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Yonjun Jeong, Co-founder · Last updated: October 20, 2026

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What this article covers

When US buyers asked ChatGPT for project management tools in Q3 2026, the same six names filled the top six in every week DecaGEO measured: Asana, ClickUp, Jira, monday Work Management, Smartsheet and Wrike. That covers 13 weeks from July 5 to September 27, 3 measured on GPT-5.4 and 10 on GPT-5.6 Terra. The tool at #1 changed with the model. monday Work Management led the GPT-5.4 weeks, and ClickUp led 7 of the 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks.
Summary for citation: In DecaGEO’s data for ChatGPT in the US (Project Management category, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026), Asana, ClickUp, Jira, monday Work Management, Smartsheet and Wrike ranked #1 to #6 in all 3 weeks measured on GPT-5.4 and all 10 weeks measured on GPT-5.6 Terra. monday Work Management was #1 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks. ClickUp was #1 in 7 of the 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, including every week from August 23, and was recommended in 48.6% of answers in those weeks, the highest share among the ten tools ranked in the top 10 in the week of September 27. In the week of September 27, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and Teamwork.com tied for #7.
Key takeaway: The six-tool shortlist did not change across the model switch. The order inside it did, from week to week. Below #6, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and Teamwork.com entered the top 10 from the week of July 26 and stayed in most weeks.

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Top 10 project management tools ChatGPT recommends at a glance

Table 1: Project management tools ranked by DECA Score in the week of September 27, 2026 (GPT-5.6 Terra), with the number of weeks each made the top 10 under each model. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026. Definitions in How we measure. DECA Score is relative to the week’s #1, which is always 100. Smartsheet at 60.8 means ChatGPT recommended it about 60% as strongly as ClickUp that week. To see whether a tool was recommended more or less often over time, use the share of answers that recommended it. Table 2: Share of ChatGPT answers that recommended each tool, pooled by model period. Same 79 questions each week, one answer per question. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, Project Management category, weeks of July 5 to July 19 (GPT-5.4) and July 26 to September 27, 2026 (GPT-5.6 Terra).
Line chart of weekly ranks over 13 weeks: monday Work Management is #1 in the three GPT-5.4 weeks, then moves between #2 and #6. ClickUp is #1 in seven of the ten GPT-5.6 Terra weeks and every week from August 23. Six tools stay between #1 and #6 in all 13 weeks. ServiceNow SPM and Teamwork.com rank #11 to #19 before July 26 and #7 to #11 from the week of July 26.

Weekly rank of the ten project management tools ranked 1 to 10 in the week of September 27, 2026. The dashed line marks the week of July 26, the first week measured on GPT-5.6 Terra. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, Project Management category, weeks of July 5 to September 27, 2026.

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The top 10, in detail

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1. ClickUp (DECA 100)

Ranked #2, #4 and #4 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #1 in 7 of 10, including every week from August 23 to September 27, and #2 in the other three. It was recommended in 48.6% of answers in those weeks. See ClickUp vs Asana.

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2. monday Work Management (DECA 73.6)

Ranked #1 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks and was recommended in 60.8% of answers in that period, the highest share of the ten tools in Table 2. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it ranked between #2 and #6 and its share was 39.7%. See Asana vs monday.com.

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3. Jira (DECA 71.2)

Ranked #5 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it was #1 in three (July 26, August 2 and August 16) and between #2 and #5 in the rest. Its share of recommending answers was 38.8% and then 36.5%.

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4. Asana (DECA 68.0)

Ranked #3, #3 and #2 in the GPT-5.4 weeks and between #2 and #6 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. It did not rank #1 in any Q3 week. Its share went from 57.8% to 38.2%.

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4. Wrike (DECA 68.0)

Ranked #6 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks and between #2 and #6 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. Its share of recommending answers was 34.2% and then 33.5%.

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6. Smartsheet (DECA 60.8)

Ranked #4, #2 and #3 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it ranked between #2 and #6, and #6 in each of the last five. Its share of recommending answers fell from 51.9% to 31.6%.

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7. ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (DECA 36.8)

Ranked #17, #11 and #19 in the GPT-5.4 weeks, then #7 or #8 in every GPT-5.6 Terra week. Its share of recommending answers went from 7.6% to 15.1%.

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7. Teamwork.com (DECA 36.8)

Ranked #13, #17 and #13 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it made the top 10 in 9 of 10, between #7 and #10, and ranked #11 in the week of August 16.

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9. Notion (DECA 28.0)

In the top 10 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks and 9 of 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, between #7 and #12. Its share went from 22.8% to 15.2%.

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10. Jira Align (DECA 26.4)

In the top 10 in 1 of 3 GPT-5.4 weeks and 5 of 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it ranked between #8 and #13.

