Every category where a model named Excel for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
Succession planning	Performance and talent management	0%	93 of 93	100%	5	under 10 labels · led by Lattice at 28%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Org charts and org design	Workforce planning and analytics	0%	94 of 95	75%	4	under 10 labels · led by ChartHop at 30%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
People analytics	Workforce planning and analytics	0%	35 of 114	0%	3	under 10 labels · led by Crunchr at 22%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.
Goals and OKRs	Performance and talent management	0%	51 of 68	50%	2	under 10 labels · led by Perdoo at 24%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Workforce planning	Workforce planning and analytics	0%	96 of 98	100%	2	under 10 labels · led by ChartHop at 37%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
360 feedback	Performance and talent management	0%	63 of 73	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by Lattice at 34%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.
Leave and absence management	Core HR and payroll	0%	88 of 95	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by BambooHR at 28%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
Pay equity	Compensation and total rewards	0%	35 of 73	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Syndio at 12%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.

Movement

Since September 2026, Excel held within the floor in all eight categories: no change cleared 13 points.

Best category · Succession planning · by segment

Small business=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

0%from 0% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 77 → 72 of 88

Mid-market=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

0%from 0% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 83 → 87 of 87

Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.

0%from 0% in September 2026

Inside the floor by 13 pointsRank 67 → 71 of 71

All categories · Mid-market

Category	September 2026	Now	Change	Reading	Rank
Succession planning	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 83 → 93 of 93
Org charts	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 74 → 94 of 95
People analytics	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 35 of 114, unchanged
Goals and OKRs	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 44 → 51 of 68
Workforce planning	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 69 → 96 of 98
360 feedback	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 63 of 73, unchanged
Leave	0%	0%	=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.	Within noise	Rank 80 → 88 of 95
Pay equity	0%	0%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.	New this edition	Rank 35 of 73, unchanged

Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.

The floor is 13 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions

By model

How each model treated Excel across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	3	3
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	2	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	1	1	2
Mistral Small	0	0	1	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	1	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	1	3	6
Kimi K2	0	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	2	1	3
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	1	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct1 labelNone

Paraphrase2 labelsNone

Comparative2 labelsNone

Budget-constrained10 labelsNone

Scale-constrained3 labelsNone

Negative44 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative62 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“spreadsheet software is actually one of the cheapest ways to handle org charts” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Org charts · budget prompt · alternative

“your best strategy is to use Excel combined with specialized templates” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Pay equity · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Basic Survey & Spreadsheet Tools (Excel, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey)... they are generally considered "toxic" for mature performance management” Qwen 3.7 Flash · 360 feedback · negative prompt · hard negative

“relying on it for active succession planning is considered a major risk factor... Why to Avoid: It creates a "single point of failure."” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Succession planning · negative prompt · hard negative

“Use spreadsheets only for initial, ad-hoc sandbox modeling, but avoid them as your system of record for planning.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Workforce planning · negative prompt · hard negative

“Excel-Only Solutions (Without Controls) - Why to avoid: Nearly 90% of Excel spreadsheets contain errors” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Workforce planning · negative prompt · hard negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Excel, over the 62 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Excel was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Google Sheets29 of 620Not among the top eight

BambooHR17 of 625Not among the top eight

Rippling12 of 623Not among the top eight

Gusto12 of 622Not among the top eight

Lucidchart12 of 621Not among the top eight

Miro12 of 620Not among the top eight

ChartHop11 of 622Not among the top eight

Microsoft Visio11 of 620Not among the top eight

Creately10 of 622Not among the top eight

Microsoft PowerPoint10 of 620Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Excel. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 55 of the 62 answers that named Excel and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

firsthr.app30

guideflow.com17

forbes.com16

peoplemanagingpeople.com14

g2.com12

worldmetrics.org11

hr-ai-index.com10

learn.g2.com10

theorgchart.com9

skillpanel.com8

No domain is on file for Excel, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-org-chart-software9

firsthr.app/compare/general/org-chart-software8

firsthr.app/compare/performance/succession-planning-software7

blog.jostle.me/blog/organizational-chart-software6

skillpanel.com/blog/succession-management-tools6

betterworks.com/magazine/succession-planning-challenges5

guideflow.com/blog/succession-planning-software5

guideflow.com/blog/workforce-planning-software5

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where Excel stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Searches for its name, Google: 823,000 a month (“excel”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 391,255 a month
Its own site: No site of its own on file, so no site figures

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 93 of 93 in succession planning

Segment leader

28%

Lattice

First choices: 0 across its categories
Named in: 62 answers
Its own site cited: No site on file to match

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as Excel

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Excel; a claim can dispute any of them.

Excel / Google Sheets 3Excel/Google Sheets + HR templates 1

Follow Excel

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Excel's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Excel, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Excel by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Excel is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Excel, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.