# Sales intelligence and contact data: what AI models recommend, October 2026

Gane Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "B2B contact data and sales intelligence platform" and as "B2B prospecting database", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/sales/sales-intelligence-and-contact-data/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This is the permanent record of the October 2026 Edition, published October 1, 2026 and superseded since.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/sales/sales-intelligence-and-contact-data/index.md

**Standing:** Apollo.io leads with 73% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 49 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Apollo.io](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/apollo-io/index.md) | 73% | 16% | 68 |
| 2 | [ZoomInfo SalesOS](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/zoominfo-salesos/index.md) | 12% | 36% | 69 |
| 3 | [Lusha](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/lusha/index.md) | 4% | 13% | 52 |
| 4 | [UpLead](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/uplead/index.md) | 4% | 0% | 25 |
| 5 | [Cognism](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/cognism/index.md) | 2% | 13% | 52 |
| 8 | [LinkedIn Sales Navigator](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/linkedin-sales-navigator/index.md) | 0% | 10% | 20 |
| 9 | [Clay](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/clay/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 14 |
| 13 | [HubSpot Breeze Intelligence](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/hubspot-breeze-intelligence/index.md) | 0% | 18% | 11 |
| 52 | [Seamless.AI](https://www.gane.ai/index/gtm/vendors/seamless-ai/index.md) | 0% | 47% | 15 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 52 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: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, Lusha, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- GPT-5.4 mini: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, Lusha, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Apollo.io; alternatives Clay, Cognism, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- Perplexity Sonar: ZoomInfo SalesOS; alternatives Cognism, Lusha
- Grok 4.20: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, Lusha, UpLead
- Mistral Small: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, UpLead, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- Llama 4 Maverick: ZoomInfo SalesOS
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Apollo.io, ZoomInfo SalesOS; alternatives Clay, Cognism
- Kimi K2: Apollo.io, Lusha; alternatives Cognism, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Apollo.io; alternatives Dealfront, HubSpot Sales Hub, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- MiniMax M2.5: Apollo.io; alternatives Clay, Cognism, Lusha, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- GPT-6 Luna: Apollo.io; alternatives Cognism, ZoomInfo SalesOS
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Apollo.io, ZoomInfo SalesOS; alternatives Cognism, Lead411

## Sources the answers cite

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

- pipeline.zoominfo.com: 53 answers, 186 citations
- apollo.io: 35 answers, 58 citations
- lusha.com: 28 answers, 45 citations
- cognism.com: 27 answers, 34 citations
- salesmotion.io: 26 answers, 36 citations
- amplemarket.com: 24 answers, 29 citations
- blog.hubspot.com: 22 answers, 23 citations
- demandbase.com: 21 answers, 26 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/top-sales-intelligence-tools (22 answers)
- https://amplemarket.com/blog/best-sales-intelligence-platforms-2026 (20 answers)
- https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-intelligence-platform (20 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/b2b-contact-databases (18 answers)
- https://cognism.com/blog/b2b-contact-database (14 answers)
- https://demandbase.com/faq/b2b-marketing-database (14 answers)
- https://pipeline.zoominfo.com/sales/best-b2b-sales-tools (14 answers)
- https://technologyadvice.com/sales-intelligence (12 answers)
- https://cleverly.co/blog/sales-intelligence-tools (11 answers)
- https://apollo.io/magazine/best-b2b-contact-databases (10 answers)

## Warned against

- ZoomInfo SalesOS: 25 of 69 labels negative. "Multiple 2024 securities class actions alleging misleading investors about financial performance and using coercive auto-renewal policies" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)
- Apollo.io: 11 of 68 labels negative. "Apollo's data quality issues are well-documented and compound fast, with 20-30% bounce rates being its most critical weakness" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)
- Seamless.AI: 7 of 15 labels negative. "If I had to single out one for extra caution, it would be Seamless.AI\u2014not necessarily because its data is always poor, but because of recurring complaints about auto-renewal and cancellation." (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt)
- Lusha: 7 of 52 labels negative. "The credit model can feel like a trap... Users report accuracy has declined, particularly for phone numbers" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)

## Movement since September 2026

Floor: 11 points of share, measured on the calibration repeat.
Same leader: Apollo.io at 73%.

- ZoomInfo SalesOS: 17% to 10%, −7. Inside the floor by 4 points · rank 2 of 50, unchanged.
- Lusha: 0% to 5%, +5. Inside the floor by 6 points · rank 5 → 3 of 50.
- Apollo.io: 76% to 73%, −3. Inside the floor by 8 points · rank 1 of 50, unchanged.
- UpLead: 5% to 5%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 3 → 4 of 50.
- Cognism: 2% to 2%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 4 → 5 of 50.
- Clay: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 6 → 8 of 50.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 7 → 9 of 50.
- Hunter: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 10 of 50, unchanged.
- 6sense Sales Intelligence: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 11 → 12 of 50.
- HubSpot Breeze Intelligence: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 13 of 50, unchanged.
- Demandbase: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 15 → 16 of 50.
- Salesmotion: 0% to 0%, ±0. Inside the floor by 11 points · rank 8 → 38 of 50.

## 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.