# CRM: what AI models recommend, November 2026

Gane Index, November 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/2026-11

**Standing:** HubSpot CRM leads with 53% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 43 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) | 53% | 18% | 61 |
| 2 | [HubSpot Sales Hub](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-sales-hub/index.md) | 28% | 0% | 13 |
| 3 | [Zoho CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/zoho-crm/index.md) | 12% | 9% | 65 |
| 6 | [Pipedrive](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/pipedrive/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 49 |
| 7 | [Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/microsoft-dynamics-365-sales/index.md) | 0% | 16% | 45 |
| 8 | [Salesforce Sales Cloud](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/salesforce-sales-cloud/index.md) | 0% | 25% | 63 |
| 9 | [Freshsales](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/freshsales/index.md) | 0% | 4% | 25 |
| 10 | [Less Annoying CRM](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/less-annoying-crm/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 10 |
| 11 | [Close](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/close/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 11 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 71 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: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Attio, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- GPT-5.4 mini: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Creatio, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Perplexity Sonar: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Grok 4.20: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Mistral Small: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Coevera, Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Llama 4 Maverick: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- Kimi K2: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Coevera, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Coevera, Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive
- MiniMax M2.5: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Pipedrive, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Zoho CRM
- GPT-6 Luna: HubSpot CRM; alternatives Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Muse Glimmer 30B: HubSpot Sales Hub; alternatives Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Nutshell, Pipedrive

## Sources the answers cite

67 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 13 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- byalkali.com: 15 answers, 15 citations
- g2.com: 14 answers, 22 citations
- hubspot.com: 13 answers, 14 citations
- blog.salesflare.com: 12 answers, 12 citations
- salespop.net: 12 answers, 12 citations
- selecthub.com: 12 answers, 12 citations
- zoho.com: 11 answers, 18 citations
- nutshell.com: 11 answers, 11 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://byalkali.com/best/best-b2b-crm (15 answers)
- https://salespop.net/sales-technology/top-5-crms-for-the-mid-market-a-comparative-analysis (12 answers)
- https://selecthub.com/customer-relationship-management/best-b2b-crm (9 answers)
- https://findstack.com/software/crm/s/mid-market (8 answers)
- https://crmswitch.com/buying-crm/crm-software-selection-criteria (6 answers)
- https://folk.app/articles/best-crm-b2b-sales (6 answers)
- https://g2.com/categories/crm (6 answers)
- https://g2.com/discussions/crm-top-rated-customer-relationship-management-software-for-mid-size-businesses (6 answers)
- https://marksgroup.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CRM-comparison-2024-v2.pdf (6 answers)
- https://alium.io/research/top-complaints-crm (5 answers)

## Warned against

- Salesforce Sales Cloud: 16 of 63 labels negative. "Salesforce — Avoid for small teams, tight budgets, or organizations without a dedicated administrator." (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- HubSpot CRM: 11 of 61 labels negative. "The free or low-cost entry point can become expensive as you add users, automation, reporting, marketing, and service features." (Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt)
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: 7 of 45 labels negative. "Why cautious? Heavy integration with Microsoft ecosystem ... Complaints include complexity, high costs, slow performance" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)
- Zoho CRM: 6 of 65 labels negative. "Affordable but often criticized for glitches, limited mobile app, poor support response times, and feature bloat" (Grok 4.20, negative prompt)

## Movement since October 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: HubSpot CRM at 53%.

- Zoho CRM: 5% to 12%, +7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 3 of 71, unchanged.
- HubSpot CRM: 59% to 53%, −6. Inside the floor by 5 points · rank 1 of 71, unchanged.
- HubSpot Sales Hub: 23% to 28%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 2 of 71, unchanged.
- Freshsales: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 4 → 9 of 71.
- Less Annoying CRM: 2% to 0%, −2. Inside the floor by 9 points · rank 5 → 10 of 71.
- Pipedrive: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 10 → 6 of 71.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 12 → 7 of 71.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 11 → 8 of 71.
- Close: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 58 → 11 of 71.
- monday CRM: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 13 → 19 of 71.

## Record

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