↳ Research · October 2026
Which sales tools do AI assistants recommend?
We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity 60 B2B buyer questions three times each: 540 answers.
Two tools dominate: Apollo appears in 44.6% of the answers and Clay in 37.4%. The assistants also change their minds: only 40.8% of ChatGPT's and 41% of Claude's tool mentions came back in all three runs of the same question. And they read different sources: ChatGPT leans on vendors' own documentation, Claude on third-party "best tools" lists.
Adam Axelsson · Revexa · 2026-10-15
Key findings
- Apollo was named in 44.6% of all answers, Clay in 37.4% and HubSpot in 27.8%. No other tool passed 17%.
- Claude names about twice as many tools per answer as the others: 5.48 against 2.67 for ChatGPT and 2.72 for Perplexity.
- Recommendations are unstable. Asked the same question three times, ChatGPT and Claude repeated only about 41% of the tools they named; Perplexity repeated 68.5%.
- ChatGPT took about 40.7% of its sources from the vendors' own sites (clay.com, HubSpot's and Apollo's knowledge bases) and 6% from LinkedIn. Claude took most of its sources from third-party lists such as salesmotion.io, marketbetter.ai and salesforge.ai.
- In Swedish, Apollo's lead grows to 52.8% of answers. Nordic tools barely appear: Leadfeeder (Dealfront) is the highest at 15.6%.
- 130 of 540 answers named no tool at all, mostly answers to problem and how-to questions.
Share of all answers naming each tool
- Apollo44.6%
- Clay37.4%
- HubSpot27.8%
- Instantly16.9%
- 11x14.6%
- Artisan13.7%
- Cognism13.3%
- Common Room12.6%
- Leadfeeder12.4%
- 6sense11.5%
- lemlist11.3%
- Smartlead10.2%
540 answers from ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, 2026-10-14 to 2026-10-15.
↳ By assistant
Three assistants, three habits.
| ChatGPT | Claude | Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tools named per answer | 2.67 | 5.48 | 2.72 |
| Mentions repeated in all three runs | 40.8% | 41% | 68.5% |
| Most named tools | HubSpot 40%, Apollo 33.3%, Clay 30.6%, 11x 12.8%, Common Room 12.8% | Apollo 63.3%, Clay 47.8%, HubSpot 30%, Instantly 28.3%, Cognism 26.1% | Apollo 37.2%, Clay 33.9%, Instantly 14.4%, HubSpot 13.3%, ZoomInfo 11.7% |
| Most used sources | clay.com, knowledge.hubspot.com, linkedin.com, apollo.io, commonroom.io, knowledge.apollo.io | salesmotion.io, marketbetter.ai, pipeline.zoominfo.com, salesforge.ai, syncgtm.com, joinvalley.co | artisan.co, prospeo.io, tomba.io, salesforge.ai, unifygtm.com, lemlist.com |
ChatGPT: GPT-5.6 Luna with OpenAI web search (via OpenRouter) · Claude: Claude Sonnet 5.5 with web search · Perplexity: Perplexity Sonar
↳ English vs Swedish
Same question, different market.
English questions
- Apollo40.6%
- Clay38.9%
- HubSpot27.2%
- Instantly17.5%
- Artisan17.2%
- 11x15.8%
- Common Room15%
- 6sense12.8%
Swedish questions
- Apollo52.8%
- Clay34.4%
- HubSpot28.9%
- Cognism20.6%
- Leadfeeder15.6%
- Instantly15.6%
- Lusha14.4%
- Dealfront13.9%
↳ For buyers
Don't trust one answer.
An AI shortlist reflects what has been written about a tool, not how well it fits you. Ask the same question twice, ask for sources and prices, and check that the tools work in your market and language. The most-named tools are also the most-written-about ones.
↳ For vendors
Be where each assistant reads.
Claude's answers come mostly from third-party lists, so being in those lists matters more than your own blog. ChatGPT reads vendors' own documentation and pricing pages, so make yours clear and current. LinkedIn articles show up in ChatGPT's sources too. Measure across several runs, because a single check tells you almost nothing.
↳ Method
How we measured.
We wrote 60 questions the way B2B buyers ask them (40 in English, 20 in Swedish): problem questions, category questions, comparisons, alternatives, price and how-to. Each was asked three times, 2026-10-14 to 2026-10-15, through the APIs with web search on: GPT-5.6 Luna with OpenAI web search (via OpenRouter), Claude Sonnet 5.5 with web search and Perplexity Sonar. We recorded which of 45 sales and data tools each answer named and which sources it used. API answers can differ from the consumer apps, so treat the numbers as indicative.
Disclosure: Revexa builds Leo, an AI agent in this category. Leo was recommended in 0 of the 540 answers; Revexa's own guides were used as a source in 8.
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Cite as: Revexa, "Which sales tools do AI assistants recommend?", October 2026, revexa.io.