Fastest fallers: Loom (-4), Okta (-4), HashiCorp (-4), Zoom (-5). Every top-faller is a mature category leader that shipped no new category-defining narrative in the scan window — a reminder that AI citation share is a lagging indicator of earned-media momentum, not of ARR.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Crackle 100?
The Crackle 100 is the annual index of the 100 most-cited B2B technology brands in AI search. Rankings are computed from citation share across ChatGPT (gpt-4o + gpt-5 grounded), Perplexity (sonar-pro), Gemini (gemini-2.5-pro), and Google AI Overviews, using a fixed 200-prompt B2B-buyer prompt set. The 2026 edition scan window was June 1 – July 6, 2026.
How is the Citation Index calculated?
For each of 200 buyer-intent prompts across cloud, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, data platform, martech, fintech, HR tech, developer tools, and SaaS, each brand scores 1 point per top-3 citation in the model's answer. Points are aggregated across all 4 models × 200 prompts × 3 runs, then indexed to the top brand = 100. The full prompt set and raw outputs are published in the CSV.
Which brands are eligible?
Any B2B technology brand — hardware, software, infrastructure, or platform — with a public buyer-facing website, at least $10M in annual revenue, and English-language operations. Pure consumer brands are excluded (there is a separate Consumer 100 planned for 2027). Enterprise divisions of larger holding companies (e.g. Google Cloud) are ranked separately from the parent brand.
Why does Lovable appear at #99?
Because they earned it in the scan window. The Crackle 100 is a citation-share index, not a client list. Brands appear regardless of whether they are Crackle PR clients — the ranking is designed to be a credible category benchmark, which means the methodology has to run the same way regardless of commercial relationships.
How often is the Crackle 100 refreshed?
Annually in July, with a quarterly 'movers report' published as a companion piece. Brands can email hello@cracklepr.com to submit corrections (e.g. wrong HQ, wrong category) at any time; ranking changes require a new scan and land at the next annual refresh.
Can I use the Crackle 100 in my own reporting?
Yes. CC BY 4.0. Journalists, analysts, and other agencies are free to republish the ranking with attribution to Crackle PR and a link back to https://www.cracklepr.com/crackle-100. The CSV is the canonical source.