Research
Fall 2026: method notes
Readers of our Fall 2026 report asked fair questions about how it was measured: which assistants could search the web, what we asked, and what we counted. This page answers them with the counts behind the report. We welcome checking.
We ran 170 questions on 4 assistants on 4 Sundays, September 13 to October 4. That is 2,720 answers. All 170 questions ran in all four weeks, and the question text was identical each week. These are results from each provider’s API, not from the consumer apps.
How we measured the Fall 2026 report: 144 of 680 question-and-assistant pairs gave the same tracked brands all four weeks. Of those 144, 90 named none of the brands we track and 54 named the same tracked brands each week.
Method card
How each assistant was set up
| Assistant | Model requested | Web search | Runs | Stable pairs | Stated limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | gpt-4o | Web-search tool enabled | 4 Sundays, Sep 13 to Oct 4 | 43 of 170 | API, not the consumer app. Whether it used the tool on each answer was not recorded in this window. |
| Perplexity | sonar-pro | Search-based | 4 Sundays, Sep 13 to Oct 4 | 37 of 170 | API, not the consumer app. Provider route changed from Sep 27; effect not measured. |
| Claude | claude-sonnet-4-6 | Off (no search tool) | 4 Sundays, Sep 13 to Oct 4 | 19 of 170 | API, not the consumer app. |
| Gemini | gemini-2.5-flash | Off (no search tool) | 4 Sundays, Sep 13 to Oct 4 | 45 of 170 | API, not the consumer app. |
Definition
What “stable” means
A question-and-assistant pair is stable when the assistant named exactly the same tracked brands in all four weekly runs. A list with no tracked brands in it counts as a list, so an empty list in all four weeks is stable.
Any change to the list, even one brand, counts as not stable. Tracked brands are the brands on our tracking list, with a few name variants merged and three names left out. A brand whose name appears in the question itself is not counted.
The headline
144 of 680, and what is inside it
Of the 144 pairs that gave the same result all four weeks, 90 are pairs where the assistant named none of the brands we track each week. The other 54 named the same brands each week.
| Assistant | Stable pairs (of 170) | Named none of the brands we track, all four weeks | Named the same tracked brands, at least one |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (web-search tool enabled) | 43 | 25 | 18 |
| Perplexity (search-based) | 37 | 33 | 4 |
| With a search tool: ChatGPT and Perplexity (340 pairs) | 80 | 58 | 22 |
| Claude (no search tool) | 19 | 10 | 9 |
| Gemini (no search tool) | 45 | 22 | 23 |
| Without a search tool: Claude and Gemini (340 pairs) | 64 | 32 | 32 |
| All four (680 pairs) | 144 | 90 | 54 |
The questions
How many, and ten examples
| Category | Questions in the category |
|---|---|
| Marketing automation | 70 |
| Meeting assistants | 25 |
| Customer support AI | 25 |
| CRM for small business | 25 |
| AI visibility tools | 25 |
Here are 10 of the 170 questions, 2 per category. We chose them ourselves, and none of them names a brand. Some other questions name a brand, so these ten are not a picture of all 170. One of the five categories, AI visibility tools, is the one Envoyra works in.
Meeting assistants (25 questions)
- What are the top AI meeting assistant tools available? Give me a comparison of the best options.
- What AI tools help sales teams review call recordings to identify coaching opportunities?
Customer support AI (25 questions)
- What AI tools can handle live chat support on my website 24/7 without a human agent?
- Which AI customer support tools are built specifically for healthcare and HIPAA-compliant use cases?
CRM for small business (25 questions)
- What are the best CRM tools for small businesses? Compare the top options.
- Which CRM tools are popular among service-based businesses like agencies and consultancies?
Marketing automation (70 questions)
- What are the best affordable marketing automation tools for startups under $200 per month?
- Which email automation tools are best for agencies managing multiple client accounts?
AI visibility tools (25 questions)
- What are the top tools for monitoring brand visibility in AI-generated answers? Compare the leading options.
- How can I measure whether my brand is being recommended when buyers ask AI who to buy from?
Limits
What these counts cannot tell you
- This covers four Sundays, one window, 170 questions and four assistants. It says nothing about other weeks, questions or assistants.
- Sampling settings were not recorded in the Fall run files.
- The Oct 4 week was scored with a different version of our brand matcher than the other three weeks. We have not measured the effect.
Check our work
Outside checking is welcome
We welcome outside checking and challenge. If you want to check the counts, or you think we have counted the wrong thing, write to hello@envoyra.com.
The full question set is available to researchers and partners on request, under NDA: hello@envoyra.com.