# PR and media monitoring: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Gane Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "PR and media monitoring platform" and as "press outreach and media monitoring tool", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/pr-and-media-monitoring/2026-10

This is the permanent record of the October 2026 Edition, published October 1, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/marketing/pr-and-media-monitoring/index.md

**Standing:** Muck Rack leads with 30% of first choices; verdict contested. 56 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Muck Rack](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/muck-rack/index.md) | 30% | 14% | 50 |
| 2 | [Semrush AI PR Toolkit](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/semrush-ai-pr-toolkit/index.md) | 14% | 2% | 45 |
| 3 | [Brand24](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/brand24/index.md) | 11% | 5% | 40 |
| 4 | [Mention](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/mention/index.md) | 11% | 12% | 33 |
| 5 | [Agility PR Solutions](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/agility-pr-solutions/index.md) | 11% | 12% | 25 |
| 6 | [Meltwater](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/meltwater/index.md) | 9% | 30% | 67 |
| 7 | [Awario](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/awario/index.md) | 9% | 8% | 12 |
| 8 | [Google Alerts](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/google-alerts/index.md) | 4% | 17% | 18 |
| 10 | [Talkwalker](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/talkwalker/index.md) | 0% | 5% | 21 |
| 11 | [Brandwatch](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/brandwatch/index.md) | 0% | 17% | 23 |
| 12 | [Prezly](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/prezly/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 11 |
| 13 | [Onclusive](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/onclusive/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 47 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: Agility PR Solutions; alternatives Brand24, Mention, Muck Rack
- GPT-5.4 mini: Muck Rack; alternatives CisionOne, Meltwater
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Muck Rack; alternatives Meltwater, Semrush AI PR Toolkit
- Perplexity Sonar: Muck Rack; alternatives Meltwater, Semrush AI PR Toolkit
- Grok 4.20: Brand24; alternatives Mention, Muck Rack
- Mistral Small: Muck Rack; alternatives Agility PR Solutions, Semrush Media Monitoring
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Muck Rack; alternatives Brand24, Meltwater, Semrush AI PR Toolkit
- Llama 4 Maverick: Agility PR Solutions; alternatives Brand24, Mention, Semrush AI PR Toolkit
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Agility PR Solutions; alternatives Meltwater, Muck Rack
- Kimi K2: Semrush AI PR Toolkit; alternatives Agility PR Solutions, Prezly
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Muck Rack; alternatives Onclusive, Prezly, Semrush AI PR Toolkit, Semrush Media Monitoring
- MiniMax M2.5: Brand24, Muck Rack; alternatives Agility PR Solutions
- GPT-6 Luna: Muck Rack; alternatives Meltwater
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Meltwater; alternatives Agility PR Solutions, Cision One, Muck Rack, Semrush AI PR Toolkit

## Sources the answers cite

80 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- meltwater.com: 41 answers, 59 citations
- shadow.inc: 38 answers, 67 citations
- brand24.com: 38 answers, 52 citations
- pr.co: 34 answers, 44 citations
- guideflow.com: 31 answers, 42 citations
- g2.com: 30 answers, 59 citations
- learn.g2.com: 30 answers, 38 citations
- prlab.co: 30 answers, 36 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://brand24.com/blog/media-monitoring-tools (31 answers)
- https://improvado.io/blog/best-digital-pr-tools-and-software (28 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-media-monitoring-software (27 answers)
- https://onclusive.com/resources/blog/media-monitoring-tools-2026 (26 answers)
- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/pr-and-media-monitoring-tools (19 answers)
- https://meltwater.com/en/blog/media-monitoring-tools (19 answers)
- https://shadow.inc/resources/best-media-monitoring-tools-pr-agencies (18 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/best-pr-analytics-software-tools (17 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/media-monitoring-software (17 answers)
- https://prlab.co/blog/best-pr-tools (15 answers)

## Warned against

- Meltwater: 20 of 67 labels negative. "one of the most frequently criticized platforms in the PR community... The "Relentless" Sales Culture... The Auto-Renewal Trap" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- CisionOne: 25 of 57 labels negative. "it has a notorious reputation regarding customer contracts and data quality... "one of the worst renewal reputations in SaaS."" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Muck Rack: 7 of 50 labels negative. "(Approach with Financial Caution)... you should still be cautious about their sales structure and technical requirements" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Brandwatch: 4 of 23 labels negative. "Opaque pricing, requires demo, typically enterprise-level" (Kimi K2, budget prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Muck Rack at 29%.

- Semrush AI PR Toolkit: 20% to 12%, −8. Inside the floor by 3 points · rank 2 of 45, unchanged.
- Mention: 4% to 12%, +8. Inside the floor by 3 points · rank 6 → 3 of 45.
- Awario: 16% to 10%, −6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 3 → 6 of 45.
- Muck Rack: 24% to 29%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 1 of 45, unchanged.
- Brand24: 14% to 10%, −4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 4 of 45, unchanged.
- Meltwater: 4% to 8%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 7 of 45, unchanged.
- Google Alerts: 0% to 4%, +4. Inside the floor by 7 points · rank 10 → 8 of 45.
- Agility PR Solutions: 12% to 10%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 5 of 45, unchanged.
- Talkwalker: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 11 → 10 of 45.
- Brandwatch: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 13 → 11 of 45.
- Prezly: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 19 → 12 of 45.
- Onclusive: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 12 → 13 of 45.

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, October 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/gtm.