DECA Weekly AI Recommendation Index
Week of August 30, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US · 10 categories.
Table 1: DECA Weekly Index headline metrics, week of August 30, 2026. The DECA Volatility Index is the share of ranked brands that moved ±10 rank positions week-over-week (41 of 413 this week, computed among brands present in both weeks). Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US.
What this article covers
Each week this report separates what held from what changed. This week read like a test of last week’s changes, and most of them failed it: Dynamics 365 Sales retook CRM #1 one week after losing it, and the Help Desk tie resolved back to Zendesk Suite. What survived the test: ClickUp’s Project Management defense, only the second back-to-back #1 hold of the GPT-5.6 era. Meanwhile the quietest race got loud in a different way — Klaviyo closed the Email mention-rate gap to 1.3 points. Below: the biggest moves, the held-vs-changed table, a category opportunity map, and why single-digit races just doubled. 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 30, 2026 data (ChatGPT GPT-5.6, US, 10 categories, 413 ranked brand slots), two of ten category #1s changed, and both were reversals of last week’s changes: Dynamics 365 Sales retook CRM #1 from HubSpot Sales Hub, whose reign lasted one week, and Zendesk Suite resolved the Help Desk tie in its favor, leading Freshdesk by 2.7 points while Freshdesk kept the higher mention rate (67.1% vs 62.0%). ClickUp defended Project Management #1, the second consecutive-week hold of the GPT-5.6 era after Jira’s in late July. Semrush widened its GEO lead from 13.4 to 17.7 points as Profound’s mention rate fell back from 57.1% to 46.0%. Klaviyo cut Brevo’s Email mention-rate gap from 5.1 points to 1.3 while the DECA gap narrowed to 7.8. Adobe Photoshop’s +20.3 was the week’s biggest gain, reversing last week’s −14.5. Zoho CRM’s −25.6 was the biggest fall. The DECA Volatility Index was 9.9%, a fifth straight week below 10%.
Key takeaway: Takeovers keep failing their first defense. Across the GPT-5.6 era, six #1 takeovers have now faced a next-week test and four lasted exactly one week — HubSpot’s CRM reign this week joined Profound’s, ClickUp’s, and Jira’s August one-week reigns, and Freshdesk’s tie unwound the same way. The exceptions are both on Project Management, the board that flips most. What did keep advancing was frequency: Klaviyo now trails Brevo by 1.3 points of mention rate, the narrowest that signal has been for any challenger we track, and single-digit DECA races doubled from two to four.
This week’s biggest moves
This week's largest DECA Score moves, week of August 30 vs August 23, 2026. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US.
What held, what changed
Table 2: What held and what changed, week of August 30 vs August 23, 2026. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US.
The reversal pattern now runs from the mid-pack to the very top. Four of this week’s ten biggest moves undo a move from last week: Adobe Photoshop (+20.3 after −14.5), Leonardo.Ai (+14.6 after −13.8), Jira (+15.3 after −25.9), and Smartsheet (−18.5 after rising to #2). The same shape reached the #1 line — HubSpot’s CRM takeover and Freshdesk’s Help Desk tie each lasted exactly one week, as ClickUp’s and Jira’s August takeovers did before them. So far on GPT-5.6, the moves that persist are the slower ones: Klaviyo’s multi-week climb on frequency, Aspire’s narrowing of Influencer Marketing, and Jasper’s 11.7-point close under Grammarly this week are the races that have kept advancing rather than round-tripping.
The recommendation set held its band (415 → 413)
The number of brands ChatGPT placed in its recommendation set was effectively flat again at 413, a sixth straight week inside the 399–421 GPT-5.6 band and below every GPT-5.4 week. The board-level swings continued underneath: Influencer Marketing shed 9 brands (55 → 46, on 19 exits), unwinding most of last week’s 15-brand jump, while GEO added 5 (39 → 44) on 28 entries, the most of any category. Across all boards, 91 brands entered and 93 left.
Total ranked brands and GEO category brands, weeks of June 7 – August 30, 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 26 – August 30, 2026. All columns are GPT-5.6 collections. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US.
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 30, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. Risers and fallers by DECA Score change vs August 23.
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 races doubled, from two to four, and three of the four are new. Help Desk (2.7) is what the resolved tie left behind. AI Writing (6.0) appeared in one week as Jasper closed 11.7 points under Grammarly. Influencer Marketing (8.4) tightened as Aspire closed on CreatorIQ’s third defense. Email (7.8) carried over. Last week’s other single-digit race, CRM at 5.0, resolved the way most have so far: by changing hands. SEO stayed the usual outlier, with the most rank movement (17 of 58 brands ±10) under a 58-point gap.