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What changed at the July 26 model switch

The week of July 26 was the first measured on GPT-5.6 Terra. The same set of 79 questions was asked in all 13 weeks.
  • The #1 spot moved. monday Work Management was #1 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, Jira was #1 on July 26, August 2 and August 16, and ClickUp in the other seven. In the four weeks to August 16 the distance between #1 and #2 was 7.6 DECA points or less. In ClickUp’s six weeks at #1 from August 23, the distance ranged from 2.7 to 26.4.
  • The GPT-5.4 leaders were recommended less often. monday Work Management’s share went from 60.8% to 39.7%, Asana’s from 57.8% to 38.2% and Smartsheet’s from 51.9% to 31.6%. ClickUp’s moved less, from 51.9% to 48.6%.
  • Two tools moved into the top 10. ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and Teamwork.com ranked #11 to #19 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. From the week of July 26 they made the top 10 in 10 and 9 of the 10 weeks.
  • The top six did not change. The same six tools held #1 to #6 before and after the switch. Only their order moved.

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Notable: Linear

Linear ranked #11 to #16 in the GPT-5.4 weeks. In the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks it made the top 10 in six straight weeks, from August 2 to September 6, between #8 and #10. It then ranked #12, #16 and #15 in the last three weeks of Q3. In the week of September 27 it was recommended in 9 of 79 answers (DECA 21.6), against 10 for Teamwork.com at #7.

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What the top tools’ cited pages have in common

DecaGEO checks the tools’ own pages that ChatGPT cited in its project management answers for on-page patterns. The category’s Weekly Breakouts tab shows these patterns by name for the tools that broke in or climbed that week. Here are five of them, counted across the ten tools ranked 1 to 10 in the week of September 27. Table 3: A tool counts if at least one of its cited pages that DecaGEO checked has the pattern. robots.txt is counted per site, not per page. DecaGEO, ChatGPT, US, English, Project Management category, week of September 27, 2026. Canonical links and meta descriptions are on the cited pages of every top-10 tool. ClickUp, #1 that week, has neither Schema.org types nor Content freshness on its checked pages. These counts describe the pages ChatGPT cited. They do not show that a pattern moved any tool up the list.

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What you can do with this list

If you are choosing a project management tool, the two tables tell you which names ChatGPT puts in front of US buyers and how steadily. This is a ranking of recommendations, not a review of features, so use it to build a shortlist and test from there.
  • Without an account, the live project management ranking shows the current week, and each tool’s product page shows its Overview for that week.
  • With a free account, the Segment Position cards show buyer-condition rankings (segments). Clicking a card opens the questions behind it, and the Brand Ranking Trail shows the order ChatGPT recommended tools in each answer.
If your brand is in this category, the same pages show where you stand.
  • Without an account, search your brand in the header and open its Overview. The GEO Guide, under Dashboard in the site header, checks your own page for patterns like the ones in Table 3. It is free, and the first step needs no account.
  • With a free account, you get the latest four weeks, the Brand Ranking Trail for each question, every third-party source ChatGPT cited behind the recommendations in Off-Page Citations, the segment cards (including ones where you are not mentioned), and tracking for one brand.
  • Pro ($49 a month) adds ten weeks of data, full Chart History and CSV export.

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FAQ

Which project management tool does ChatGPT recommend most? ClickUp, in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. It ranked #1 in 7 of the 10 weeks DecaGEO measured on GPT-5.6 Terra (July 26 to September 27, 2026), including every week from August 23, and was recommended in 48.6% of answers. In the 3 GPT-5.4 weeks before that, monday Work Management was #1. Is monday, Asana, or ClickUp ranked higher by ChatGPT? ClickUp, in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. It was recommended in 48.6% of answers, against 39.7% for monday Work Management and 38.2% for Asana, and both of them moved between #2 and #6. In the GPT-5.4 weeks monday Work Management was #1. See Asana vs monday.com and ClickUp vs Asana. What is DECA Score? A 0 to 100 score for how often and how high ChatGPT recommends a tool within one category in one week. The week’s #1 is 100. Details are in How we measure and the methodology. Why isn’t Linear in the top 10? In the week of September 27 it ranked #15. It made the top 10 in 6 of the 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks, from August 2 to September 6, and ranked #12 to #16 in the three weeks after that. Are these rankings stable? The membership of the top six was. The same six tools held #1 to #6 in all 3 GPT-5.4 weeks and all 10 GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. Their order changed most weeks, and #1 changed hands three times within the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks. Is this a features review? No. It ranks tools by how ChatGPT recommends them, not by feature quality, price or results.

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How we measure

The common method, including how questions are built and how DECA Score is calculated, is on the methodology page.
  • Window: 13 weeks, July 5 to September 27, 2026, ChatGPT, US, English. The weeks of July 5, 12 and 19 were measured on GPT-5.4 and the weeks from July 26 on GPT-5.6 Terra. Figures from the two periods are shown side by side and not combined.
  • Sample: the same 79 project management questions every week, one answer per question, so 237 answers in the GPT-5.4 weeks and 790 in the GPT-5.6 Terra weeks.
  • DECA Score is shown for one week only, because it is relative to that week’s #1. The distance between #1 and #2 in DECA points can be compared across weeks.
  • Recommended in counts answers that recommended the tool. Passing or negative mentions are not counted.
  • Top-10 weeks counts weeks with a rank of 10 or better, including ties.
  • Page patterns are from the week of September 27, on each tool’s own pages cited in that week’s project management answers.
  • The live board updates every Sunday, so it shows weeks after September 27.

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Sources