Project Management Software: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led the Project Management Software category in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands posted coverage gains or declines beyond normal variation across the series?

Asana led the Project Management Software category in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 86.4%, up from 72.7% in July 2026. The gap to the next brand, ClickUp, was 1.3 percentage points in October 2026, with ClickUp at 85.1% and monday.com close behind at 84.1%.

The largest coverage increase over the full series belonged to Atlassian, which moved from 0.0% in July 2026 to 29.0% in October 2026 and rose in each of the two months since August 2026.

The largest single-month increase belonged to Asana, which rose 22.8 points in October 2026 alone to 86.4% from 63.6% in September 2026. ClickUp (up 21.8 points to 85.1% from 63.3%) and Trello (up 21.4 points to 75.7% from 54.3%) posted the next-largest single-month gains.

The largest coverage decline over the full series belonged to Jira Service Management, which moved from 3.8% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, holding at 0.0% for a second month. Jira Service Management was the only tracked brand to post a decline beyond normal variation over the baseline-to-current series.

Six brands rose beyond normal variation across the full July 2026 to October 2026 series: Asana rose 13.7 points to 86.4%, ClickUp rose 14.1 points to 85.1%, monday.com rose 12.3 points to 84.1%, Trello rose 9.7 points to 75.7%, Smartsheet rose 7.3 points to 56.3%, and Atlassian rose 29.0 points to 29.0% after entering tracking in September 2026. Basecamp, Microsoft SharePoint, Notion, and Wrike moved within normal month-to-month variation across the series.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 597 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the six canonical AI surface families (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode) with at least one qualified observation. Keyword variants roll up into their parent family rather than counting as separate surfaces.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many qualified observations does the public benchmark use, and how does that differ from the raw collection?
• What happens to observations that are not relevant to the vertical?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how the qualified denominator is reached.

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

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands lead on valid recommendation coverage in the October 2026 standings?
• How do presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, top-three rate, and rank-one rate differ for each tracked brand?

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 recommendation context that can be evaluated.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended in one of the top three positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended first.
• Net sentiment: positive mentions minus negative mentions divided by total mentions (neutral excluded).

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands saw the largest valid recommendation coverage increases since the July 2026 baseline?
• Which brand declined beyond normal variation, and why was it removed from the tracked set?

Jira Service Management was removed from the tracked brand set before October 2026; its earlier figures are shown here for reference only.

Largest Increase: Atlassian

Atlassian entered the tracked brand set in September 2026 and rose to 29.0% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up 11.0 points from 18.0% in September 2026 and up 29.0 points from its first comparable baseline. The brand appeared in 38.5% of qualified observations, was recommended in the top three in 6.0% of observations, and held a 2.4% rank-one rate. Net sentiment stood at 0.81. Atlassian has now increased in each of the two months since August 2026.

Largest Decline: Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management was the only tracked brand to post a decline beyond normal variation across the baseline-to-current series, falling from 3.8% valid recommendation coverage in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026. In its last fully reported month, July 2026, the brand held a 4.9% presence rate alongside its 3.8% valid recommendation coverage rate. The brand was removed from the tracked brand set before October 2026, and its historical figures are retained for reference only rather than as part of the current-period standings.

Category Leader: Asana

Asana remained the category leader at 86.4% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up 22.8 points from 63.6% in September 2026, a single-month move beyond normal variation. The lead over ClickUp stood at 1.3 points. Asana's presence rate held at 97.8% in October 2026, and its top-three rate moved to 60.1% from 46.8% in July 2026. Its rank-one rate rose to 22.4% from 14.9% over the same period.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How did the coverage leaders differ in top-three and rank-one placement in October 2026?
• Where did coverage and first-position rates diverge among Asana, ClickUp, and monday.com?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leaders by coverage kept different placement profiles in October 2026.

Asana and monday.com were close on coverage yet differed in first-position rates: Asana was recommended first in 22.4% of observations versus 23.8% for monday.com in October 2026. monday.com's rank-one rate rose 7.5 points over baseline while its coverage rose, and ClickUp's rank-one rate fell 3.1 points from 14.5% in July 2026 to 11.4% in October 2026. This gap between coverage and first-position rates shows how close coverage can still hide different placement outcomes.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified observations for October 2026?
• Can the public series support conclusions about Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison intent?

The qualified observations in the October 2026 series fell entirely into the Brand Recommendation discovery class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led coverage in each month from July to October 2026?
• What were the largest coverage movements recorded across the four monthly measurement periods?

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence does each prompt-level observation retain?
• Does source presence prove that a source caused a brand recommendation?

This 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, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses, and which tracked brand domains reached the top 10?
• How concentrated are citations among the top ten domains?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, the benchmark observed 6,454 citations drawn from 1,010 unique domains.

Citation volume is moderately concentrated: the top ten domains account for roughly 35% of all citations, while the remaining 65% spreads across 1,000 additional domains. Two tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: asana.com at rank 5 and wrike.com at rank 6. Three software and workflow publishers (thedigitalprojectmanager.com, zapier.com, project-management.com) also rank highly, alongside video platform youtube.com and the community forum reddit.com.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index is a neutral, recurring measurement of how prominently brands appear in AI-generated answers across six canonical AI/search surface families. The index tracks presence, valid recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment as distinct signals and makes no claim that one proves another.

• 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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