Small business▼−10Since September 2026: 12% → 2%, −10 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
2%from 12% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 3 pointsRank 2 → 18 of 139
Lightcast · 1 category · RankedLightcast Open Skills
27Judge labels
9First choices
3Negative labels
13 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.7, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
8% in Skills intelligence for enterprise buyers
Rank 7 of 127 in the mid-market standing
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 0% of its 9 labels there were negative.
By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business5 of 144
4%6 labels
under the label threshold
Mid-market7 of 127
5%9 labels
under the label threshold
Enterprise3 of 99
8%12 labels
accepted challenger
In skills intelligence · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Lightcast Open Skills 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skills intelligence | Performance and talent management | 5% | 7 of 127 | 0% | 9 | under 10 labels · led by Skills Base at 18% | ▼−4Since September 2026: 9% → 4%, −4 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Lightcast Open Skills held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 13 points.
Best category · Skills intelligence · by segment
Mid-market▼−4Since September 2026: 9% → 4%, −4 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
4%from 9% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 4 → 8 of 117
Enterprise▼−2Since September 2026: 9% → 7%, −2 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
7%from 9% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 4 of 92, unchanged
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skills intelligence | 9% | 4% | ▼−4Since September 2026: 9% → 4%, −4 points. Inside the 13-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 4 → 7 of 127 |
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 Lightcast Open Skills across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Lightcast Open Skills across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 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
Direct6 labelsNone
Paraphrase17 labels9
Comparative1 labelNone
Budget-constrained2 labelsNone
Scale-constrained1 labelNone
Negative0 labelsNone
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative27 labels in all, every segment counted; 9 of the 9 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.
“The Backbone: Lightcast Open Skills Taxonomy ... Why it’s perfect for mid-sized B2B” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Skills intelligence · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend Lightcast Open Skills as the primary skills taxonomy” Grok 4.1 Fast · Skills intelligence · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Lightcast is my starting recommendation for a flexible, API-led setup” GPT-6 Luna · Skills intelligence · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Taxonomy backbone: Lightcast Open Skills for a continuously updated posting-derived open library” Muse Glimmer 30B · Skills intelligence · paraphrase 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.
No model argued against it.
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Lightcast Open Skills, over the 27 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Lightcast Open Skills was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Lightcast Open Skills, over the 27 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Lightcast Open Skills was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
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 Lightcast Open Skills. 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 26 of the 27 answers that named Lightcast Open Skills and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
hrtechsaas.com14
hr-ai-index.com12
skywork.ai12
firsthr.app11
lightcast.ioYour site8
acorn.works7
peoplemanagingpeople.com7
skillpanel.com7
techwolf.ai7
fuel50.com6
Eighty-three of the ninety-one domain citations in answers naming Lightcast Open Skills came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
lightcast.io is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Lightcast Open Skills takes 5% of first choices and Skills Base takes 18%.ShowHide
Search and answers
lightcast.io is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Lightcast Open Skills takes 5% of first choices and Skills Base takes 18%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “skills platforms”
–
not in the top ten
Position for “skills intelligence platform”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 30 a month (“lightcast open skills”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 0 a month
- Its company's site
- lightcast.io shared with Lightcast's other products; the figures are the site's
- Organic visits to its site
- about 106,942 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 14,451 · 472 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 5,044
- Paid Google search
- No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
5%
rank 7 of 127 in skills intelligence
Segment leader
18%
Skills Base
- First choices
- 9 across its categories
- Named in
- 27 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 26 of the answers that named it
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 Lightcast Open Skills
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Lightcast Open Skills; a claim can dispute any of them.
Lightcast 3Lightcast (Emsi Burning Glass) 1Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) 1Lightcast Open Skills Taxonomy 1
Follow Lightcast Open Skills
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.
The company
Lightcast is the company behind Lightcast Open Skills.ShowHide
The company
Lightcast is the company behind Lightcast Open Skills.
ShowHideIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- delivers clarity by allowing everyone to speak the same language; an extensive library that catalogs over 34,000 skills and is updated monthly, providing a standardized and universally understood language for describing and analyzing workforce capabilities
- For
- HR departments, educational institutions, workforce developers
- Price stated
- free of charge lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy
- Free plan or trial
- See all 34,000+ skills in the Lightcast taxonomy right here, for free. ... When you register to use Lightcast Skills, we'll set you up with full access, free of charge. lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy
- Integrations claimed
- 150 lightcast.io/taxonomies
- Customers named
- A multinational retailerA global beverage companyA large manufacturing company
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, certifications, hosting
What Lightcast Open Skills's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: lightcast.io/taxonomies, lightcast.io/taxonomies/skills-taxonomy, lightcast.io/solutions/skills-shared-language, lightcast.io/open-skills/resume-optimizer-feedback, lightcast.io/uk/open-skills/contact. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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 Lightcast Open Skills'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 Lightcast Open Skills, 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 Lightcast Open Skills by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Lightcast Open Skills 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 Lightcast Open Skills, 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.