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September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since.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 › Performance and talent management › September 2026 Edition

Skills intelligence

Asked as “skills intelligence platform”, and as “skills taxonomy and inference tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 55 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
18%
Contested · TalentGuard 13%
18Skills Base13TalentGuard09iMocha60others

18% 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 a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Skills Base18%0%16accepted challenger
02TalentGuard13%0%14accepted challenger
03iMocha9%5%19accepted challenger
04365Talents7%0%11accepted challenger
05TechWolf7%0%11accepted challenger
06MuchSkills5%0%11accepted challenger
07Fuel504%0%14accepted challenger
08Gloat4%48%23criticized challenger
09Degreed2%0%11accepted challenger
10Workday Skills Cloud2%24%17accepted challenger
11Eightfold AI2%55%31criticized challenger
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
16Skillshare0%57%14criticized challenger
15Udemy Business0%33%21criticized challenger
14edX0%14%14accepted challenger
12Coursera0%10%21accepted challenger
13LinkedIn Learning0%0%16accepted 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 →
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Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01Skills Base18%
02TalentGuard13%
03iMocha9%
04365Talents7%
05TechWolf7%
06MuchSkills5%
07Fuel504%
08Gloat4%
09Degreed2%
10Workday Skills Cloud2%
11Eightfold AI2%
12Coursera0%
13LinkedIn Learning0%
14edX0%
15Udemy Business0%
16Skillshare0%

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, DeepSeek V4 Flash, 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.
Gloat
48%
11 of 23 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“avoid Eightfold AI, Gloat, and Firefly Talent unless you have over $1M in annual HR spend” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Eightfold AI
55%
17 of 31 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Option C: Avoid for mid-sized B2B ... Powerful but enterprise-priced; six-figure minimums; overkill for mid-market” Kimi K2, paraphrase prompt
Skillshare
57%
8 of 14 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“**Skillshare** — Approach with Caution ... Called a "complete scam" by multiple users” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Udemy Business
33%
7 of 21 labels negative · 6 of 12 models
“Open Marketplace Platforms (e.g., Udemy)** - **Quality varies widely** between instructors since anyone can create and sell courses” MiniMax M2.5, negative 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

76 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. 1062 links across 328 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · FirstHR25 answers · 27 citations · 11 models
24 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
vendor site · G221 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
vendor site · SkillPanel21 answers · 23 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Guideflow19 answers · 21 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Fuel5018 answers · 27 citations · 10 models
vendor site · LinkedIn17 answers · 30 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 17 citations · 9 models
14 answers · 27 citations · 9 models
vendor site · INOP14 answers · 15 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Cloud Assess13 answers · 13 citations · 7 models
vendor site · 365Talents12 answers · 21 citations · 10 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 “skills intelligence platform”, “skills 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 visitsGoogle ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Skills Base skills-base.com18%624801,7281,28317
TalentGuard talentguard.com13%62210027,310
iMocha imocha.io9%96480137,474228
365Talents 365talents.com7%949012,85925
TechWolf techwolf.ai7%388801047611
MuchSkills muchskills.com5%3850051,7662
Lightcast lightcast.io
Lightcast Open Skills 5%
5%266,600192106,942 company10
Fuel50 fuel50.com4%200480011,0096
Neobrain neobrain.io4%16
Gloat gloat.com4%31527,10035922,7340

