Registered Agent Services: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which registered agent service leads the AI recommendation benchmark and by how much?
• Which brands recorded the largest coverage gain and decline across the measurement series?

Northwest Registered Agent led the Registered Agent Services benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 66.4%, ahead of ZenBusiness at 54.1%, a gap of 12.3 percentage points. Across the full baseline-to-current series, the largest coverage increase belonged to Northwest Registered Agent, whose valid recommendation coverage rose from 64.5% in July 2026 to 66.4% in October 2026; its most notable single-month move came from September 2026 to October 2026, when coverage climbed from 59.9% to 66.4%. The largest coverage decline belonged to LegalZoom, whose valid recommendation coverage fell from 57.0% in July 2026 to 47.7% in October 2026.

Movement this month was present across the vertical: six brands recorded coverage declines beyond normal month-to-month variation over the full series, while no brand recorded a significant series-level increase. Northwest Registered Agent's rise was significant from September 2026 to October 2026, even though its full-series movement remains within normal variation.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 482 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.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Registered Agent Services

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. Link AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which registered agent providers rank highest on valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do presence rate and top-three rate differ among the leading brands?

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all. Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand receives a valid recommendation. Top-three rate is the share where the brand appears among the top three recommendations. Rank-one rate is the share where the brand is the first recommendation. Net sentiment is the balance of positive to negative mentions.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which registered agent brands lost the most recommendation coverage since July 2026?
• How much did Northwest Registered Agent's coverage move month over month, and was it beyond normal variation?

From September 2026 to October 2026, Northwest Registered Agent's valid recommendation coverage moved up 6.5 percentage points, a rise beyond normal month-to-month variation. LegalZoom, InCorp, Bizee (Incfile), Harbor Compliance, Rocket Lawyer, and ZenBusiness also recorded higher coverage over the same month, though each of those moves remained within normal variation for the brand. The benchmark records the output distribution for that month; it does not establish why coverage moved in the same direction for most tracked brands.

Largest Increase: Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent's valid recommendation coverage rose from 64.5% in July 2026 to 66.4% in October 2026, an increase of 1.9 percentage points across the series. Its more notable movement came month over month: coverage climbed 6.5 percentage points from 59.9% in September 2026 to 66.4% in October 2026, a rise beyond normal variation. Its rank-one rate rose from 23.1% in July 2026 to 32.6% in October 2026, and its top-three rate reached 63.1% in October 2026, up from 56.8% in July 2026.

Largest Decline: LegalZoom

LegalZoom's valid recommendation coverage fell from 57.0% in July 2026 to 47.7% in October 2026, a decline of 9.3 percentage points across the series, the largest movement of any tracked brand. The decline was not steady: coverage fell to 42.3% in September 2026 before moving up to 47.7% in October 2026. Despite the lower coverage rate, LegalZoom's top-three rate rose from 17.6% in July 2026 to 23.9% in October 2026, and its rank-one rate rose from 2.7% in July 2026 to 4.6% in October 2026. Its presence rate held near flat, from 85.3% in July 2026 to 85.9% in October 2026.

CT Corporation recorded the smallest base of qualified mentions among tracked brands and also declined across the series, from 1.4% in July 2026 to 0.2% in October 2026. With so few qualified observations mentioning the brand, these figures represent small counts.

Category Leader: Northwest Registered Agent

Northwest Registered Agent remained the coverage leader at 66.4% in October 2026, up from 64.5% in July 2026. Its lead over ZenBusiness, the second-place brand, widened from 7.3 percentage points in July 2026 to 12.3 percentage points in October 2026. The gap between Northwest Registered Agent and LegalZoom, the brand it most consistently separated from across the series, widened in every measured month, from 7.5 percentage points in July 2026 to 18.7 percentage points in October 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How do top-three and rank-one rates differ among Northwest Registered Agent, ZenBusiness, and LegalZoom?
• Which brand converts its top-three placements into first-position recommendations most often?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leading brands show distinct placement profiles in October 2026.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates. LegalZoom carried a top-three rate of 23.9% in October 2026 but a rank-one rate of only 4.6%, while ZenBusiness converted a 51.0% top-three rate into a 24.3% rank-one rate.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in both months 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 any brand other than Northwest Registered Agent led the benchmark across the measurement series?
• What were the largest coverage movements recorded in each monthly measurement?

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

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence does each prompt-level observation retain about the AI answer and its sources?
• Does source presence prove that a citation 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, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone. It records changes in how AI surfaces present and recommend brands within qualified observations.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• How visible are registered agent providers' own domains in the citation landscape?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,576 citations across 924 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains together account for a minority of the 6,576 total citations, and 924 unique domains were cited across the period. Three tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: zenbusiness.com at rank 4, northwestregisteredagent.com at rank 5, and legalzoom.com at rank 6. Review, media, and community sources dominate the upper ranks, with youtube.com, forbes.com, and reddit.com holding the top three positions.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI chat and search surfaces mention and recommend brands within a vertical, based on a fixed set of prompt-surface observations collected monthly.

• 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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