For research and strategy teams

Research, data and method

Everything we publish is free to cite. This page holds the inclusion rules and the attribution line.

What gets into the directory

RuleApplied how
Minimum evidenceA firm enters the directory by being assessed in at least one published ranking.
Area positioningTaken from the assessment the firm appeared in, not from our inference.
Coverage markFilled only where the assessment placed the firm in the area, partial where it was assessed but placed outside that group.
Quality assessmentPublished per area, never as a single overall rank.
Vendor figuresLabelled as vendor-reported wherever we could not verify them independently.
Non-participationDoes not remove a firm; the profile says what we could not confirm.
Paid placementNot offered, in any form.

Why there is no overall ranking

We are asked regularly for a single top-ten list of AI firms. We will not publish one. Quality is area-specific, and collapsing eight different kinds of work into one column would produce a number that is easy to quote and impossible to act on.

Citing this site

Cite the page you used, by name, with the date you read it. Rankings state the method behind them, so a citation should point at the ranking rather than at this page. No permission is needed and nothing here is behind a paywall.

Downloadable CSV and JSON exports of the matrix and directory are planned but not yet published. Until they are, the matrix page is the canonical view.

© 2026 Top AI Firms. Independent research \u{2014} we take no payment for placement.How we assess a firm · About ·