Excel
Read the same way at every company size.
The standing depends on who is buying. Every model is asked the same questions for each company size.
Cube is first at 24%.
Pigment is first at 19%.
No model named it for this buyer.
Why models recommend it
“For a company with a limited budget, I'd start with Excel/Word—not an enterprise transfer-pricing platform—if you have only a few entities”GPT-6 Luna · Budget-constrained question · first choice
“If the budget is genuinely tight, I'd start with Excel or Google Sheets—not a dedicated FP&A platform.”GPT-6 Luna · Budget-constrained question · first choice
“For very small businesses (<10 employees): Start with Excel/Google Sheets + AI tools (Free)”GLM 4.7 FlashX · Budget-constrained question · first choice
“Best for "Near-Zero" Budget: Low-Code Automation ... It automates calculations and threshold tracking while leveraging software you likely already pay for.”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Budget-constrained question · alternative
What gives them pause
“While tools like Excel or Google Sheets are flexible, they lack audit trails... error-prone at scale and not designed for complex FP&A processes.”MiniMax M2.5 · Negative question · warning
“Search results indicate a consistently negative sentiment toward using Excel as the sole driver for large-scale operations.”Qwen 3.7 Flash · Negative question · warning
“Why to Avoid: Lack of audit trails, high error rates (margin leakage), and reliance on "spreadsheet champions"”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Negative question · warning
“Spreadsheets (Excel) as Your Primary Provision Tool This is the #1 red flag across multiple sources.”Kimi K2 · Negative question · warning
Also on the shortlist
The products named in the same answers as Excel, over the 62 answers that named it, and how often each was the first choice instead.
| Product | Named together | Picked instead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 0 | View → | |
| 16 | 1 | View → | |
| 10 | 0 | View → | |
| 7 | 1 | View → | |
| 6 | 1 | View → | |
| 6 | 0 | View → | |
| 5 | 2 | View → | |
| 5 | 1 | View → | |
| 5 | 1 | View → | |
| 5 | 0 | View → |
A side-by-side page exists where both products are among a category's top eight.
How this is measured
Fourteen AI models from 12 labs are asked the same buying questions six ways, for three company sizes. Standings refresh every edition.
Gane sells AI visibility software. No company can pay to change a result.
Read the method →Sources returned with these answers
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted. These counts come from 50 of the 62 answers that named Excel and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
No domain is on file for Excel, so its own site is not marked. Fifteen were to the publisher's own pages (the Gane Index), which the models cite like any other source; they are not counted as a third party.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |