When an SMB buyer asks an AI assistant which ATS to buy, a shortlist comes back. We asked 44 different phrasings of that question across 2 engines, 88 answers in total, and counted every product named. This is the result. Nobody paid to be on it, and no vendor list was written in advance — the 73 vendors below are simply everyone the engines named.
“Answers” is how many of the 88 answers named that product. Share is the same number as a percentage. The two right-hand columns split it by engine.
| # | Vendor | Answers | Share | ChatGPT | Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Workable | 67 | 76.1% | 38 | 29 | |
| 2 | Breezy HR | 66 | 75.0% | 35 | 31 | |
| 3 | JazzHR | 58 | 65.9% | 32 | 26 | |
| 4 | Greenhouse | 41 | 46.6% | 26 | 15 | |
| 5 | Zoho Recruit | 38 | 43.2% | 19 | 19 | |
| 6 | Lever | 30 | 34.1% | 24 | 6 | |
| 7 | BambooHR | 24 | 27.3% | 12 | 12 | |
| 8 | Ashby | 21 | 23.9% | 15 | 6 | |
| 9 | Manatal | 19 | 21.6% | 6 | 13 | |
| 10 | Recruitee | 17 | 19.3% | 13 | 4 | |
| 11 | Freshteam | 13 | 14.8% | 10 | 3 | |
| 12 | iCIMS | 8 | 9.1% | 4 | 4 | |
| 13 | Rippling | 8 | 9.1% | 5 | 3 | |
| 14 | SmartRecruiters | 7 | 8.0% | 5 | 2 | |
| 15 | Teamtailor | 7 | 8.0% | 5 | 2 | |
| 16 | Gusto | 6 | 6.8% | 4 | 2 | |
| 17 | Homebase | 6 | 6.8% | 4 | 2 | |
| 18 | Pinpoint | 6 | 6.8% | 3 | 3 | |
| 19 | Workstream | 6 | 6.8% | 3 | 3 | |
| 20 | Dover | 4 | 4.5% | 0 | 4 | |
| 21 | Fountain | 4 | 4.5% | 2 | 2 | |
| 22 | JuggleHire | 4 | 4.5% | 0 | 4 | |
| 23 | Workday | 4 | 4.5% | 2 | 2 | |
| 24 | 100Hires | 3 | 3.4% | 0 | 3 | |
| 25 | Bullhorn | 3 | 3.4% | 1 | 2 | |
| 26 | Harri | 3 | 3.4% | 1 | 2 | |
| 27 | HiBob | 3 | 3.4% | 3 | 0 | |
| 28 | Homerun | 3 | 3.4% | 3 | 0 | |
| 29 | Paradox | 3 | 3.4% | 2 | 1 | |
| 30 | Recooty | 3 | 3.4% | 2 | 1 | |
| 31 | TalentReef | 3 | 3.4% | 2 | 1 | |
| 32 | ApplicantStack | 2 | 2.3% | 0 | 2 | |
| 33 | Arcoro | 2 | 2.3% | 1 | 1 | |
| 34 | AvaHR | 2 | 2.3% | 0 | 2 | |
| 35 | GoHire | 2 | 2.3% | 1 | 1 | |
| 36 | HigherMe | 2 | 2.3% | 0 | 2 | |
| 37 | Jobvite | 2 | 2.3% | 2 | 0 | |
| 38 | OpenCATS | 2 | 2.3% | 1 | 1 | |
| 39 | Oracle Recruiting Cloud | 2 | 2.3% | 2 | 0 | |
| 40 | SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting | 2 | 2.3% | 2 | 0 | |
| 41 | ADP | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 42 | Altametrics | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 43 | CareerPlug | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 44 | ClearCompany | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 45 | Crelate | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 46 | Deel ATS | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 47 | Eploy | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 48 | Gem | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 49 | Happlicant | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 50 | HealthcareSource | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 51 | Hirebridge | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 52 | HireDesk | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 53 | Hireology | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 54 | HubSpot CRM | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 55 | Idealist Applicant Tracker | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 56 | Jobsoid | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 57 | Loxo | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 58 | MightyRecruiter | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 59 | MokaHR | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 60 | Ninja Gig | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 61 | Paycor | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 62 | Paylocity | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 63 | PeoplePilot ATS | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 64 | Recruit CRM | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 65 | RecruitBPM | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 66 | Recruitment Management 365 | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 67 | Spark Hire | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 68 | StaffedUp | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 69 | Trakstar Hire | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 70 | UKG | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 71 | UKG Ready | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 | |
| 72 | uRecruits | 1 | 1.1% | 0 | 1 | |
| 73 | VIVAHR | 1 | 1.1% | 1 | 0 |
Every claim on this page is reproducible from the files linked at the bottom.
ChatGPT (gpt-5.5), Perplexity (sonar). Each was called through its public API with a near-empty system prompt —
“answer the user's question directly and concisely” — and nothing else. The engines were
not asked to produce a list, rank anything, or name vendors. Steering them toward a list
would have manufactured the thing being measured.
44 distinct phrasings of one purchase decision, written before any measurement was run. No vendor name appears in any of them.
Each of the 88 answers was read back and every named product extracted. The vendor list is discovered: a product appears here if and only if an engine named it. Counted are applicant tracking systems and HR/payroll suites whose recruiting module was named. Excluded, even when named: job boards, interview-scheduling and calendar tools, e-signature tools, skills-assessment and coding-test tools, background-check services, sourcing-only tools, and companies named only as an example employer.
Spelling variants of one product are folded together — “Workable”, “workable.com” and “Workable ATS” are one row, and a trailing “by company” is dropped. An edition name is folded into its product when the plain name is at least three times as common, so “LeverTRM” counts as Lever and “Workable Starter” counts as Workable. Two further pairs were merged by hand, and they are the only place a human judgement touches the list — it merges duplicates, it never adds or removes a vendor:
zoho counted as zohorecruitfreshworks counted as freshteamA product is counted once per answer, however many times that answer mentions it.
A leaderboard whose top ten reshuffles between runs would not be worth publishing, so this check was run before the page was, and the page ships only because it passed.
This measures what two answer engines said on 2 August 2026, in response to these questions, through their APIs. It is not a quality ranking, not a review, and not advice on which ATS to buy. A product can be excellent and rank low here — that gap is the point.
All 88 answers, verbatim, one JSON object per line: run A · run B. The per-answer extracted product names: run A · run B. Machine-readable ranking: ranking.json.