# Employee engagement surveys: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "employee engagement survey platform" and as "employee pulse survey tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/experience/employee-engagement-surveys/2026-09

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/experience/employee-engagement-surveys/index.md

**Standing:** Culture Amp leads with 40% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 52 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Culture Amp](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/culture-amp/index.md) | 40% | 10% | 42 |
| 2 | [Workleap Officevibe](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/workleap-officevibe/index.md) | 12% | 0% | 31 |
| 3 | [FeedbackPulse](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/feedbackpulse/index.md) | 12% | 0% | 14 |
| 4 | [Lattice Engagement](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/lattice-engagement/index.md) | 10% | 3% | 36 |
| 6 | [15Five Engage](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/15five-engage/index.md) | 6% | 0% | 37 |
| 13 | [Leapsome](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/leapsome/index.md) | 0% | 0% | 13 |
| 45 | [Qualtrics EmployeeXM](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/qualtrics-employeexm/index.md) | 0% | 38% | 16 |
| 47 | [Workday Peakon Employee Voice](https://www.gane.ai/index/hr/vendors/workday-peakon-employee-voice/index.md) | 0% | 30% | 10 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 76 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: Lattice Engagement; alternatives 15Five Engage, Culture Amp, Workleap Officevibe
- GPT-5.4 mini: Culture Amp; alternatives Qualtrics EmployeeXM, WorkTango
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Culture Amp, Lattice Engagement; alternatives 15Five Engage, Leapsome
- Perplexity Sonar: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement, Workleap Officevibe
- Grok 4.20: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement
- Mistral Small: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement, Quantum Workplace, Workleap Officevibe
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Lattice Engagement; alternatives 15Five Engage, Culture Amp, Quantum Workplace
- Llama 4 Maverick: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement, Quantum Workplace
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement, Workleap Officevibe
- Kimi K2: Culture Amp; alternatives Lattice Engagement, Workleap Officevibe
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Culture Amp; alternatives 15Five Engage, Engagedly, Lattice Engagement, Leapsome
- MiniMax M2.5: Culture Amp, Matter; alternatives 15Five Engage, Lattice Engagement, ThriveSparrow Engage

## Sources the answers cite

61 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- feedbackpulse.com: 34 answers, 70 citations
- culturemonkey.io: 21 answers, 37 citations
- thrivesparrow.com: 21 answers, 26 citations
- engagedly.com: 19 answers, 22 citations
- thehappinessindex.com: 15 answers, 19 citations
- selectsoftwarereviews.com: 15 answers, 15 citations
- apollotechnical.com: 14 answers, 15 citations
- qualaroo.com: 12 answers, 12 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://feedbackpulse.com/resources/best-employee-survey-software (27 answers)
- https://engagedly.com/blog/best-employee-engagement-survey-softwares (19 answers)
- https://selectsoftwarereviews.com/buyer-guide/best-employee-engagement-software (15 answers)
- https://thrivesparrow.com/blog/best-employee-engagement-software (15 answers)
- https://apollotechnical.com/best-employee-engagement-survey-vendors-for-mid-market-hr-teams (11 answers)
- https://culturemonkey.io/employee-engagement/pulse-survey-tools (11 answers)
- https://contactmonkey.com/blog/pulse-survey-tool (10 answers)
- https://thehappinessindex.com/blog/best-employee-engagement-platforms (10 answers)
- https://qualaroo.com/blog/employee-pulse-survey-tools (9 answers)
- https://workhuman.com/blog/employee-engagement-software (9 answers)

## Warned against

- Qualtrics EmployeeXM: 6 of 16 labels negative. "Avoid enterprise platforms like Culture Amp, Qualtrics, or Microsoft Viva Glint" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Culture Amp: 4 of 42 labels negative. "Avoid enterprise platforms like Culture Amp, Qualtrics, or Microsoft Viva Glint" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt)
- Google Forms: 3 of 9 labels negative. "You have outgrown basic, manual forms (like Google Forms)" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt)
- Qualtrics XM: 3 of 4 labels negative. "Why You Should Avoid Enterprise Giants (Qualtrics, Workday Peakon, Perceptyx)" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, direct prompt)

## Record

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