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Brown Seo, Founding Engineer (AI & Infrastructure) · Last updated: October 6, 2026

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DECA Weekly AI Recommendation Index

Week of October 4, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US · 10 categories. Table 1: DECA Weekly Index headline metrics for the ten categories, weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026. Each week is compared with the week before it. The DECA Volatility Index is the share of brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks that moved ±10 rank positions, 33 of 322 in the week of October 4. Definitions are under How we measure. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. No category leader changed on any of the ten boards in the week of October 4, 2026. It is the first such week in the 22 week-pairs on record, going back to the week of May 3, 2026. Rank movement was also the lowest on record, with 33 of the 322 brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks moving ten or more positions. Adobe Photoshop in AI Image Generators, Scrunch AI in GEO and GRIN in Influencer Marketing rose in the week of September 27 and lost rank in the week of October 4.
Summary for citation: In DecaGEO’s week of October 4, 2026 data (ChatGPT GPT-5.6, US, ten B2B SaaS categories), none of the ten category #1s changed hands, the first such week in 22 week-pairs on record going back to the week of May 3, 2026. 33 of the 322 brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks moved ten or more rank positions, a DECA Volatility Index of 10.2 percent, the lowest of the 22 week-pairs. Zendesk Suite led Freshdesk in Help Desk by 0.53 DECA points, the fourth straight week in which the top two on that board were within one DECA point. Adobe Photoshop fell from #2 to #4 in AI Image Generators, Scrunch AI from #3 to #5 in GEO and GRIN from #5 to #10 in Influencer Marketing. All three had risen in the week of September 27, 2026, Photoshop from #5 to #2, Scrunch AI from #4 to #3 and GRIN from #7 to #5.
Key takeaway: Adobe Photoshop, Scrunch AI and GRIN rose in the week of September 27, 2026 and lost rank on the same boards in the week of October 4, and GRIN fell five places while its mention rate stayed the same. Before you treat a rise as a trend, see whether it held for a second week, in mention rate as well as in rank.

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Help Desk’s top two stay within one DECA point

Table 2: The top two brands in Help Desk, weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026. Mention rate is the share of the category’s responses that recommended the brand. Gap to #1 is the #1’s DECA Score minus Freshdesk’s in the same week. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. Help Desk’s top two have been within one DECA point of each other for four straight weeks. Freshdesk led in the weeks of September 13 and 20, 2026, and Zendesk Suite in the weeks of September 27 and October 4, by 0.53 DECA points in the latest week. A week before that run began, in the week of September 6, the gap was 1.61 points. Zendesk Suite kept #1 with a lower mention rate than Freshdesk, 63.3 against 65.8 percent. The DECA Score weighs each recommendation by where the brand appears in the answer, so the brand recommended in more answers does not always lead. Influencer Marketing shows the same split with a wider margin. CreatorIQ held #1, 18.1 DECA points ahead of Aspire, while Aspire’s mention rate was 57.0 percent and CreatorIQ’s 55.7. CreatorIQ has now held the board alone in 19 of the 23 collections on record. On the other eight boards in the week of October 4, the #1 had the highest mention rate among the top three brands. Further down, CRM’s #4, Zoho CRM, had a higher mention rate than its #1, Dynamics 365 Sales, 50.6 against 49.4 percent.

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Where the top two moved

Table 3: The #1 and #2 on each of the ten boards, weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026. Arrows read September 27 → October 4. Where the #2 changed, both names are given. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. The #2 changed on three boards. In Project Management Wrike rose from #4 to #2 and monday Work Management fell from #2 to #5, while ClickUp’s lead over the #2 narrowed from 26.4 to 11.5 DECA points. In CRM Agentforce Sales rose from #4 to #2, and Dynamics 365 Sales’s lead over the #2 widened from 7.1 to 12.2 points. In AI Image Generators Midjourney rose from #4 to #2 and Adobe Photoshop fell from #2 to #4. In GEO the gap widened from 13.0 to 36.3 points with Profound still at #2, its mention rate down from 54.0 to 45.2 percent while Semrush’s held near 65 percent. In SEO, Semrush still led Ahrefs by 53.5 points, down from 65.5, as Ahrefs’s mention rate rose from 27.8 to 36.7 percent and Semrush’s fell from 72.2 to 65.8.