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. 91 brands entered the set this week, 28 in GEO alone — churn keeps creating openings every single week. Break Into the AI Ranking walks you through finding out why AI isn’t recommending you yet, using the data of the brands it already does, and Add Your Brand sends a weekly alert the moment your brand enters the recommendation set.
- Mid-pack. Four of this week’s ten biggest moves undo last week’s move for the same brand. Before reacting to any one-week spike or fall, a brand’s chart history shows whether you’re looking at a Klaviyo-style multi-week climb or an Adobe Photoshop-style round trip.
- Stable or leading. Last week’s lesson was that cushions can vanish. This week’s is the counterpoint: both displaced incumbents recovered the top within a week. What separates the challenges that keep advancing is the frequency signal — Klaviyo is now 1.3 mention-rate points from Brevo. If you lead your category, compare your brand against challengers weekly, on both signals.
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?
FAQ
Which category #1s changed this week?
Two of ten, and both reversed last week’s change: Dynamics 365 Sales retook CRM #1 from HubSpot Sales Hub after a one-week reign, and Zendesk Suite resolved the Help Desk tie in its favor, moving 2.7 points ahead of Freshdesk.Did ClickUp hold Project Management #1?
Yes — its first back-to-back defense, and only the second consecutive-week hold of the GPT-5.6 era (Jira held the board’s first two GPT-5.6 weeks). The board still churned beneath it: Jira rebounded to #2, Smartsheet fell #2 to #6, and four of the top six changed position.Which brand gained the most in ChatGPT recommendations this week?
Adobe Photoshop, up 20.3 DECA points to #4 in AI Image Generators for the week of August 30, 2026 — a full reversal of last week’s −14.5. Sudowrite (+16.9) and ProWritingAid (+15.4) followed in AI Writing.Is Klaviyo still closing on Brevo?
On both signals now. The DECA gap narrowed from 8.9 to 7.8 points, and the mention-rate gap collapsed from 5.1 points to 1.3 (Brevo 45.6%, Klaviyo 44.3%) after three weeks stalled at 5.1. No challenger we track has been closer to a #1 on frequency.Who leads Help Desk after the tie?
Zendesk Suite, by 2.7 points — the smallest #1 gap on any board. The signals stayed split: Freshdesk still has the higher mention rate (67.1% vs 62.0%), so this race reads as prominence versus frequency rather than settled.Did Semrush keep its GEO #1?
Yes, widening the lead a second straight week (2.0 → 13.4 → 17.7 points). Profound held #2 but its mention rate fell back to 46.0% from last week’s 57.1% spike. The board added 28 brands, the most entries of any category.Which category is most volatile right now?
By rank movement, SEO again (17 of 58 brands ±10). The two boards whose #1 changed were the opposite: CRM and Help Desk had no brand move ±10 ranks at all — this week’s change was confined to the very top.Did the smaller GPT-5.6 recommendation set persist?
Yes. At 413 ranked brands, the set has spent six straight weeks in a 399–421 band, below every GPT-5.4 week (439–493). We treat that band as the GPT-5.6 baseline.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 27, 2026 on GPT-5.6 (model labelgpt-5.6-terra), the sixth GPT-5.6 collection. Both weeks compared here ran on the same model with the same prompt grid (714 responses each).
- 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.
- Mention rate is the share of responses that name the brand, reported alongside DECA where frequency and prominence diverge — as they do this week in Help Desk, where the #1 on DECA trails on mention rate.
- 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.
- Held-vs-changed verdicts compare this week against prior GPT-5.6 weeks. 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 (322 this week).
- Limitations: Week-over-week counts partly reflect newly detected brands and may include re-aggregation noise, and boards with high turnover (GEO again this week, with 28 entries) are the most exposed to it. A single week’s change is an observation, not a trend. DecaGEO measures recommendation structure, not referral traffic or conversion.
Sources
- DecaGEO recommendation data, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US, weeks of August 23 and August 30, 2026 (10 categories).
- GPT-5.4 baseline ranges: DecaGEO weekly data, weeks of June 14 – July 19, 2026.
- Prior week: AI Ranking Movers — Week of August 23, 2026.
- Model boundary analysis: GPT-5.6 vs GPT-5.4: How ChatGPT’s Search & Citation Behavior Changed.
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.