Managed Detection and Response: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Who led the Managed Detection and Response benchmark in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands moved beyond normal month-to-month variation this month?

CrowdStrike Falcon led the Managed Detection and Response benchmark with 72.7% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up from 66.0% in July 2026. The gap over the next closest brand, SentinelOne at 62.4%, was 10.3 points.

October 2026 recorded movement beyond normal month-to-month variation. CrowdStrike Falcon posted the largest coverage increase, up 16.4 points from 56.3% in September 2026 to 72.7% in October 2026. Secureworks Taegis also rose beyond normal variation, up 3.2 points from 1.7% in September 2026 to 4.9% in October 2026. No tracked brand recorded a significant coverage decline this month.

Across the full baseline-to-current series, CrowdStrike Falcon rose 6.7 points from 66.0% in July 2026 to 72.7% in October 2026, and Secureworks Taegis rose 3.4 points from 1.5% in July 2026 to 4.9% in October 2026, both beyond normal variation. SentinelOne rose 6.3 points from 56.1% in July 2026 to 62.4% in October 2026, which was within normal variation across the series, though its prior-to-current move was significant. Red Canary declined in each of the three months from July 2026 to October 2026, though its cumulative change remained within normal variation. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 447 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Both months reached the maximum breadth of six. August 2026 and September 2026 also each reached six families.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Managed Detection and Response

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How does the qualified benchmark denominator differ from the raw collection universe?
• How many source observations were collected, and how many qualified for the public benchmark in October 2026?

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.

For full methodology, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the tracked MDR brands compare on valid recommendation coverage, presence rate, and top-three placement?
• Which brands earn the most first-position recommendations despite lower overall coverage?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations in which the brand earns a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand appears in the top three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations in which the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: ratio of positive to total sentiment-bearing mentions, from 0 to 1.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which MDR brands gained or lost recommendation coverage between July and October 2026?
• Which movement exceeded normal variation, and which patterns are still just watch items?

SentinelOne's prior-to-current move was also significant, up 13.6 points from 48.8% in September 2026 to 62.4% in October 2026. That single-month change exceeded normal variation even though its cumulative baseline-to-current change did not.

Largest Increase: CrowdStrike Falcon

CrowdStrike Falcon's valid recommendation coverage rose 16.4 points from 56.3% in September 2026 to 72.7% in October 2026, beyond normal variation and its largest single-month move in the series. Across the full series the brand rose 6.7 points from 66.0% in July 2026 to 72.7% in October 2026, also beyond normal variation. Supporting placement metrics moved with it: top-three rate rose 10.1 points from 57.7% in July 2026 to 67.8% in October 2026, and rank-one rate rose 11.7 points from 38.6% to 50.3%, both beyond normal variation. Presence rate was effectively steady at 95.1% in October 2026, down 1.8 points from 96.9% in July 2026. The gain came from recommendation placement, not from being mentioned more often.

Largest Increase: Secureworks Taegis

Secureworks Taegis' valid recommendation coverage rose 3.4 points from 1.5% in July 2026 to 4.9% in October 2026, beyond normal variation, and 3.2 points from 1.7% in September 2026 to 4.9% in October 2026. Presence rate rose 4.0 points from 2.5% in July 2026 to 6.5% in October 2026, beyond normal variation. Top-three rate rose 1.2 points from 0.6% to 1.8%, and rank-one rate rose 0.4 points from 0.3% to 0.7%, neither beyond normal variation. Absolute counts remain small, with only 22 valid recommendations in October 2026 against 5 in July 2026.

Category Leader: CrowdStrike Falcon

CrowdStrike Falcon remained the category leader for valid recommendation coverage at 72.7% in October 2026, up from 66.0% in July 2026. SentinelOne held second place at 62.4% in October 2026, up from 56.1% in July 2026. The leader's gap over SentinelOne stood at 10.3 points in October 2026, compared with 9.9 points in July 2026. Arctic Wolf's gap to CrowdStrike Falcon widened 12.3 points from 40.5 points in July 2026 to 52.8 points in October 2026.

Watch Item: Red Canary

Red Canary declined in each of the three months from July 2026 to October 2026, from 9.8% to 8.1% to 6.6% to 6.5%, a cumulative fall of 3.3 points. That cumulative change remained within normal variation, so the pattern is noted as a watch item and not yet a trend.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do the top three MDR brands differ in top-three and rank-one placement rates?
• Can a brand with lower recommendation coverage still achieve a higher rank-one rate?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The top three brands by valid recommendation coverage show different placement profiles. CrowdStrike Falcon led both top-three and rank-one rates in October 2026, while SentinelOne's 2.5% rank-one rate was markedly lower despite 62.4% coverage.

Arctic Wolf, at 19.9% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, achieved an 8.5% rank-one rate, higher than SentinelOne's 2.5% despite less than a third of the coverage. Close coverage can still hide very different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified observations?
• Does this benchmark contain any pricing, value, or multi-brand comparison signal yet?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class, representing discovery and consideration intent.

The current public series measures Brand Recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes. Price, value, and head-to-head comparison questions therefore have no public signal in this data.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• What does the monthly measurement record show about coverage leadership and the largest movements so far?

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Leadership has never changed hands, but the leader's own coverage has swung sharply month to month.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in this measurement period?
• How concentrated or distributed are citations across the top domains, and which tracked brands own domains appear?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,214 citations were observed across 2,030 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top 10 domains account for a combined 22.7% of the 6,214 citations, and no single domain reaches even 6% share. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10, with sentinelone.com at rank 3, crowdstrike.com at rank 7, and redcanary.com at rank 8. General technology and community sources dominate the remainder of the list, including video and forum platforms, vendor sites outside the tracked set, and an analyst firm, rather than government or news outlets.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What source and citation information does each prompt-level observation retain?
• Does source presence prove that a cited source caused a 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 or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response to a given query
• Organic-search ranking positions
• Social mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how brands appear and are recommended across six canonical AI/search surface families: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. It is a neutral industry benchmark; every brand is treated on its own terms.

• 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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The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper.

The public percentage cannot identify the prompts, competitors, or sources causing the result.

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