Cybersecurity consulting firms: AI search visibility ranking (2026)
How AI search engines rank cybersecurity consulting firms 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. Cybersecurity consulting firms that provide advisory, incident response, offensive security, architecture design, governance, and managed security expertise to enterprises. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
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At a glance
What we observed in this categoryauto-generated
EY dominates this category with a visibility score of 87.5%, more than three times higher than the next ranked brands, Mandiant and Deloitte, both at 25.0%. The category average visibility sits at just 10.0%, meaning EY outperforms the average by 77.5 percentage points. This gap is structurally significant: a single brand is capturing the majority of AI-generated mentions while the remaining 19 brands compete for a narrow slice of remaining visibility.
A sharp divergence exists between being named and being cited. EY, Mandiant, Deloitte, Accenture, PwC, Rapid7, and Secureworks all carry zero citation rates despite varying degrees of visibility. CrowdStrike is the only brand in the top five that earns any citation share, at 12.5%, matching its visibility exactly. Optiv presents the inverse pattern: zero visibility but a 12.5% citation rate, meaning Google AI Mode references its content without naming it prominently in responses.
All ten ranked brands share Google AI Mode as their top engine, confirming this audit reflects a single-engine dataset. The cited sources list includes aggregator and review-style domains such as gartner.com, cybersecurityventures.com, reddit.com, and corsicatech.com alongside atlantsecurity.com and lorikeetsecurity.com. Brand-owned domains do not appear in the top cited sources, suggesting Google AI Mode is anchoring on third-party and community content rather than direct brand content when forming responses in this category.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility risers
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EY 0% → 88% · rank #0 → #1+88pp
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Mandiant 0% → 25% · rank #0 → #2+25pp
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Deloitte 0% → 25% · rank #0 → #3+25pp
The ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
ey.com
|
88% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
EY holds 87.5% visibility against a category average of 10.0% but records a 0.0% citation rate, meaning it is named frequently yet its domain is not being directly referenced. |
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| 2 |
mandiant.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Mandiant sits at 25.0% visibility with zero citations, placing it joint second with Deloitte but 62.5 percentage points behind EY in AI-generated mentions. |
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| 3 |
deloitte.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Deloitte matches Mandiant exactly at 25.0% visibility and 0.0% citation, giving it a composite score of 17.5, well above the field but far below EY's 61.2. |
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| 4 |
crowdstrike.com
|
12% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
CrowdStrike is the only top-five brand with any citation activity, recording 12.5% on both visibility and citation, giving it the highest citation-to-visibility ratio in the dataset. |
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| 5 |
accenture.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Accenture sits at 12.5% visibility and zero citations, sharing that profile with PwC, Rapid7, and Secureworks, leaving it undifferentiated from ranks 6 through 8 in this audit. |
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| 6 |
pwc.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
rapid7.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
secureworks.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
optiv.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
kpmg.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
ibm.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
nccgroup.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
trustwave.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
coalfire.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
guidepointsecurity.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
paloaltonetworks.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
verizon.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
orangecyberdefense.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
atos.net
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
kudelskisecurity.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on cybersecurity consulting firms, 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 cybersecurity consulting firms 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 cybersecurity consulting firms AI visibility
Who leads AI visibility in the cybersecurity consulting firms category?
EY leads with 87.5% visibility, more than three times higher than Mandiant and Deloitte at 25.0% each. The category average is just 10.0%, making EY's position a significant outlier.
Which cybersecurity consulting brand is most cited by Google AI Mode?
CrowdStrike is the only top-ten brand with a non-zero citation rate, recording 12.5%. All other named brands, including EY, carry a 0.0% citation rate despite varying visibility levels.
What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on for cybersecurity consulting research?
The top cited sources include gartner.com, cybersecurityventures.com, reddit.com, corsicatech.com, and atlantsecurity.com. No brand-owned domains appear in the cited sources list, indicating reliance on third-party and aggregator content.
Can a brand have citations but no visibility in this category?
Yes. Optiv records 0.0% visibility but 12.5% citation rate, meaning Google AI Mode references its content as a source without prominently naming the brand in AI-generated responses.
How concentrated is AI visibility across the 20 brands audited?
Visibility is heavily concentrated: EY alone holds 87.5% while the category average across all brands is 10.0%. Ten of the top-ranked brands carry a composite score of 8.8 or below, and KPMG scores 0.0.
Which search engine drives AI visibility for cybersecurity consulting firms in this dataset?
Google AI Mode is listed as the top engine for all ten ranked brands, indicating this audit reflects Google AI Mode exclusively with no contribution from other AI engines.