How AI Search Is Recommending Identity and Access Management: Monthly Trends

Executive Summary

Okta remains the category leader in October 2026, with valid recommendation coverage reaching 51.6% — up 13.6 points from September's 38.0%, a month-over-month move the benchmark marks as significant. Across the full July-to-October series, Okta's coverage rose from 42.4% to 51.6%, a 9.2-point cumulative gain that falls within the benchmark's normal range of month-to-month variation for the leader position itself.

SailPoint is the series' significant riser: its valid recommendation coverage climbed from 35.1% in July 2026 to 48.9% in October 2026, a 13.8-point cumulative gain, including a 14.8-point jump from September's 34.1%. The gap between the two leaders now stands at 2.7 points — the narrowest point in the four-month series — down from 7.3 points at the July baseline.

BeyondTrust posted the sharpest single-month gain among the remaining brands, up 9.0 points from 10.6% in September 2026 to 19.6% in October; its gain since the July baseline is a more modest 4.4 points. Keyfactor and Semperis both ended the month at 0.0% coverage: Keyfactor had already fallen to zero by September, while Semperis moved from 1.6% in July down to 0.0% in August, up to 0.4% in September, and back to 0.0% in October.

Three of the ten tracked brands — Okta, SailPoint, and BeyondTrust — recorded a significant month-over-month gain in October. The category's leader position has not changed across the series: Okta has held first place from July through October.

Each monthly run begins with 800 prompt-surface observations (653 unique questions in October 2026, against 638 in July 2026) across the benchmark's defined AI/search surface universe. Of those, all 800 mentioned a tracked brand or competitor in both months; 244 were relevant and 556 were irrelevant in July 2026, and 337 were relevant and 463 were irrelevant in October 2026. The public metrics use the 219 observations in October 2026, and the 191 in July 2026, that survive both qualification stages.

Key Findings

Benchmark Context

Questions This Section Answers

• How many Identity and Access Management prompts actually counted toward the benchmark's brand coverage percentages?
• Why did the qualified observation base change between July and October 2026?

The report separates the raw collection universe from the qualified analysis set. Brand-level recommendation percentages are calculated within the qualified benchmark set.

The qualified base rose from 191 in July 2026 to 219 in October 2026, though it peaked higher in between — 243 in August and 255 in September — before settling back to 219 in October, even as the share of relevant prompts rose to 337.

Benchmark-Level Metrics

The recommendation-shaped answer share and the valid recommendation shortlist share both climbed sharply in October 2026, after three months near 18 to 25 percent and 38 to 46 percent respectively. September 2026, the month directly prior, held 18.4% and 38.0% on these two measures. That earlier level is worth keeping in view when interpreting the leaders' October coverage gains.

AI Recommendation Trend

Questions This Section Answers

• Who leads the Identity and Access Management category in AI recommendations as of October 2026?
• How much did SailPoint and Okta close the gap between them across the series?

October Breaks the Quiet Stretch as the Two Leaders Both Jump and the Gap Narrows

October 2026 saw the two front-runners move up in tandem, pulling the leadership tier clear of the rest of the field. The gap between Okta and SailPoint stands at 2.7 points, the tightest in the series.

Three brands recorded a significant month-over-month gain from September to October: Okta (+13.6 points), SailPoint (+14.8 points), and BeyondTrust (+9.0 points). Measured against the July baseline, only SailPoint's cumulative gain (13.8 points) is large enough to be classified a significant riser for the series; Okta and BeyondTrust's baseline-to-current moves fall within the benchmark's normal range of month-to-month variation. The remaining brands were stable, including the drop-off among the low-count names.

What Changed This Month

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands posted significant month-over-month recommendation gains in October 2026, and where did those gains come from?
• Why are Keyfactor, Semperis, and the other zero-coverage brands' movements hard to read as a trend?

Okta: The Series Leader Holds First Place

Okta's valid recommendation coverage rose from 42.4% in July 2026 to 51.6% in October 2026, with 113 valid recommendations from 219 qualified observations. The single-month move from September 2026 was 13.6 points, up from 38.0%, and the benchmark flags it as significant against the prior month.

Placement improved alongside coverage. Okta's top-three rate climbed from 29.8% in July 2026 to 44.8% in October 2026, a 15.0-point gain across the series. Its rank-one rate rose from 17.8% to 24.7% over the series, on rank-one counts that grew from 34 in July to 54 in October.

Raw mention presence stayed essentially flat, at 95.8% in July 2026 and 95.0% in October. The brand was always visible, and the change came from how often mentions converted into recommendations. Coverage, top-three placement, and rank-one all moved in the same direction this month, unlike the split signals seen in prior months.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which surfaces and prompt types produced the October conversion gain, and whether the same prompts carried the September dip?

SailPoint: The Series' Significant Riser Closes the Gap

SailPoint's valid recommendation coverage rose from 35.1% in July 2026 to 48.9% in October 2026, with 107 valid recommendations from 219 qualified observations. The September-to-October move was 14.8 points, up from 34.1%, and the cumulative baseline-to-current gain of 13.8 points is classified as the series' significant riser.

