# CRM: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Gane Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "CRM" and as "customer relationship management system", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/revops/crm/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This is the permanent record of the October 2026 Edition, published October 1, 2026 and superseded since.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/revops/crm/index.md

**Standing:** HubSpot CRM leads with 59% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 44 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [HubSpot CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-crm/index.md) | 59% | 15% | 60 |
| 2 | [HubSpot Sales Hub](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-sales-hub/index.md) | 23% | 0% | 13 |
| 3 | [Zoho CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/zoho-crm/index.md) | 5% | 16% | 61 |
| 4 | [Freshsales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/freshsales/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 23 |
| 5 | [Less Annoying CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/less-annoying-crm/index.md) | 2% | 0% | 11 |
| 10 | [Pipedrive](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/pipedrive/index.md) | 0% | 11% | 44 |
| 11 | [Salesforce Sales Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-sales-cloud/index.md) | 0% | 26% | 58 |
| 12 | [Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/microsoft-dynamics-365-sales/index.md) | 0% | 6% | 36 |
| 13 | [monday CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/monday-crm/index.md) | 0% | 20% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 64 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: Coevera, HubSpot CRM; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Grok 4.20: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Mistral Small: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, SugarCRM
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Kimi K2: HubSpot Sales Hub, Zoho CRM
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- MiniMax M2.5: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- GPT-6 Luna: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Muse Glimmer 30B: no first choice; alternatives Coevera, HubSpot Sales Hub, Nutshell CRM, Salesflare

## Sources the answers cite

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

- blog.salesflare.com: 20 answers, 24 citations
- nutshell.com: 19 answers, 21 citations
- forbes.com: 18 answers, 22 citations
- pipedrive.com: 14 answers, 23 citations
- g2.com: 14 answers, 18 citations
- selecthub.com: 13 answers, 13 citations
- uk.pcmag.com: 12 answers, 14 citations
- blog.hubspot.com: 12 answers, 13 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://blog.salesflare.com/best-b2b-crm (13 answers)
- https://appvizer.com/magazine/customer/client-relationship-mgt/b2b-crm (11 answers)
- https://uk.pcmag.com/crm-software/67398/the-best-crm-software (11 answers)
- https://gushwork.ai/feeds/blog/midmarket-crm (9 answers)
- https://raftlabs.com/blog/top-crm-software (9 answers)
- https://findymail.com/blog/b2b-crm (8 answers)
- https://forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-crm-software (8 answers)
- https://g2.com/articles/best-crm-software (8 answers)
- https://nutshell.com/blog/best-b2b-crm-software (8 answers)
- https://teamgate.com/blog/best-crm-for-b2b (8 answers)

## Warned against

- Salesforce Sales Cloud: 15 of 58 labels negative. "Avoid Salesforce unless you're an enterprise with dedicated admin resources." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt)
- HubSpot CRM: 9 of 60 labels negative. "Many users report feeling locked into the ecosystem because migrating away from HubSpot is technically difficult and expensive." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Zoho CRM: 10 of 61 labels negative. "While cheap, the individual apps within Zoho feel disjointed. Users often describe the UI as cluttered or dated" (Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt)
- Pipedrive: 5 of 44 labels negative. "Be cautious if you do not want pipeline and sales pattern data used for vendor benchmarking/analytics." (Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: HubSpot CRM at 63%.

- HubSpot CRM: 41% to 63%, +22. Cleared the floor by 11 points · rank 1 of 55, unchanged.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud: 10% to 0%, −10. Inside the floor by 1 point · rank 4 → 10 of 55.
- Zoho CRM: 10% to 3%, −7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 3 of 55, unchanged.
- HubSpot Sales Hub: 18% to 21%, +3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 2 of 55, unchanged.
- Pipedrive: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 7 → 9 of 55.
- Freshsales: 2% to 3%, +1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 8 → 4 of 55.
- Less Annoying CRM: 2% to 3%, +1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 9 → 5 of 55.
- Nutshell: 2% to 3%, +1. Inside the floor by 10 points · rank 10 → 8 of 55.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 14 → 11 of 55.
- Bitrix24: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 16 → 14 of 55.
- Close: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 15 → 49 of 55.

## 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.