AI chatbot builders: AI search visibility ranking (2026)
How AI search engines rank ai chatbot builders by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Platforms used to build AI chatbots, assistants, and conversational workflows for support, sales, and internal operations. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
Refreshed Jun 14, 2026Download this ranking as a PDF
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At a glance
What we observed in this categoryauto-generated
Botpress leads the AI chatbot builders category with a visibility score of 25.0%, more than double the 12.5% held by the next three brands (Tidio, Ada, and Manychat). The category average visibility sits at just 3.8%, making Botpress an outlier rather than a benchmark. This gap is significant because it means Google AI Mode surfaces Botpress in roughly one in four responses while most of the 20 tracked brands appear in fewer than one in twenty-five. Six of the top ten brands have a visibility score of exactly zero.
The clearest divergence between visibility and citation belongs to Zapier Interfaces, which holds a 0.0% visibility score yet achieves the highest citation rate in the top five at 37.5%. Botpress shows the inverse pattern, scoring 25.0% visibility with a 0.0% citation rate. Tidio is the only brand in the top five to carry meaningful scores on both dimensions (12.5% visibility, 25.0% citation). Ada and Manychat are named in AI responses but receive no citations, placing them in a 'named but not trusted as a source' position.
Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in the dataset, confirming this category's AI visibility is concentrated in a single channel. The top cited external sources include createaiagent.net, youtube.com, zapier.com, reddit.com, and tidio.com, suggesting Google AI Mode anchors its chatbot-builder responses on third-party aggregator and community content rather than vendor homepages. Zapier.com and tidio.com appear in this cited-sources list, which aligns with their above-average citation percentages in the brand rankings.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility risers
-
Botpress 0% → 25% · rank #2 → #1+25pp
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Tidio 0% → 12% · rank #4 → #2+12pp
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Ada 0% → 12% · rank #8 → #4+12pp
The ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
botpress.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Botpress holds 25.0% visibility, roughly 6.6 times the 3.8% category average, but its 0.0% citation rate means Google AI Mode names it without linking to it as a source. |
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| 2 |
tidio.com
|
12% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
Tidio is the only top-five brand with both visibility (12.5%) and citation presence (25.0%), and its domain appears directly in the top cited sources list for this category. |
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| 3 |
zapier.com
|
0% | 38% | Google AI Mode |
Zapier Interfaces achieves the highest citation rate (37.5%) among all ranked brands despite a 0.0% visibility score, suggesting it is referenced as a source rather than recommended as a product. |
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| 4 |
ada.cx
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Ada matches Manychat and Kore.ai with a 12.5% visibility score and a composite of 8.8, but its 0.0% citation rate puts it in the named-only tier with no source authority signal. |
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| 5 |
manychat.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Manychat shares an identical composite score (8.8) and visibility (12.5%) with Ada and Kore.ai, indicating no differentiation between these three brands in current AI Mode responses. |
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| 6 |
kore.ai
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
wonderchat.io
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
hubspot.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
landbot.io
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
chatfuel.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
crisp.chat
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
flowiseai.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
cloud.google.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
aws.amazon.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
microsoft.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
liveperson.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
freshworks.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
voiceflow.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
intercom.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
drift.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on ai chatbot builders, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.
How to read this ranking
Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.
Visibility = being named
A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer.
Citation rate = being trusted
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence — different from being named.
Top engine differs by brand
The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps.
Rankings move month to month
AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically.
Get your own ai chatbot builders brand audited
The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.
Frequently asked about ai chatbot builders AI visibility
Who leads AI visibility in the AI chatbot builders category?
Botpress leads with 25.0% visibility, more than double any competitor and roughly 6.6 times the 3.8% category average. It rose from rank 2 to rank 1 with a visibility delta of 25.0 percentage points in the most recent period.
Which brand has the highest citation rate in this category?
Zapier Interfaces holds the highest citation rate at 37.5%, despite having zero visibility, meaning Google AI Mode references its content as a source without recommending it as a product. Tidio is the only brand combining visible citation (25.0%) with meaningful visibility (12.5%).
What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on most for AI chatbot builder research?
The top cited sources are createaiagent.net, youtube.com, zapier.com, reddit.com, and tidio.com. This mix of aggregator, video, and community content suggests Google AI Mode draws heavily on third-party editorial and user-generated sources rather than vendor sites.
How many brands in this category have zero AI visibility?
Six of the top ten tracked brands, including HubSpot Chatbot Builder, Landbot, Chatfuel, and Wonderchat, currently hold 0.0% visibility and 0.0% citation, giving them no measurable presence in Google AI Mode responses.
Which brands are the biggest visibility risers in the current period?
Botpress gained 25.0 percentage points of visibility, Tidio gained 12.5 points alongside a 25.0-point citation increase, and Ada gained 12.5 visibility points while climbing four rank positions from 8 to 4.
Is AI chatbot builder visibility concentrated on one engine or spread across multiple?
Every brand in the dataset lists Google AI Mode as its top engine, indicating visibility in this category is currently concentrated entirely within that single channel with no other engine registering as a primary driver.