Expense Management Software: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led AI recommendations in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands showed the largest recommendation coverage gains and declines this month?

Ramp led the category in October 2026 with 72.3% valid recommendation coverage, ahead of Brex at 55.9%, a gap of 16.4 percentage points between the top two brands. Ramp has led the category in every tracked month since July 2026, and this month's result leaves that leadership pattern unchanged.

The largest coverage increase this month came from Brex, which rose from 48.9% in September 2026 to 55.9% in October 2026, a move beyond normal month-to-month variation. The largest coverage decline came from Zoho Inventory, which fell from 6.8% in September 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, also beyond normal variation. Rydoo declined in each of the three months since July 2026, moving from 5.5% to 1.7%.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 469 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Expense Management Software

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the leading expense management brands compare on valid recommendation coverage?
• Which brands appear most often in top-three positions and rank-one placements?
• Where does SAP Concur sit relative to Ramp and Brex in the October 2026 standings?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the top three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: Positive mentions minus negative mentions, divided by all mentions carrying sentiment.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand saw the biggest coverage increase since the July 2026 baseline?
• What drove Zoho Inventory's decline to zero coverage in October 2026?

Largest Increase: Brex

Brex rose from 48.9% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026 to 55.9% in October 2026, a move beyond normal month-to-month variation, and has now increased for two consecutive months. Across the full series, Brex sits at 55.9% in October 2026 compared with 56.7% in July 2026. Top-three placement rose from 37.8% to 38.2%, while presence rose from 72.7% to 74.0%.

Largest Decline: Zoho Inventory

Zoho Inventory fell from 6.8% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, a decline beyond normal month-to-month variation. The brand also fell from 7.2% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, and its presence rate moved from 7.6% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026. Top-three placement declined from 2.8% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026.

Category Leader: Ramp

Ramp led valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 at 72.3%, up from 68.9% in July 2026, and ahead of Brex at 55.9%. Ramp also led presence rate at 92.1% and rank-one rate at 32.2%.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do top-three and rank-one rates differ between Ramp, Brex, and SAP Concur?
• Why can similar coverage translate into very different first-position recommendation rates?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands in October 2026, Ramp held the strongest first-position presence at 32.2%, ahead of Brex at 6.2% and SAP Concur at 5.1%.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates: Brex's 55.9% coverage in October 2026 placed it in the top three 38.2% of the time, but it ranked first only 6.2% of the time, while Ramp ranked first 32.2% of the time on 72.3% coverage.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• What buyer-intent classes appear in the current benchmark?
• Are pricing and multi-brand comparison questions represented in the qualified observations?

In both July and October 2026, all qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and value or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Has Ramp led recommendation coverage every month since July 2026?
• What were the largest monthly coverage movements across the tracked period?

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What types of source evidence support the benchmark's recommendation findings?
• Does source presence prove that a source caused the recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share, sales attribution, or commercial outcomes from AI recommendations.
• Every possible AI response; it covers a defined set of prompt-surface observations.
• Organic-search ranking or social mention volume.
• Private or sponsored channels.
• Causality from a metric movement alone; movements are recorded, not explained.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, 5,885 citations were observed across 927 unique domains.

Citations are moderately distributed across the top ten domains, which together account for roughly a third of all citations, with the remainder spread across more than 900 additional domains. Four tracked brands' own domains appear in the top ten: ramp.com at rank one, brex.com at rank three, bill.com at rank seven, and navan.com at rank ten. The mix is dominated by official brand sites and third-party review or comparison sources, with community platforms such as YouTube and Reddit also present.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index is a neutral, repeatable benchmark of how AI and search surfaces recommend brands and products across a vertical. It tracks presence, recommendation coverage, placement, sentiment, and buyer-intent class on a monthly basis.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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