VPN Services: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Proton VPN led the VPN Services benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 81.2%, ahead of NordVPN at 78.9% by 2.3 percentage points. The month produced no significant change for any tracked brand on the primary metric. ExpressVPN posted the largest coverage increase, rising to 71.7% in October 2026 from 69.9% in September 2026, while Private Internet Access posted the largest decline, falling to 28.7% in October 2026 from 33.3% in September 2026.

Across the full July-to-October series, leadership has remained with Proton VPN in each measured month, moving from 83.9% in July 2026 to 81.2% in October 2026. NordVPN moved from 80.1% in July 2026 to 78.9% in October 2026 over the same period. ExpressVPN moved from 71.0% to 71.7%, Surfshark from 77.1% to 76.9%, and Private Internet Access from 29.6% to 28.7% across the series. TunnelBear remained the only brand classified as a significant decliner over the series, falling from 13.6% in July 2026 to 7.2% in October 2026, a decline recorded in each of the three months since July 2026.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 693 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. The benchmark captured all six families in each month of the series. In August 2026, recommendation-shaped answer share was 50.6% and valid recommendation shortlist share was 81.5%; in September 2026 those figures were 49.0% and 81.0%.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

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

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

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which VPN brands lead the October 2026 AI recommendation standings?
• How do presence rate and top-three rate differ among the leading VPN brands?
• Which brands combine strong recommendation coverage with high rank-one placement?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned in any form.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a recommendation context, the benchmark's primary metric.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative mentions divided by total mentions, scored from -1 to 1.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which VPN brands gained or lost recommendation coverage since July 2026?
• Was any month-over-month VPN coverage change in October 2026 statistically significant?

October 2026 produced no significant month-over-month movement on valid recommendation coverage. Nine of the ten tracked brands were classified as stable across the series. Private Internet Access recorded the largest prior-to-current move, falling 4.6 points from 33.3% in September 2026 to 28.7% in October 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation. Mullvad VPN and ExpressVPN also moved upward from September 2026, by 2.3 and 1.8 points respectively.

Largest Increase: ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN recorded the largest coverage increase of the month, rising to 71.7% in October 2026 from 69.9% in September 2026, a move within normal variation. Across the series, ExpressVPN moved from 71.0% in July 2026 to 71.7% in October 2026 and has now risen in each of the two months since September 2026. Its presence rate held flat while its top-three rate rose and its rank-one rate eased.

Category Leader: Proton VPN

Proton VPN led the category with 81.2% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, down from 83.9% in July 2026, 80.7% in August 2026, and 80.3% in September 2026. A stable leadership position still resulted in a lower score than the July baseline. Proton VPN held the highest net sentiment among the leading brands at 0.88 in October 2026.

The gap between Proton VPN and NordVPN stood at 2.3 percentage points in October 2026, compared with 3.8 points in July 2026. The gap between CyberGhost VPN and TunnelBear widened in each month of the series, from 3.1 to 10.1 percentage points.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Why do NordVPN, Surfshark, and Proton VPN show different rank-one rates despite similar coverage?
• How prominently does each leading VPN brand appear within top-three recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leading brands show distinct placement patterns.

Similar coverage hides sharply different first-position outcomes. NordVPN held a rank-one rate of 54.8% in October 2026, compared with 12.6% for Proton VPN and 5.8% for Surfshark, despite coverage for the three brands falling within 4.3 percentage points of one another.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• What types of buyer-intent questions currently drive the VPN recommendation benchmark?
• Are pricing and multi-brand comparison questions represented in the qualified VPN observations?

All qualified observations in each month of the series fell into the brand recommendation class, which captures discovery and consideration behavior.

All 709 qualified observations in August 2026 and all 700 in September 2026 also fell into the brand recommendation class. The current public series cannot answer pricing or multi-brand comparison questions.

Historical Measurement Record

Proton VPN has led every measured month despite a declining score since the July baseline.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence does the benchmark capture for each VPN recommendation observation?
• Does a cited source prove it directly caused an AI 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, not proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or attributable sales
• Every possible AI response across all model versions and configurations
• Organic-search ranking or search engine optimization performance
• Social media mention volume or sentiment outside AI surfaces
• Private or sponsored channels, including gated enterprise deployments
• Causality from a metric movement alone; movements indicate correlation, not cause

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains AI platforms cite most when recommending VPN services?
• How concentrated are VPN citations across the top domains versus the long tail?
• Which VPN brand-owned domains appear among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,490 citations were observed across 569 unique domains.

Citations are moderately concentrated, with the top 10 domains accounting for 46.6% of all citations and the remaining 559 domains sharing the rest — a long tail rather than a single dominant outlet. Two tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10: protonvpn.com at rank 9 and nordvpn.com at rank 10, both cited across five or more surface families. Editorial and review sources dominate the list, with security.org, cnet.com, techradar.com, thebestvpn.com, and tomsguide.com collectively accounting for 19.8% of citations, alongside video and community platforms at ranks 1 and 2.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index is a neutral, industry-level benchmark tracking how AI and search surfaces recommend brands across canonical surface families. It is built from prompt-level observations with audited, reproducible methodology.

• 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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