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Brown Seo, Founding Engineer (AI & Infrastructure) · Last updated: August 12, 2026

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DECA Weekly AI Recommendation Index

Week of August 9, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US · 10 categories. Table 1: DECA Weekly Index headline metrics, week of August 9, 2026. The DECA Volatility Index is the share of ranked brands that moved ±10 rank positions week-over-week (38 of 408 this week, computed among brands present in both weeks). Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US.

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What this article covers

The quietest week in our tracking produced the most #1 changes we have tracked. Three category leaders changed hands — tied with the model-change week itself, and this time both sides of the comparison ran on the same model. ClickUp took Project Management from Jira, CreatorIQ retook Influencer Marketing from Aspire, and Semrush retook GEO after Profound’s one-week reign. Of the three #1s installed at the model boundary two weeks ago, only Braze still holds its board. Below: the three biggest moves, verdicts on last week’s open questions, a category-by-category opportunity map, and how to read a week where all the movement happened at the top. Not seeing your category below? Treat this report as a sample chart. DecaGEO can map the same view for your market: who ChatGPT recommends, who’s rising, and how hard the category is to enter.
Summary for citation: In DecaGEO’s week of August 9, 2026 data (ChatGPT GPT-5.6, US, 10 categories, 408 ranked brand slots), three category #1s changed hands: ClickUp took Project Management #1 from Jira (now #2, 95.3), CreatorIQ retook Influencer Marketing #1 from Aspire after a two-week interruption, and Semrush retook GEO #1 from Profound (now #2, 79.8) after one week. Two of the three #1s installed at the GPT-5.4 → GPT-5.6 model change lost their spots; only Braze (Marketing Automation, 20-point lead) held. Klaviyo’s Email challenge receded, with the gap to Brevo Marketing Platform re-opening from 1.1 to 7.5 points. Marketing Automation posted four of the week’s five biggest gains, led by Agentforce Marketing (+24.4). The recommendation set slipped from 421 to 408, a third straight week below the GPT-5.4 range (439–493). The DECA Volatility Index fell to 9.3%, a new tracked low.
Key takeaway: Three of last week’s five single-digit gaps flipped within one week, so a single-digit gap reads as a live contest. But the narrowest gap of all, Email’s 1.1 points, is the one that held, so closeness marks contestability, not destiny. The model-boundary #1s are now settled the same way: the two defending by 2 points lost, the one defending by more than 20 kept its board.

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This week’s biggest moves

Diverging bar chart of the week's largest DECA moves: Agentforce Marketing +24.4, Klaviyo +23.3, Adobe Journey Optimizer +14.9, Oracle Responsys +13.7, and Wrike +12.0 up. Peec.ai −25.3, ActiveCampaign −25.0, Profound −20.2, Scrunch AI −17.9, and Customer.io −17.3 down.

This week's largest DECA Score moves, week of August 9 vs August 2, 2026. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US.

Three #1s changed hands — in the quietest week we have measured. ClickUp took Project Management #1 from Jira (now #2, 95.3), which had defended its 2-point lead for exactly one week. That makes three different Project Management leaders in four weeks. The six-week run of monday Work Management ended at the model boundary, Jira held two weeks, and ClickUp now leads by 4.7 with monday still at #5. CreatorIQ retook Influencer Marketing from Aspire (now #2, 90.6), the six-week GPT-5.4 incumbent back on top after a two-week interruption. And in GEO, Semrush retook #1 from Profound, whose first-ever GEO-native lead lasted one week. DECA Score measures how strongly ChatGPT recommends a brand within its category, on a 0–100 scale, normalized so each week’s category leader sits at 100. Marketing Automation reversed itself, and Klaviyo reversed with it. Four of the week’s five biggest gains came from one board: Agentforce Marketing (+24.4, to #5) and Klaviyo (+23.3, to #3) were both top-five fallers just last week, with Adobe Journey Optimizer (+14.9) and Oracle Responsys (+13.7) behind them. For Klaviyo that is a fifth sharp reversal in six Marketing Automation weeks. Its Email Marketing side moved the other way at the same time: the 1.1-point gap to Brevo Marketing Platform re-opened to 7.5 as Klaviyo slipped to 92.5, still #2. The four-week climb that set up the flip watch stopped one point short of the top. Email’s mid-tier gave back last week’s surge too, with ActiveCampaign falling −25.0 (from #3 to #9), Omnisend −16.4, and Customer.io −17.3 on the Email board even as it rose to Marketing Automation #2. GEO’s compressed top broke apart. Last week three tools sat within 8.5 points of the lead. This week Semrush is back at 100 and three GEO tools posted top-five falls: Profound −20.2 (to #2, 79.8), Scrunch AI −17.9 (holding #3 at 73.6), and Peec.ai −25.3 (to #5, the week’s biggest fall and its third whipsaw in as many weeks). Because DECA Score is normalized to each week’s leader, those falls read as the field losing ground to Semrush rather than as absolute declines. The board itself thinned from 49 back to 39 brands, its model-change low, with 23 exits and 13 entries, the most churn of any category. Want the deeper read on any mover? Each brand above links to its DecaGEO profile: the DECA history, segment breakdown, and on-page signals behind the number.

