Out nowThe Citation EconomyBuy on Amazon →

Category · AI Citation Index

Security

Security is a contested category with no single consensus pick — instead, a duopoly at the top and deep fragmentation below. SentinelOne and CrowdStrike each surface in more than half of AI discovery prompts across four engines, trading nearly identical citation share, but SentinelOne wins more head-to-head comparisons than CrowdStrike does (67/100 vs 63/100 on average). Below that duopoly sits a long tail: ServiceNow, Orca Security, Vanta, and Drata all surface in 10-25% of discovery queries, but none consistently wins head-to-heads. The archetypes here are sharp: 1Password, Snyk, Okta, and Proofpoint are absent giants — they win many head-to-head comparisons but rarely surface in AI discovery prompts. Splunk and Microsoft Sentinel are kingmakers, appearing in dozens of head-to-heads but splitting wins and losses. This is a fragmented market with two brands capturing the bulk of AI eyeballs and a dozen smaller players visible only in subcategory niches.

659 discovery queries · 730 head-to-heads · refreshed Aug 16, 2026

Discovery stage

The shortlist

Across 659 buyer-style "Security" queries

SentinelOne and CrowdStrike own the top of the shortlist, each surfacing in more than half of buyer queries about security software across four AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity). ServiceNow and Orca Security follow at 25% and 24% discovery share respectively, visible on all five engines we track. Vanta, Drata, Lacework, and Secureframe cluster in the 9-17% band, each surfacing across all five engines but commanding far smaller share of AI attention than the duopoly at the top.

30%37%44%50%57%Coverage — share of discovery prompts where the brand surfaces69%71%74%77%79%Engine diversity

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = coverage across discovery prompts · Y = engine diversity · Bubble size = total mentions
Tracked acrossChatGPT,Gemini,Claude

Get weekly AI visibility changes for Security sent to your inbox.

Score shifts, new entrants, citation gaps — every Monday.

Signal by intent

By topic

Top 5 most-cited brands per intent cluster. Brands with zero citations in a topic are not shown.

1Microsoft
39/39
2CrowdStrike Falcon
38/39
3Sentinelone
37/39
4Okta
37/39
5Crowdstrike
36/39
1Microsoft
29/37
2Splunk
21/37
3ServiceNow
18/37
4CrowdStrike Falcon
17/37
5Crowdstrike
16/37
1Microsoft
26/28
2Splunk
21/28
3Okta
16/28
4CrowdStrike Falcon
16/28
5Crowdstrike
15/28
1Microsoft
20/21
2CrowdStrike Falcon
16/21
3Sentinelone
15/21
4Splunk
15/21
5Okta
15/21
1Okta
14/15
2Microsoft
14/15
3Crowdstrike
13/15
4Sentinelone
13/15
5Mimecast
12/15
1Solo
8/8
21password
8/8
3Bitwarden
8/8
4Microsoft
8/8
5Cloudflare
5/8
1Vanta
7/7
2Drata
7/7
3Onetrust
7/7
4Microsoft
7/7
5Secureframe
6/7
1CrowdStrike Falcon
7/7
2Sentinelone
7/7
3Microsoft
7/7
4Fortinet
7/7
5Okta
7/7
≥50% cited
25–49%
<25%
Topics are discovery-stage prompt clusters · security

Evaluation stage

Head-to-head

How often AI cites each brand across uniform category evaluation prompts · median 3/100

SentinelOne wins more head-to-head comparisons than it loses, averaging 67/100 across 74 comparison queries. CrowdStrike Falcon, Splunk, and Microsoft Sentinel tie at 65/100 — each surfacing in around 70 head-to-head prompts and splitting wins evenly. Okta scores 59/100 across 65 head-to-heads, while Microsoft Entra ID loses more than it wins at 48/100.

0255075100Evaluation citation rate — % of category evaluation prompts citing this brand019375674Evaluation prompts cited inmedian citation ratemedian exposure

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = evaluation citation rate · Y = evaluation prompts cited in · Bubble size = citation exposure
Median citation rate 3/100

Each brand's score is the share of category evaluation prompts where AI cited them across all four engines — the same prompt pool for every brand. Brands above the median citation rate have stronger presence in evaluation-stage queries.

Citation sources

Where AI pulls citations from

1000 citations captured across Security prompt runs.

Vendor pages

247

Product, help, and marketing pages from tracked vendors

Independent sources

263

Reviews, encyclopedias, forums, press — not vendor-owned

Buyer questions

What AI cites for top Security questions

Buyers lean into discovery-stage shortlisting — asking AI for tools by compliance requirement, threat category, or deployment scenario. Sample phrasings include 'What do compliance managers use to ensure vulnerabilities are addressed in a timely manner', 'software for automating threat intelligence gathering', and 'What are the common features of secrets management tools'. A smaller slice digs into evaluation-stage concerns — ROI measurement, risk-based feature prioritization, and CI/CD integration for secrets management.

Discovery

Buyers exploring the category

Drill down

Subcategories

Want to know if AI cites your brand for Security?

Free audit. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude.

Run an audit →

See the full Security leaderboard →