The Gist 100Business softwareOctober 2026
Asana is named most, but ClickUp is named first
Asana is named in 88% of AI answers about project management software and ClickUp in 81%, yet ClickUp is named first in 31% of answers to Asana's 28%. Trello, monday.com and Jira tie at 68%, then Notion and Linear drop to 30%.
By Gist GEO team · October 2026
Share of AI answers about project management software that name each brand
Asana and ClickUp are the two names the assistants reach for most. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews all name Asana in at least 82% of their answers, and ClickUp in at least 68%. Trello, monday.com and Jira tie at 68% overall. Asana's lowest question score is 60%, on the software teams question, and every other leader has a question where it falls below that.
Past the leaders the field falls away fast. Notion and Linear are each named in 30% of answers, 38 points behind Trello, monday.com and Jira at 68%. Wrike follows at 24%, Smartsheet at 21% and Teamwork.com at 20%. The average answer names 6.1 brands, and 31 different brands are named at least once across the 297 answers, so the tail is long and thin.
No single brand owns the first mention. ClickUp is the first name in 31% of answers, Asana in 28%, Trello in 16%, monday.com in 13%, Jira in 7% and Linear in 4%. Asana is named in more answers than ClickUp, but ClickUp opens more of them. Reach and first position are separate contests, and in this category the numbers show two different winners.
Asana is named in 88% of answers and ClickUp in 81%, a gap of 7 points. The gap depends on the assistant. ChatGPT names Asana in 90% of its answers and ClickUp in 88%, and Claude names Asana in 95% and ClickUp in 90%. On Perplexity, Asana is at 86% and ClickUp at 76%, and on Google AI Overviews the gap widens to 14 points, with Asana at 82% and ClickUp at 68%. A vendor chasing Asana has the most ground to make up on Google AI Overviews and the least on ChatGPT.
Trello is named in 100% of answers on both the small teams question and the easiest-to-learn question, and in 5% on the software teams question. Jira runs the other way, at 100% on software teams, 40% on small teams and 24% on easiest to learn. GitHub Projects also reaches 100% on the software question, with Linear at 90%. The answers keep simplicity and engineering depth on separate shortlists, and a tool that wants both has to earn a place on each.
On the best free tool question, Trello and ClickUp are each named in 98% of answers and monday.com in 10%. On the question about tools worth paying for, monday.com jumps to 90% while Trello falls to 52%. ClickUp moves from 98% to 93%, Asana from 82% to 89% and Jira from 88% to 83%. Trello and monday.com trade places between the two questions, and the other leaders barely move. Budget wording changes the shortlist for those two brands more than for any other leader.
Claude names 8.4 brands per answer, Perplexity 5.8, ChatGPT 5.3 and Google AI Overviews 4.6. The extra room shows in the long tail. Wrike is named in 59% of Claude answers and 0% of ChatGPT answers, Smartsheet in 42% and 2%, and Teamwork.com in 40% and 1%. ChatGPT favors different names, with Linear at 65% of its answers against 5% on Google AI Overviews, and Notion at 56% against 8% on Perplexity. Where a brand outside the leaders shows up depends heavily on which assistant a buyer opens.
Who each company is, and how it shows up in the answers
88% of AI answers
Asana is a work management platform, available on the web and on mobile, that helps teams organize, track and manage their work. Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein founded the San Francisco company in 2008. The name is a Sanskrit word for the posture a yogi adopts to meditate.
Founded 2008 · San Francisco
Cross-functional teams are who answers recommend it to, crediting clear task ownership, timelines, dependencies, workload views and reporting. Asana is named in 100% of answers on the three tools to try question and 98% on the small teams question. Claude names it most, in 95% of its answers.
81% of AI answers
ClickUp is a project management software company with an all-in-one platform for tasks, documents, chat and whiteboards. Teams can organize work in list, board, calendar and Gantt chart views. Zeb Evans and Alex Yurkowski founded the company in 2017, and it is headquartered in San Diego.
Founded 2017 · San Diego
An all-in-one workspace is the pitch the answers repeat, bundling tasks, docs, goals, dashboards, automation, chat and many views, with some noting a heavier setup. ClickUp is named in 98% of answers on the best free tool question and 26% on the easiest-to-learn question. ClickUp is the first brand named in 31% of all answers.
68% of AI answers
monday.com is an Israeli software company that develops work management software, including tools to build custom apps without writing code. Roy Mann and Eran Zinman founded it in 2012 as DaPulse and renamed it monday.com in 2017. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Founded 2012 · Tel Aviv, Israel
Visual, customizable workflows are what the answers credit, with boards, dashboards and automations that suit operations and marketing teams. On the best software question and the tools to consider question, monday.com is named in 100% of answers, but only 10% on the best free tool question. Claude names it most, in 78% of its answers.
68% of AI answers
Kanban-style project boards, owned by Atlassian.
With a minimal learning curve and simple, visual Kanban boards, answers present it as the easy starting point for small teams and basic workflows. Trello is named in 100% of answers on both the small teams question and the easiest-to-learn question, but 5% on the software teams question. Claude names it most, in 82% of its answers.
68% of AI answers
Atlassian’s issue and project tracker, widely used by software teams.
Backlogs, sprints, issue tracking and deep developer-tool integrations are what answers credit, aimed at software development and agile teams. Jira is named in 100% of answers on the software teams question and 94% on the tools to consider question, but 24% on the easiest-to-learn question. Claude names it most, in 79% of its answers.
30% of AI answers
Workspace app that combines notes, docs, wikis and project tracking.