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Last week’s open questions, answered

Last week’s report left five questions open and flagged the rest at the model boundary. Every one of them resolved this week: Table 2: Verdicts on the questions left open in last week’s report. The model-boundary ledger is now effectively closed: of the three #1s installed at the GPT-5.4 → GPT-5.6 change, only Braze remains.

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The recommendation set held its lower level (421 → 408)

The number of brands ChatGPT placed in its recommendation set slipped from 421 to 408, a third straight GPT-5.6 week inside the 399–421 range and below every GPT-5.4 week. Three same-model readings now put the question to rest for us: the smaller set is the GPT-5.6 baseline. Under the total, Project Management has grown every GPT-5.6 week (51 → 54 → 58) while GEO gave back its rebound (49 → 39) and AI Image Generators’ three-week climb ended (40 → 34).
Two-panel line chart with a dashed boundary line labeled GPT-5.4 to GPT-5.6 between July 19 and July 26: total ranked brands move 440, 473, 467, 493, 472, 439, 445, then 399, 421, and 408 in the three GPT-5.6 weeks. GEO category brands move 74, 88, 91, 103, 99, 74, 90, then 39, 49, and 39.

Total ranked brands and GEO category brands, weeks of June 7 – August 9, 2026. Weeks through July 19 collected on GPT-5.4, July 26 onward on GPT-5.6. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US.

Table 3: Ranked brands per category, weeks of July 5 – August 9, 2026. The last three columns are GPT-5.6 collections. Earlier columns are GPT-5.4. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US.

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Category opportunity map

Each category has a different shape: how locked the top is (the #1-vs-#2 gap), how much the board churned, and who rose or fell. Table 4: As of the week of August 9, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. Risers and fallers by DECA Score change vs August 2. Open any category’s live board: CRM, SEO, GEO, Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, Project Management, Help Desk, Influencer Marketing, AI Writing Assistants, AI Image Generators. Single-digit gaps fell from five to four (Help Desk 3, Project Management 5, Email 8, Influencer Marketing 9), and the new tightest race is a familiar one. Freshdesk closed on Zendesk Suite from 7 points to 3.3, rebuilding the same challenge that collapsed to 2 at the model boundary and then reverted. In CRM, Dynamics 365 Sales held #1 for a fifth straight week while Agentforce Sales took #2 from Zoho CRM — Salesforce’s Agentforce products rose on two boards at once this week. SEO stayed the outlier on both counts: the most rank movement (14 of 57 brands ±10) under the widest gap (62).

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What this means for you

Every reader splits first on one question: is your category tracked in the index at all? If it isn’t, the next section covers what to do. If it is, read your position:
  • Not yet recommended. 74 brands entered the set this week (12 in Influencer Marketing) while 87 left. If your brand isn’t on a board yet, Add Your Brand sends a weekly alert the moment it enters the recommendation set, so you don’t have to keep checking manually.
  • Mid-pack. All four of Marketing Automation’s biggest gains came from brands that fell hard within the past two weeks, and ActiveCampaign gave back a top-3 Email spot in one week. Before reacting to either kind of move, a brand’s chart history shows whether it is a trend or another swing.
  • Stable or leading. Three #1s changed hands this week, and two of them had defended their lead the week before. If you lead your category, compare your brand against challengers weekly — this was the week that showed a successful defense buys one week, not a season.

