AI Indexes
HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Onboarding and employee experience › Recognition and rewards › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

Recognition and rewards for enterprise buyers

Asked as “employee recognition platform”, and as “employee rewards program software”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 49 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
39%
Contested · Awardco 20%
39Achievers20Awardco18Workhuman22others

39% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Achievers39%7%60endorsed leader
02Awardco20%9%54accepted challenger
03Workhuman18%11%53accepted challenger
04Bonusly8%41%32criticized challenger
05Kudos4%14%22accepted challenger
06Motivosity2%20%15accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10Nectar0%36%14criticized challenger
07O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud0%17%18accepted challenger
08Guusto0%14%14accepted challenger
09Vantage Circle0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Achievers39%
02Awardco20%
03Workhuman18%
04Bonusly8%
05Kudos4%
06Motivosity2%
07O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud0%
08Guusto0%
09Vantage Circle0%
10Nectar0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Bonusly
41%
13 of 32 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Lightweight versions of platforms like Bonusly or generic Slack/Teams integrations are not recommended for large enterprises.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Workhuman
11%
6 of 53 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid for predictability: ... Workhuman” Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt
Awardco
9%
5 of 54 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Large enterprises should avoid or be cautious about SMB-focused tools, Awardco, and Achievers due to scalability issues, limited flexibility, delivery delays, opaque pricing” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Achievers
7%
4 of 60 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid for predictability: Enterprise-heavy like Achievers” Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1083 links across 168 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Achievers60 answers · 112 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Workhuman42 answers · 65 citations · 14 models
vendor site · Awardco38 answers · 64 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G234 answers · 54 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Tremendous31 answers · 32 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Engagedly31 answers · 31 citations · 12 models
30 answers · 34 citations · 12 models
30 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Kudoboard25 answers · 29 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Kudos24 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
21 answers · 22 citations · 11 models
vendor site · ThriveSparrow21 answers · 22 citations · 9 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best employee recognition platform”, “employee recognition platform”, “recognition platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Achievers achievers.com39%1076,60069,832295,92454
Awardco awardco.com20%12427,10030332,92714
Workhuman workhuman.com18%1384,400158373,538$160,16272
Bonusly bonusly.com8%17614,8007544,595212
Kudos kudos.com4%7060,5003,82626,553104
Empuls4%
Motivosity motivosity.com2%878,1005812,155$2730
HeyTaco heytaco.com2%135902619,686
Workstars workstars.com2%1
O.C. Tanner octanner.com
O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud 0%
0%2930160,022 company237

