AI Visibility Rankings · Security

Incident response firms: AI search visibility ranking (2026)

How AI search engines rank incident response 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. Incident response firms helping organizations investigate breaches, contain threats, restore systems, negotiate ransomware events, and strengthen post-incident resilience. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Refreshed Jul 03, 2026

Avg visibility across category

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

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When AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini field questions about incident response firms, Kroll comes up most consistently, appearing in 12.5% of tracked responses and earning citations in 37.5% of cases. Mandiant and CrowdStrike round out the top three. Across 20 ranked brands, that gap between Kroll and the rest is meaningful and reflects how AI engines weight authority in this category.

The rankings are shaped heavily by where AI engines go to find answers. The top cited sources include gartner.com, cynet.com, and atlantsecurity.com alongside the vendors' own domains (kroll.com and crowdstrike.com). The presence of Gartner and aggregator-style review sites like Cynet means AI engines are pulling from third-party validation, not just vendor content. Brands that appear positively and frequently in those outlets earn disproportionate visibility.

For a buyer using this page, the practical takeaway is that AI-cited leaders tend to have strong third-party coverage, not just polished websites. When evaluating firms lower in the rankings, check whether they have recent coverage on Gartner, independent review platforms, or security-specific aggregators. A firm with deep expertise in your specific incident type (ransomware, insider threat, breach response) may rank lower simply because that topical authority is not yet reflected in the sources AI engines trust most.

At a glance

Category leader Mandiant 25% visibility · named in 2 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Kroll 38% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in incident response firms

Top cited domain gartner.com Referenced by AI across the incident response firms query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 25pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 16 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this categoryauto-generated

Kroll leads the incident response category with a composite score of 20.0, despite having only 12.5% visibility, because its citation rate of 37.5% is the highest in the dataset. Mandiant sits at rank 2 with a composite score of 17.5 and the highest visibility at 25.0%, yet holds zero citations. That gap between Kroll and Mandiant illustrates how citation weight pulls composite scores more than raw visibility alone, making citation rate a more decisive factor in this category than share of mentions.

The divergence between being named and being trusted as a source is stark across the top five. Mandiant and Unit 42 both carry 0.0% citation rates despite appearing in AI responses, while Check Point Incident Response and Sygnia each hold 12.5% citation rates with zero visibility. CrowdStrike is the clearest case of a brand losing visibility (down 12.5 points) while simultaneously gaining citation trust (up 25.0 points), suggesting the AI is referencing CrowdStrike content as a source even when not naming it as a recommended vendor.

Google AI Mode is the dominant engine across every brand in the top ten, with no other engine appearing as a top performer for any brand. Third-party sources anchor the AI responses heavily: gartner.com and g2.com appear alongside vendor domains kroll.com and crowdstrike.com in the top cited sources. The presence of smaller sites like cynet.com, atlantsecurity.com, and eventussecurity.com in that cited sources list suggests the AI is drawing on comparison and listicle content, not just major analyst or vendor material.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Mandiant 12% → 25% · rank #4 → #2
+12pp

Biggest visibility fallers

CrowdStrike 25% → 12% · rank #2 → #3
-12pp

The ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Kroll kroll.com	12%	38%	Google AI Mode
Kroll holds the top composite score of 20.0 driven entirely by its 37.5% citation rate, the highest in the category, despite visibility sitting at the category low of 12.5%.
2	Mandiant mandiant.com	25%	0%	Google AI Mode
Mandiant has the highest visibility in the category at 25.0%, more than eight times the 3.1% average, yet its 0.0% citation rate limits its composite score to 17.5.
3	CrowdStrike crowdstrike.com	12%	25%	Google AI Mode
CrowdStrike fell one rank after losing 12.5 visibility points, but its citation rate rose 25.0 points, making it the only brand whose citation trust moved sharply opposite to its visibility trend.
4	Unit 42 unit42.paloaltonetworks.com	12%	0%	Google AI Mode
Unit 42 matches Kroll and CrowdStrike on visibility at 12.5% but records zero citations, leaving its composite score at 8.8, roughly half that of CrowdStrike at the same visibility level.
5	Check Point Incident Response checkpoint.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
Check Point Incident Response earns a 12.5% citation rate with zero visibility, the same citation figure as Sygnia, Arctic Wolf, and Rapid7, placing all four in a tied rank-5 to rank-8 cluster.
6	Sygnia sygnia.co	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
7	Arctic Wolf Incident Response arcticwolf.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
8	Rapid7 rapid7.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
9	Booz Allen Hamilton boozallen.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
10	Coalfire coalfire.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
11	Trustwave trustwave.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
12	Tetra Defense tetradefense.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
13	Fortra fortra.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
14	Secureworks secureworks.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	GuidePoint Security guidepointsecurity.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
16	Sophos Rapid Response sophos.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
17	WithSecure withsecure.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
18	Cybereason cybereason.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
19	Aon Cyber Solutions aon.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
20	NetSPI netspi.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on incident response 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.

gartner.comcynet.comatlantsecurity.comkroll.comcrowdstrike.comg2.comyoutube.comeventussecurity.com

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. More on visibility →

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. More on citation rate →

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. How AI engines pick sources →

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. How AI search ranking works →

Get your own incident response 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.

Audit your incident response firms brand → Browse all rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about incident response firms AI visibility

Who leads AI visibility in incident response firms?

Mandiant leads on raw visibility at 25.0%, but Kroll leads on composite score at 20.0 because its citation rate of 37.5% is the highest in the category.

Which incident response brand is most cited as a trusted source by Google AI Mode?

Kroll is the most cited brand-owned domain, appearing in the top cited sources list alongside third-party sites like gartner.com and g2.com.

What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on most when answering incident response queries?

The top cited sources include gartner.com, g2.com, cynet.com, atlantsecurity.com, and eventussecurity.com alongside vendor domains kroll.com and crowdstrike.com, indicating a mix of analyst, review, and comparison content.

Which brand showed the biggest AI visibility movement in this audit period?

Mandiant was the biggest riser, gaining 12.5 visibility points to reach 25.0%, while CrowdStrike was the biggest faller, dropping 12.5 points from 25.0% to 12.5%.

How does the average visibility in incident response compare to the top performers?

The category average visibility is 3.1%, meaning Mandiant at 25.0% is more than eight times the average, and even the 12.5% brands are four times above it.

Can a brand have citations in Google AI Mode without any named visibility?

Yes, Check Point Incident Response, Sygnia, Arctic Wolf, and Rapid7 each carry 12.5% citation rates while recording 0.0% visibility, showing AI can reference content without naming the brand as a vendor recommendation.