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Rank movement reached its lowest on record

33 of the 322 brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks on the ten boards moved ten or more rank positions, a DECA Volatility Index of 10.2 percent. That is the lowest of the 22 week-pairs on record, below the 10.6 percent of the week of September 20, 2026, and the 10.7 percent of the week of May 10.
Line chart of the DECA Volatility Index on ten boards over 22 week-pairs. It runs between 10.7 and 19.1 percent across the GPT-5.4 weeks, reaches 17.7 percent in the first GPT-5.6 week of July 26 and 17.1 percent in the week of September 6, and ends at 11.4 percent in the week of September 27 and 10.2 percent in the week of October 4, 2026, the lowest value on record.

DECA Volatility Index, the share of brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks that moved ten or more rank positions, on the ten categories, for 22 week-pairs from the week of May 10 to the week of October 4, 2026. Weeks through July 19 were collected on GPT-5.4, July 26 onward on GPT-5.6. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US.

Table 4: Ranked brand counts, rank movement and turnover on the ten categories, weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026. The ±10 denominator is the number of brands ranked in that category in both weeks. Entries are brands ranked on October 4 and not on September 27, exits the reverse. Source: DecaGEO, ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US. SEO and Project Management account for 24 of the 33 moves. Four boards moved nobody ten places: Marketing Automation, Email Marketing, Help Desk and GEO. GEO moved nobody that far and still turned over the most. 19 of the 33 brands ranked in the week of October 4, 2026 had been ranked in the week of September 27, the lowest carry-over share of the ten boards, and 14 brands entered and 14 dropped out. Influencer Marketing grew from 41 ranked brands to 50 on 18 entries, the most of any board.

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Three brands that rose in the week of September 27 lost rank

Adobe Photoshop fell from #2 to #4 in AI Image Generators, and its mention rate from 37.9 to 27.1 percent. In the week of September 27 it had risen from #5 to #2, with its mention rate up from 23.7 percent (September 27 edition). Midjourney took #2, with a mention rate of 47.5 percent in the week of October 4. Scrunch AI fell from #3 to #5 in GEO, and its mention rate from 61.9 to 45.2 percent, below the 47.6 percent of the week of September 20, 2026. GRIN fell from #5 to #10 in Influencer Marketing while its mention rate stayed the same. In the week of September 27 Scrunch AI had risen from #4 to #3 and GRIN from #7 to #5.

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Category opportunity map

On each board, the riser and faller columns are the largest rank changes between the weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026. Table 5: As of the week of October 4, 2026 · ChatGPT (GPT-5.6), US, ten categories. Risers and fallers are defined under How we measure. “No clear mover” means the largest rank change on that board belonged to a brand named in only one answer in one of the two weeks. Source: DecaGEO. 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.

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What this means for you

  • Not yet recommended. In the week of October 4, 2026, 81 brand-category slots on the ten boards were ranked that had not been ranked the week before, 18 of them in Influencer Marketing and 14 in GEO. Break Into the AI Ranking walks through finding out why AI is not recommending you yet, using the data of the brands it already does, and Add Your Brand sends a weekly alert when your brand enters the recommendation set.
  • Mid-pack, after a jump. Adobe Photoshop, Scrunch AI and GRIN each lost rank a week after their rise. Photoshop’s mention rate went from 23.7 to 37.9 to 27.1 percent over the weeks of September 20, September 27 and October 4, 2026, and Scrunch AI’s from 47.6 to 61.9 to 45.2 percent. GRIN fell from #5 to #10 with its mention rate unchanged. If your brand rose in one week, log in with a free account, open its Chart History and read mention rate next to rank across the last four weeks to see whether both held. Then, in the Brand Ranking Trail of Prompt & AI Response, compare your slot in each answer this week with last week’s.
  • Stable or leading. In Help Desk and Influencer Marketing the #1 had a lower mention rate than the #2, and on Help Desk the two have been within one DECA point for four weeks. If you lead, compare your brand against the #2 on mention rate as well as DECA, and against any brand ranked below you with a higher mention rate, as Zoho CRM was in CRM. In the Brand Ranking Trail of Prompt & AI Response, compare your slot in each answer with theirs.