Docs and light project tracking in one workspace are the draw in answers, aimed at startups, small teams and knowledge-heavy work. Notion is named in 58% of answers on the tools to consider question and 2% on the easiest-to-learn question. ChatGPT names it in 56% of its answers and Perplexity in 8%.
30% of AI answers
Issue tracker and project tool built for software teams.
For software and product teams that want speed and a clean interface, answers credit keyboard-first navigation and streamlined issue tracking. Linear is named in 90% of answers on the software teams question and 0% on the best free tool question. ChatGPT names it in 65% of its answers and Google AI Overviews in 5%.
24% of AI answers
Work management platform for larger teams and agencies.
Larger organizations with complex portfolios are the audience, with answers crediting approvals, resource planning, advanced reporting and Gantt charts. Wrike is named in 53% of answers on the tools to consider question and 0% on the software teams question. Claude names it in 59% of its answers and ChatGPT in 0%.
21% of AI answers
Spreadsheet-style work management platform.
Spreadsheet-style tracking for data-driven PMOs is what answers credit, along with portfolio and resource management for large operations. Smartsheet is named in 71% of answers on the best software question and 0% on the best free tool question. Claude names it in 42% of its answers and ChatGPT in 2%.
20% of AI answers
Project management software built for client work and agencies.
Agencies and professional-services teams are the audience, with answers crediting a client portal, retainer management, budget tracking, time tracking and invoicing. Teamwork.com is named in 60% of answers on the question about tools worth paying for. Claude names it in 40% of its answers, and Teamwork.com's own website is cited in 21% of answers.
The three brands named most for each question Gist asked
| Question | Named most | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| What's the best project management software right now? | monday.com 100% | Asana 97% | ClickUp 94% |
| Which project management tools do you recommend? | monday.com 100% | Trello 98% | ClickUp 97% |
| What's the best free project management tool? | ClickUp 98% | Trello 98% | Jira 88% |
| Which project management tools are worth paying for? | ClickUp 93% | monday.com 90% | Asana 89% |
| What's the best project management software for a small team? | Trello 100% | Asana 98% | ClickUp 88% |
| What's the best project management tool for a software team? | GitHub Projects 100% | Jira 100% | Linear 90% |
| We're picking a project management tool. Which three should we try? | Asana 100% | ClickUp 94% | monday.com 82% |
| Which project management tool is easiest to learn? | Trello 100% | Asana 84% | monday.com 80% |
Share of each assistant’s answers that name the brand
| Brand | All four | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Claude | Google AI Overviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asana | 88% | 90% | 86% | 95% | 82% |
| ClickUp | 81% | 88% | 76% | 90% | 68% |
| monday.com | 68% | 56% | 76% | 78% | 63% |
| Trello | 68% | 55% | 74% | 82% | 61% |
| Jira | 68% | 65% | 76% | 79% | 53% |
| Notion | 30% | 56% | 8% | 40% | 18% |
| Linear | 30% | 65% | 12% | 36% | 5% |
| Wrike | 24% | 0% | 32% | 59% | 5% |
| Smartsheet | 21% | 2% | 25% | 42% | 16% |
| Teamwork.com | 20% | 1% | 32% | 40% | 7% |
The websites AI cites most on project management software, by share of answers
Each assistant draws on a different set of sites. Perplexity leans on publishers, with TechRepublic cited in 88% of its answers and Forbes in 75%. Claude cites the review site Project-Management.com in 90% of its answers and the brand site ONES in 75%. ChatGPT cites brand sites, led by asana.com at 70% and clickup.com at 64%. Google AI Overviews turns to YouTube at 65% and Reddit at 39%. Across all answers, TechRepublic is the most cited site, at 36%, yet ChatGPT cites it in 0% of its answers.
Three moves the numbers point to
Pitch coverage to TechRepublic, cited in 36% of answers overall. TechRepublic appears in 88% of Perplexity answers and 51% of Claude answers, while ChatGPT cites it in 0%, so the reach is on Perplexity and Claude.
Make ease of learning a documented claim. On the easiest-to-learn question the answers name Trello in 100% of answers, Asana in 84% and monday.com in 80%, then Basecamp at 32%, so the fourth slot is open.
Write for Claude's long shortlists. Claude names 8.4 brands per answer against 4.6 on Google AI Overviews, and Wrike, Smartsheet and Teamwork.com all score highest there, at 59%, 42% and 40%.
Analysis · 4 min read
In 8 of 32 categories, the most-named brand is not named first most often. Gmail scores 96 in email management but is first in 8 percent of answers. Fathom is first in 52 percent of notetaker answers, Fireflies.ai in 10. These counts measure how often a brand appears and how often it is named first.
96 vs 8Gmail’s score versus its first-mention share
Gist asks a fixed set of eight buying questions in each category. None of them names a brand. Each question is put to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews ten times, with web search on.
A brand’s score is the share of answers that name it, averaged across the assistants so that each one counts equally. Stores and review sites named in passing are not ranked. Brands named in fewer than one answer in ten are left off.
Measured October 5 to October 6, 2026.
No. It shows which brands AI assistants name when asked, not which products are best. Being named often usually reflects how much has been written about a brand, and where.
The page shows the 10 most-named brands. The free scan checks your own brand on a topic you choose.
Yes. AI answers shift as assistants are updated and as new pages are published. The date at the top shows when this ranking was measured.
See which brands appear in AI recommendations for your category, and where your brand stands among them.
Check my brand, freeChoose which optional analytics and advertising Gist can use. You can change your choices in Privacy settings. Privacy policy