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 18 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (achievers.com, kudos.com, peoplemanagingpeople.com, selectsoftwarereviews.com, thrivesparrow.com, tremendous.com). The first result for “best employee recognition platform” is selectsoftwarereviews.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
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ModelDirect“What is the best employee recognition platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which employee rewards program software would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade recognition platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best employee recognition platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating an employee recognition platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which recognition platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Workhuman
Three alternativesAchievers, Awardco, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
AwardcoChanged
Three alternativesAchievers, OC Tanner Culture Cloud, Terryberry
Achievers, Awardco, Workhuman
Three alternativesO.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Vantage Circle, WorkTango
Awardco
Three alternativesBonusly, Empuls, Nectar
no first choiceagainst: Bonusly, Motivosity
GPT-5.4 miniWorkhuman
Four alternativesAchievers, Awardco, Guusto, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
AchieversChanged
Two alternativesAwardco, Workhuman
Workhuman
Five alternativesAssembly, Awardco, Culture Amp, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Workvivo
Motivosity
One alternativeBonusly
against: Workhuman
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashAchievers
Three alternativesAwardco, Teamflect, Workhuman
AwardcoChanged
Four alternativesAchievers, Recognize, Reward Gateway, Workhuman
Achievers, Workhuman
Three alternativesAwardco, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Reward Gateway
Awardco
Two alternativesNectar, Tremendous
Awardco
Five alternativesAchievers, Bonusly, Guusto, Motivosity, Workhuman
against: Bonusly, Kudos, Motivosity, Nectar, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Terryberry
Perplexity SonarWorkhuman
Two alternativesAchievers, Awardco
AchieversChanged
Four alternativesAwardco, Empuls, Tremendous, Workhuman
Achievers, Workhuman
Six alternativesAwardco, Guusto, Kudos, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Vantage Circle, Workvivo
Awardco
Two alternativesAchievers, Workhuman
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastAchievers, Workhuman
Two alternativesAwardco, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
AchieversChanged
Two alternativesAwardco, Workhuman
against: Bonusly, Nectar
Workhuman
Three alternativesAchievers, Awardco, Nectar
against: Bonusly
Bonusly
Three alternativesAssembly, Kudos, Nectar
against: Achievers, Awardco, Bucketlist Rewards, Workhuman
Awardco
Two alternativesReward Gateway, Vantage Circle
against: Awardco, Bonusly, Kudos, Nectar
Mistral SmallAchievers
Four alternativesGuusto, Kudos, Reward Gateway, Tanner’s Culture Cloud™
Achievers, AwardcoChanged
Two alternativesBonusly, Vantage Circle
Workhuman
Two alternativesAchievers, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
against: Culture Amp
Achievers, Workhuman
One alternativeAssembly
no first choiceagainst: Achievers, Awardco, Bonusly
DeepSeek V4 FlashAchievers
Two alternativesAwardco, Workhuman
against: Bonusly, Guusto, Motivosity, Nectar
AchieversHeld
Two alternativesAwardco, Empuls
against: Workhuman
Workhuman
Eight alternativesAchievers, Awardco, Bonusly, Kudos, Motivosity, Nectar, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, WorkTango
against: Guusto
Achievers
One alternativeAwardco
against: Bonusly, O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Workhuman
no first choiceagainst: Cooleaf
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceEmpulsChanged
Two alternativesAchievers, Semos Cloud
Workhuman
Two alternativesAchievers, Guusto
no first choice
Three alternativesAchievers, Engagedly, Workhuman
no first choiceagainst: Awardco, Bonusly
Qwen 3.7 FlashAwardco
Three alternativesKudos, Tanner, Tremendous
AchieversChanged
Two alternativesAwardco, Kudos
Achievers, Workhuman
Six alternativesAwardco, Guusto, Kudos, Motivosity, Nectar, Reward Gateway
Bonusly, Kudos
One alternativeAwardco
against: Achievers, Workhuman
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Achievers
Three alternativesAwardco, Guusto, Workhuman
against: Bonusly
WorkhumanChanged
Two alternativesAchievers, Awardco
against: O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
Workhuman
Six alternativesAchievers, Awardco, Bonusly, Guusto, Kudos, Motivosity
Workhuman
Two alternativesAwardco, Motivosity
against: Achievers, Bonusly, Kudos, Nectar
no first choicenothing named
GLM 4.7 FlashXAchievers, Workhuman
Four alternativesAwardco, Bonusly, Kudos, Motivosity
Achievers, AwardcoChanged
Two alternativesO.C. Tanner Culture Cloud, Workhuman
Workhuman
Four alternativesAchievers, Bonusly, Kudos, Reward Gateway
Bonusly
Three alternativesAwardco, Recognize, Workhuman
no first choiceagainst: Microsoft Viva Employee Experience Manager, Slack
MiniMax M2.5Achievers
Two alternativesReward Gateway, Stadium
EmpulsChanged
Two alternativesAchievers, Fond
Achievers, Xoxoday
Seven alternativesAssembly, Bonusly, Culture Amp, Kudos, Lattice, ThriveSparrow Kudos, WorkTango
HeyTaco
Four alternativesAchievers, Engagedly, HubEngage, Workhuman
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 07:36yes96 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:05yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:28yes2225 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:43yes184 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:15yes2110 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:59yes137 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:44yes1732 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:37yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:53yes829 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:04yes1521 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:43yes2556 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:43yes815 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 07:52yes99 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:11yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 07:29yes1823 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:52yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:47yes217 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:08yes56 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:42yes2222 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:47yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:07yes926 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 12:00yes1731 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:13yes1332 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:21yes510 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:26yes108 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:21yes411 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:26yes1925 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:42yes197 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:41yes2012 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:48yes129 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:15yes2574 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:15yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:26yes1642 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:29yes1327 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:16yes2397 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:20yes816 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:11yes1710 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:33yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:46yes1623 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:18yes195 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:02yes2112 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:47yes86 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:23yes2423 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:53yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:57yes917 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:24yes2326 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:20yes2135 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:51yes1526 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:36yes1812 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:49no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:21no017 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:19yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:46yes148 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:58no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:21yes2344 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:30yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:55no036 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:13yes2130 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:05yes1524 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:10yes520 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:21yes189 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:36yes26 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:03yes1729 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:54yes184 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:54yes2212 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:32yes59 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:23yes1950 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:49yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:05no047 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:51yes2431 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:29yes1935 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:13yes2132 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Bucketlist read as Bucketlist Rewards
O.C. Tanner read as O.C. Tanner Culture Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
Compright
Microsoft Viva Employee Experience Manager
OC Tanner Culture Cloud
Reward Gateway | Edenred
Rewordin
Tanner (Culture Cloud)
Tanner’s Culture Cloud™
Workstars
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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