The Cooper Index, Edition 4: How AI Recommendations Changed Across 80 Software Categories

Edition 4 at a Glance

The Cooper Index is a weekly, dated record of which business software products four leading AI assistants recommend. Edition 4 measures ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity across 80 software categories. In every category, Cooper asks four separate questions: Best, Most Affordable, Easiest to Set Up, and Rising.

Edition 4 covers 2,827 ranked products across eight software hubs. Its immutable archive contains 7,615 cited pages from 3,490 source domains, increases of 169 products, 586 pages, and 106 domains from Edition 3. Those totals describe the measured corpus; they are not product scores and do not determine rank.

The measurement window runs from July 27 through August 2, 2026, under scoring version aiq-v2. AIQ is a 1–100 category-relative recommendation-strength score within one ranking question. A product's AIQ can be compared with products in the same category and scope, but not with raw scores from unrelated software markets.

Four Questions, Four Answers

Best leadership changed in 24 of 80 categories between Edition 3 and Edition 4. The constraint-specific rankings moved more often: 53 Most Affordable leaders changed, 60 Easiest to Set Up leaders changed, and 40 Rising leaders changed. Fifty categories have four different leaders across the four questions, 29 have three, and only one has two.

That separation is the point. Best captures broad recommendation strength; Most Affordable asks about cost; Easiest to Set Up asks about implementation; Rising asks about emerging products. None contributes to another, and Cooper does not combine them into a public composite.

In Sales Engagement, HubSpot Sales Hub moves from #20 to #1 in Most Affordable at category-relative AIQ 76, while Outreach leads Best. The assistants place the Most Affordable leader at #1, #2, #4, and #1. This is a price answer beside a broader recommendation answer, not a correction to it.

In CRM, Less Annoying CRM moves from #4 to #1 in Easiest to Set Up at category-relative AIQ 83, with assistant positions of #1, #1, #8, and #7. Best is led by HubSpot Smart CRM, which has a category rank from one assistant in that scope. The two rankings expose a useful difference between setup-specific and broader answers.

In API Platforms, Zuplo holds #1 in Rising at Rising AIQ 100, with a #1 position from all four assistants. Postman leads Best. Even complete assistant convergence in Rising remains evidence about the emerging-product question only.

Representative Best Findings

In Sales, ZoomInfo moves from #4 to #1 in Sales Intelligence. Its Best AIQ is 100 and all four assistants rank it #1. Its weekly evidence footprint across the four public questions contains 37 Sources and 47 Mentions.

In Marketing, Unbounce moves from #2 to #1 in Landing Page Builders. Its Best AIQ rises from 73 to 100 and every assistant places it #1. The weekly evidence footprint records 30 Sources and 39 Mentions.

In Support, Zendesk AI Agents moves from #5 to #1 in Chatbots. It reaches Best AIQ 70 with #1 positions from ChatGPT and Claude, and no category rank from Gemini or Perplexity in Best. The weekly evidence footprint records 6 Sources and 7 Mentions.

In HR, Clockify moves from #2 to #1 in Time Tracking. Its Best AIQ moves from 50 to 75, with assistant positions of #1, #2, #3, and #2. The weekly evidence footprint records 33 Sources and 47 Mentions.

In Finance, Stripe Billing moves from #2 to #1 in Subscription Billing. Its Best AIQ moves from 71 to 85, with assistant positions of #1, #2, #1, and #2. The weekly evidence footprint records 25 Sources and 33 Mentions.

In Productivity, Canva moves from #2 to #1 in Presentation Software. Its Best AIQ moves from 65 to 93, with assistant positions of #1, #1, #2, and #1. The weekly evidence footprint records 31 Sources and 39 Mentions.

In IT & Security, Bitwarden moves from #3 to #1 in Password Managers. Its Best AIQ moves from 42 to 67, with assistant positions of #1, #7, #2, and #6. The weekly evidence footprint records 29 Sources and 34 Mentions.

In Engineering, Productboard moves from #2 to #1 in Product Management. Its Best AIQ moves from 65 to 90, with assistant positions of #1, #1, #3, and #1. The weekly evidence footprint records 34 Sources and 43 Mentions.

Where the Assistants Agreed

Among the 80 Best leaders, 59 have a category rank from all four assistants, six from three, six from two, and nine from one. Twenty-four leaders rank #1 with every assistant. This is within-category convergence, not permission to compare raw AIQ across unrelated categories.

A missing assistant position means only that the product has no category rank from that assistant in the stated scope. Sources count distinct publisher domains and Mentions count verified product-page links, accumulated across all four public questions for the week. Those evidence totals describe the footprint around the answers; they are never presented as the cause of rank or movement.

Explore Edition 4

• Sales Software Report
• Marketing Software Report
• Support Software Report
• HR Software Report
• Finance Software Report
• Productivity Software Report
• IT & Security Software Report
• Engineering Software Report
• Rising AIQ Report

The immutable Edition 4 ranking archive preserves the exact measurement behind every report.

Cooper's methodology explains how assistant positions, AIQ, Sources, Mentions, and missing ranks are interpreted. Vendors cannot buy placement, alter a score, or remove an unfavorable result.