Top-three placement rose from 17.8% in July 2026 to 28.3% in October 2026, a 10.5-point gain across the series. Rank-one ticked up slightly, from 5.2% in July to 5.9% in October, on 13 rank-one recommendations currently.

Raw mention presence rose modestly, from 73.3% in July 2026 to 78.5% in October. SailPoint grew coverage faster than the leader and closed the series gap to 2.7 points, down from a 7.3-point gap at the July baseline.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Whether SailPoint's top-three conversion gains came from prompts where it had previously been visible but unplaced, and which of those overlap with Okta's strongest prompts.

BeyondTrust: Third-Place Brand Gains Sharply but Rises From a Lower Base

BeyondTrust's valid recommendation coverage rose from 10.6% in September 2026 to 19.6% in October, a 9.0-point single-month gain the benchmark flags as significant. Against the July 2026 baseline of 15.2%, the series gain was 4.4 points, with 43 valid recommendations from 219 qualified observations.

Raw mention presence rose from 26.2% in July 2026 to 28.8% in October, and rank-one stayed near 0.5% across both months on a single rank-one recommendation each. Top-three placement slipped slightly, from 6.3% in July to 5.9% in October.

BeyondTrust's October move is sharp against its own recent level but still leaves it well behind the two leaders. The category observation is that the gap between SailPoint and the brands below it widened across the series.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Whether the October gain reflects prompts switching within the ranked list or new prompts entering the qualified set, and which competitors share those prompts.

Small-Count Brands: Keyfactor, Semperis, and the Zero-Presence Group

Keyfactor's valid recommendation coverage fell from 1.1% in July 2026 (2 valid recommendations) to 0.0% — a level it had already reached by September. In October, Keyfactor still registered 2 mentions among the qualified observations, but neither converted into a valid recommendation.

Semperis's coverage moved from 1.6% in July 2026 (3 valid recommendations) down to 0.0% in August, up slightly to 0.4% in September, and back to 0.0% in October, with no presence in the qualified set this month.

RSA Security appeared once in October, a neutral mention, with no recommendations in any month of the series. Axiad had a small amount of presence in July 2026 (2 mentions, no valid recommendations) but recorded zero presence in October's qualified set. CLEAR (by Alclear, LLC), Cross Match Technologies, and Telos Corporation held no presence in either the July baseline or the October reporting month. With counts this small, month-to-month change is difficult to read as a trend, but the sustained absence of recommendation presence across the series is the notable finding for these brands.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Whether any category prompts genuinely warrant these brands' inclusion, and which prompts surface them at all.

Buyer-Intent Interpretation

Questions This Section Answers

• What kinds of buyer questions do the qualified observations actually capture?
• What commercial questions about Identity and Access Management brands can this benchmark not yet answer?

In October 2026, all 219 qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation class. None of the qualified observations fell into the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes, the same result as every month in the series. The public benchmark can measure which brand AI recommends and in what order, but it cannot yet answer commercial questions about price positioning, value perception, or direct head-to-head comparisons.

Brand Opportunity Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands need attention based on their October 2026 coverage, and what diagnostic question applies to each?

The benchmark identifies where attention is warranted; a company-level analysis is needed to explain why.

Evidence Behind the Benchmark

The aggregate metrics are built from prompt-level observations (query, surface, recommendation outcome, rank, sentiment, and citations where exposed). Company-level analysis can go deeper into prompt, competitor, surface, and evidence patterns. Source presence is not automatically treated as proof of causation.

About This Benchmark

This report is part of the LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery research program.

• AI Visibility Industry Market
• AI Visibility Industry Market Methodology
• AI Visibility Industry Market Metrics
• AI Visibility Industry Market Standards

Report-Specific Interpretation Notes

• Small-count movement: Keyfactor, Semperis, RSA Security, and Axiad moved on bases of fewer than five observations. These changes are worth watching but should not be over-read.
• Qualified denominator vs. raw collection: Brand-level percentages are computed against the qualified benchmark set (219 observations in October 2026), not the 800 raw prompt-surface observations collected.
• Directional analysis: Movement from one month to the next identifies areas worth investigating, but does not by itself establish why a change occurred. The rise in the recommendation-shaped answer share and the leaders' coverage gains moved together in October, but the two signals should be read separately.

Next Step

The Public Benchmark Shows Where a Brand Is Winning or Losing. A Company-Level Audit Shows Why.

The aggregate percentages in this report raise questions the public benchmark cannot answer: which high-intent prompts is a brand winning, and which is it losing? When a brand loses a recommendation, which competitor takes its place? What attributes do AI systems associate with each option, and which external sources shape those answers? For a leader like Okta, the question is which prompts drove the October conversion gain. For SailPoint, the question is which prompts account for its significant rise and where it overlaps with the leader. For the brands with little or no presence across the series, the question is whether any category prompts genuinely warrant their inclusion.

A company-specific AI visibility audit maps those prompt, surface, competitor, ranking, sentiment, and evidence-source patterns into a prioritized visibility strategy. It moves from what the benchmark shows to why it happens and what to do about it.

Request an AI visibility audit