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 15 sites; 1 of them are among the sites the models cited here (linkedin.com). The first result for “skills intelligence platform” is infoprolearning.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.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best skills intelligence platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which skills taxonomy and inference tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top skills platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best skills intelligence platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a skills intelligence platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which skills platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5INOP
Two alternativesFuel50, Skillsoft Percipio
no first choiceChangedDegreed
Two alternativesCornerstone OnDemand, iMocha
MuchSkills, Pin
Three alternativesTalentGuard, Tapflow, iMocha
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 mini365Talents
Two alternativesEightfold AI, SkillPanel
iMochaChanged
Two alternativesFuel50, SkillPanel
no first choiceSeekOut Recruit Coreno first choiceagainst: Skillshare
Gemini 3.5 FlashiMocha
Three alternativesFuel50, Retrain.ai, TalentGuard
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat
Lightcast Open Skills, TechWolfChanged
Five alternativesESCO, MuchSkills, Teammeter, WEF Global Skills Taxonomy, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, Workday Skills Cloud
Eightfold AI, Gloat
Nine alternatives360Learning, Cornerstone OnDemand, Coursera, Degreed, LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight Skills, SkyHive, TechWolf, Udemy Business
Skills Base
Three alternativesMuchSkills, Pin, SkillsEngine
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, Phenom
365Talents, MuchSkills, TechWolf
Five alternativesHiBob, Retrain.ai, SuccessFactors, TalentGuard, Workday Skills Cloud
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, Gloat
against: 2U, BloomTech, Gumroad, Interaction Design Foundation, Skillshare, Teachable, Trilogy, edX
Perplexity Sonar365Talents
Two alternativesDocebo, Workday Skills Cloud
against: Eightfold AI
no first choiceChangedDegreed, iMocha
Eleven alternatives360Learning, Acorn PLMS, CodeSignal, Cornerstone OnDemand, Coursera, HackerRank, LinkedIn Learning, TestGorilla, Udemy Business, Vervoe, edX
SkillPanel, agyleOS
Two alternativesPin, Skills Base
against: Eightfold AI
no first choiceagainst: MasterClass, Skillshare
Grok 4.1 FastTalentGuard, iMocha
Four alternatives365Talents, Engagedly, Fuel50, Gloat
against: Eightfold AI, Phenom
Lightcast Open Skills, iMochaChanged
One alternativeTextkernel Skills Intelligence API
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat, O*NET, Workday Skills Cloud
Coursera
Four alternativesDegreed, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy Business, edX
Skills Base
Three alternativesMuchSkills, Pin, Vervoe
Degreed, Eightfold AI, Gloatagainst: Expertskills.org, Fiverr, PW Skills, Skillshare, Sophia Learning, Udemy Business, Upwork
Mistral SmallFuel50, Neobrain
Two alternativesTalentGuard, TechWolf
no first choiceChangedno first choiceMuchSkills, Skills Base
Two alternativesTestGorilla, Vervoe
no first choiceagainst: Eightfold AI, Firefly Talent, Freelancer.com, Gloat, Skillshare, Udemy Business
DeepSeek V4 FlashTalentGuard
Two alternativesLightcast Open Skills, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat
Skills BaseChanged
One alternativeAG5
against: Eightfold AI, iMocha
365Talents, Gloat
Six alternativesAG5, Cornerstone OnDemand, Eightfold AI, Skills Base, Workday Skills Cloud, iMocha
Skills Base
Two alternativesSkillPanel, SkillsDB
no first choiceagainst: Coursera, PlanetSpark, SkillArbitrage, Skillshare, Springboard, Udemy Business, edX
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Skills.sh, Smithery
Qwen 3.7 FlashTalentGuard, TechWolf
Four alternativesAG5, Eightfold AI, Gloat, iMocha
GloatChanged
Two alternativesSkillPanel, Workday Skills Cloud
against: Eightfold AI, OVI
Eightfold AI, Gloat
Two alternativesDegreed, Docebo
Plandro
Four alternativesAirtable, Notion, Sana, Zoho People
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat
no first choiceagainst: Craigslist, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, PeoplePerHour, Telegram
Kimi K2TalentGuard
Four alternatives365Talents, Fuel50, TechWolf, iMocha
365Talents, ESCO, NeobrainChanged
Five alternativesBeamery, Gloat, O*NET, TalentGuard, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, Workday Skills Cloud
Coursera
Four alternativesLinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, Udemy Business, edX
Skills Base
Three alternativesEquip, SkillsDB, TestGorilla
no first choice
Two alternatives365Talents, Fuel50
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, Gloat
against: Coursera, MasterClass, Skillshare, Udemy Business
GLM 4.7 FlashXiMocha
Two alternatives365Talents, Fuel50
Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) Open Skills Library, TechWolfChanged
Three alternativesAirtable, SAP SuccessFactors Skills, Workday Skills Cloud
Coursera, edX
Seven alternativesCodecademy, Degreed, Khan Academy, LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight Skills, Skillshare, Udemy Business
against: Udemy Business
Skills Base
Three alternativesMuchSkills, SkillsDB, TestGorilla
no first choiceagainst: Eightfold AI, Firefly Talent, Freelancer.com, Gloat, Skillshare, Udemy Business
MiniMax M2.5Fuel50, iMocha Skills Intelligence Cloud
Three alternativesBryq, Engagedly, TalentGuard WorkforceGPT
TalentGuardChanged
Three alternativesLightcast Open Skills, Skills Base, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat, Workday Skills Cloud
no first choiceLessie AI, Skills Base
Three alternativesAG5, MuchSkills, SkillsEngine
no first choiceagainst: Udemy Business
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 11:11yes147 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:26yes46 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:19yes1923 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:49yes196 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:34yes2211 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:21yes126 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:00yes2037 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:44yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:22yes829 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:54yes2436 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:09yes2247 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:16yes1843 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:43no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:44yes34 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 12:16yes1860 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:14yes185 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:43yes2513 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:05no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:29yes2130 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 09:44yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 08:09yes1028 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:19yes2327 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:00yes2423 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:42yes995 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:25yes97 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:05yes47 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:56yes2823 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:18yes237 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:08yes2217 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:26yes87 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:43yes2343 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:24yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:34yes1055 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:44yes1020 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:00yes2033 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:23yes516 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:59yes96 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:50yes24 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:38yes1920 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 07:55yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:36yes228 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:17yes86 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:56yes2123 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:08yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:29no040 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:48yes918 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:41yes22113 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:07yes1220 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:00yes108 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:46no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 09:09yes1121 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:03yes189 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:10yes199 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:42no011 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:53yes1240 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:39yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:21no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:42yes1422 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 08:34yes1314 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:08yes522 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:46no03 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:32yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:42yes2630 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 11:39yes204 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:41yes2511 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:36yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 07:39yes2436 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 07:55yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:23yes1038 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:55yes2529 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 10:02yes1530 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:17yes520 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
Acorn read as Acorn PLMS
Cornerstone read as Cornerstone OnDemand
Coursera for Business read as Coursera
Eightfold read as Eightfold AI
Guru read as Guru.com
Lightcast read as Lightcast Open Skills
Lightcast (Emsi Burning Glass) read as Lightcast Open Skills
Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) read as Lightcast Open Skills
Pluralsight read as Pluralsight Skills
SAP SuccessFactors read as SAP SuccessFactors Skills
Skillsoft read as Skillsoft Percipio
Workday read as Workday Skills Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
Bharat Intern
CodSoft
CodeAlpha
Coursera Skills Navigator
Encryptix
Expertskills.org
Gumroad
Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)
InternPe
Lexonis
Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) Open Skills Library
Oasis Infobyte
PW Skills (pwskills.com)
Plandro
PlanetSpark
Prodigy InfoTech
Retool
SkillArbitrage
Skills Management Software
Skills.sh (Vercel)
Smithery
Sophia Learning
TalentGuard WorkforceGPT
Trilogy
Verzeo
Visual Workforce
WEF Global Skills Taxonomy
better.ai
iMocha Skills Intelligence Cloud
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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