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Don’t see your category?

The index measures the ten B2B SaaS categories above. A chart for another category answers four questions.
  • Who does ChatGPT recommend first?
  • Which brands are entering the recommendation set?
  • How high is the Top 5 threshold, meaning 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 in the week of October 4, 2026?

None of the ten. It is the first week without a change in the 22 week-pairs on record, going back to the week of May 3, 2026. The closest board was Help Desk, where Zendesk Suite led Freshdesk by 0.53 DECA points.

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How close is the Help Desk race?

Zendesk Suite led Freshdesk by 0.53 DECA points in the week of October 4, 2026. The two have been within one DECA point since the week of September 13, with Freshdesk at #1 in the weeks of September 13 and 20 and Zendesk Suite in the weeks of September 27 and October 4. Freshdesk had the higher mention rate in the week of October 4, 65.8 against 63.3 percent.

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Which brands rose on their boards in the week of October 4, 2026?

AgencyAnalytics rose from #50 to #20 in SEO, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite from #24 to #13 in AI Image Generators, Brandlight from #18 to #9 in GEO, OpenText SMAX from #28 to #19 in Help Desk and Substack from #35 to #26 in Email Marketing. Each was the largest rank rise on its board.

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Which brands fell on their boards in the week of October 4, 2026?

Anyword fell from #10 to #23 in AI Writing Assistants, Capsule CRM from #11 to #22 in CRM, Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation from #17 to #26 in Email Marketing and Rankscale from #8 to #13 in GEO, the largest rank falls on those boards. Adobe Photoshop fell from #2 to #4 in AI Image Generators, Scrunch AI from #3 to #5 in GEO and GRIN from #5 to #10 in Influencer Marketing. All three had risen in the week of September 27, 2026, from #5 to #2, #4 to #3 and #7 to #5.

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Was the week of October 4, 2026 the calmest on record?

By rank movement, yes. 33 of the 322 brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks moved ten or more rank positions, 10.2 percent, the lowest of 22 week-pairs since the week of May 3, 2026. Four of the ten boards moved no brand that far. By turnover GEO stayed open, with 14 brands entering and 14 dropping out of 33.

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Which category was most volatile in the week of October 4, 2026?

By rank movement, SEO, with 13 of its 51 carry-over brands moving ten or more positions. By turnover it is GEO, where only 19 of the 33 brands ranked in the week of October 4, 2026 were also ranked in the week of September 27.

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How we measure

How the weekly prompt set is built and collected is described on the DecaGEO methodology page.
  • Collection. The weeks of September 27 and October 4, 2026 were both collected on GPT-5.6 with the same prompt set.
  • Observation window. 23 weekly collections, from the week of May 3 to the week of October 4, 2026, of which 12 ran on GPT-5.4 and 11 on GPT-5.6. Charts and record statements use all 23 weeks on the ten boards, and week-over-week figures the weeks of September 27 and October 4.
  • Mention rate is the share of a category’s responses in a week that recommended the brand.
  • Reading the DECA Score. The DECA Score weighs how often a brand is recommended by where it appears in each answer. 100 is the category’s #1 that week, and every other brand’s score is relative to the #1. When the #1 moves, the other brands’ DECA Scores on that board move with it. Whether a brand itself gained shows in its mention rate and in its slot in each answer, in the Brand Ranking Trail. The DECA Score of a brand other than the #1 is compared only with other brands in the same week and category. The #1-to-#2 gap and rank changes can be compared across weeks and categories.
  • #1-to-#2 gap is the leader’s DECA Score minus the runner-up’s on the same board in the same week, computed at full precision and rounded once at the end.
  • Risers and fallers are the largest rank rise and fall on each board between the weeks of September 27 and October 4, among brands ranked in both weeks. A brand is named only if it was named in more than one answer in both weeks. Otherwise the cell reads “No clear mover”.
  • DECA Volatility Index is the number of brand-category pairs ranked in both weeks that moved ten or more rank positions, divided by the number of pairs ranked in both weeks, on the ten boards.

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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.