Inside the CRM Market Universe: How AI Answer Engines Trust, Cite and Surface CRM Brands

Brandi AI launches a new AI Visibility Index series measuring how markets are represented in AI-generated answers

Brandi AI, the leading platform for enterprise AI visibility and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), released its AI Visibility Index for the CRM Market Universe, a new analysis of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market that examines how leading AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity understand, source, cite and explain CRM brands based on observable treatment in generative AI results.

The CRM Index is the first in Brandi AI’s new AI Visibility Index research series, an ongoing program that measures how AI answer engines represent entire markets—not just individual brands—across high-intent buyer questions. It reveals which CRM brands are currently winning the AI conversation, which is increasingly shaping buyer understanding and perception.

“For marketers, AI visibility requires a completely new lens,” said Leah Nurik, CEO and co-founder of Brandi AI. “AI answer engines don’t retrieve links—they assemble contextual answers. In doing that, they decide which brands are trusted as evidence, which help explain the category and which are interchangeable. Our AI Visibility Index shows, in clear and measurable terms, how AI is utilizing and referencing brands and sources so companies and fellow market enthusiasts can understand how AI is explaining the space, the themes and the brands that are in the conversation.”

The AI Visibility Index for the CRM Market Universe is based on more than 17,264 AI-generated answers to high-intent buyer prompts. The data was collected daily for 30 days across seven AI answer engines—ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Grok, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. All findings apply exclusively to the CRM Market Universe and represent a point-in-time snapshot of Generative Engine Optimization performance and context.

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High performers in the CRM Index include:

• Market Narrative Leader: Salesforce — Dominated the metrics that most directly influence AI-mediated buyer understanding, including GEO awareness (how often AI includes a brand in buyer questions that do not mention the brand), GEO Share of Voice (how much narrative control a brand holds when multiple competitors appear in the same AI answer) and total domain AI citations.
• Biggest Market Gainer: Intercom — Achieved nearly a 5% increase in GEO awareness in a single month, marking one of the fastest visibility gains observed within the CRM Market Universe.
• Most Cited Media Link: PCMag — The article titled, The Best CRM Software for 2026, emerged as the single most frequently cited media link across all AI-generated CRM answers.
• Media Momentum: Solutions Review — Saw a 324% increase in AI citations following publication of a high-intent CRM buying guide, rapidly becoming a recurring source across multiple AI platforms.

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Beyond brand rankings, the AI Visibility Index for the CRM Market Universe reveals where AI answer engines source their evidence for generating answers. Top-cited sources in the CRM Market Universe included corporate sites such as Salesforce and HubSpot; media outlets like Forbes and PCMag; peer review platforms including TrustRadius and G2; and User-Generated Content (USG) domains such as Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn and Wikipedia. Together, they highlight the diverse authority signals AI assembles when forming answers.