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Don’t see your category?

Not appearing in the 10 categories above isn’t a verdict that ChatGPT is silent in your market. It more likely means the category hasn’t been mapped yet. A category chart answers four questions:
  • Who does ChatGPT recommend first?
  • Which brands are entering the recommendation set?
  • How high is the Top 5 threshold (the DECA Score needed to break in)?
  • Is the category open, volatile, or locked?
Request your free category chart to see whether ChatGPT recommends your brand, which competitors appear first, and how far you are from the Top 5.

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FAQ

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Which category #1s changed this week?

Three: ClickUp took Project Management #1 from Jira, CreatorIQ retook Influencer Marketing #1 from Aspire, and Semrush retook GEO #1 from Profound. That ties the model-change week for the most #1 changes in our tracking, and this time both weeks ran on the same model.

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Did Klaviyo take Email #1?

No. The gap to Brevo Marketing Platform re-opened from 1.1 to 7.5 points as Klaviyo slipped to 92.5, still #2. The four-week climb stopped one point short of the top.

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Did Profound defend its GEO #1?

No. Semrush retook #1 after one week, and Profound fell to #2 at 79.8. Profound’s week of August 2 remains the only week in our tracking that a GEO-native tool led the GEO board.

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Which brand gained the most in ChatGPT recommendations this week?

Agentforce Marketing, up 24.4 DECA points to #5 in Marketing Automation for the week of August 9, 2026 — one week after posting a top-five fall. Klaviyo (+23.3, also Marketing Automation) was close behind on the same pattern.

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Are the #1s from the model change still in place?

Only one of three. Braze holds Marketing Automation with a 20-point lead, while Jira (Project Management) and Aspire (Influencer Marketing) both lost the spots they took at the GPT-5.4 → GPT-5.6 boundary. The two that defended by about 2 points lost; the one that defended by 20 or more held.

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Which category is most volatile right now?

SEO, where 14 of 57 brands moved ±10 ranks. The week overall was the quietest in our tracking for a second straight week: 9.3% of ranked brands moved ±10, and CRM moved none at all.

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Did the smaller GPT-5.6 recommendation set persist?

Yes. At 408 ranked brands, the set has now spent three straight weeks in a 399–421 range, below every GPT-5.4 week (439–493). We treat the smaller set as the GPT-5.6 baseline. GEO gave back its rebound, returning from 49 to 39 brands.

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How we measure

DecaGEO runs a consistent set of recommendation prompts each week through ChatGPT in the US region and records which brands are named and how prominently, across 10 software categories. This week’s data was collected on August 6, 2026 on GPT-5.6 (model label gpt-5.6-terra), the third GPT-5.6 collection. Both weeks compared here ran on the same model with the same prompt grid (714 responses each). References to GPT-5.4 levels use the six-week range from June 14 to July 19, 2026.
  • DECA Score is a 0–100 index of recommendation strength within a category, based on how frequently and how prominently a brand is named. Scores are normalized weekly so each category’s leader sits at 100. A score change therefore reads as a change in the gap to the leader, not an absolute shift.
  • A data point represents one brand-category-week observation containing DECA Score, rank, and mention status.
  • Model labels (e.g., GPT-5.6) reflect the visible model identifier at the time of each weekly collection, not independently verified model versions.
  • Verdicts on open questions compare this week against both prior GPT-5.6 weeks and the GPT-5.4 range. Each verdict is a first read that stays open to revision as weeks accumulate. Rank-move counts (±10) are computed among brands present in both weeks (334 this week).
  • Limitations: Week-over-week counts partly reflect newly detected brands and may include re-aggregation noise. A single week’s change is an observation, not a trend. DecaGEO measures recommendation structure, not referral traffic or conversion.

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Sources

Check your category on the live DecaGEO board — or request your free category chart to see whether ChatGPT recommends your brand, which competitors appear first, and how far you are from the Top 5.