AI Indexes
HR AI Index
October 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Core HR and payroll › PEOs › Enterprise › October 2026 Edition

PEO providers for enterprise buyers

Asked as “PEO”, and as “professional employer organization”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 42 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, fourteen models each. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
62%
Clear leader
62ADP TotalSource12TriNet10Rippling17others

62% of first choices, clear leader.

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 fourteen models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01ADP TotalSource62%10%58endorsed leader
02TriNet12%10%48accepted challenger
03Rippling10%5%21accepted challenger
04Infiniti HR2%0%13accepted challenger
05Paychex2%23%13accepted challenger
06Justworks2%45%22criticized challenger
Show the two products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07Insperity0%6%36accepted challenger
08Paychex PEO0%5%19accepted 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-one head-to-head pages: the top seven products, each against each

One product takes 62% of first choices here, so the chart would put seven markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. One product carries a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Six of fourteen models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, MiniMax M2.5 and Muse Glimmer 30B 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.
Justworks
45%
10 of 22 labels negative · 6 of 14 models · 3 hard negative
“Some major PEOs (e.g., Justworks) do NOT support SCIM or enterprise SSO at all — this is a disqualifier at your scale.” DeepSeek V4 Flash, scale prompt
ADP TotalSource
10%
6 of 58 labels negative · 6 of 14 models · 1 hard negative
“ADP is repeatedly cited for data security incidents and post-sale service strain.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
TriNet
10%
5 of 48 labels negative · 4 of 14 models · 1 hard negative
“TriNet and ADP TotalSource are the names most frequently appearing in recent reviews and complaint databases with those exact flags.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Paychex
23%
3 of 13 labels negative · 3 of 14 models
“Some PEOs, like Paychex, may require manual input for payroll, which can become inefficient and error-prone as your employee count grows.” Mistral Small, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the fourteen in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

78 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1174 links across 256 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 252 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.

40 answers · 73 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Wisemonk35 answers · 46 citations · 11 models
vendor site · RemotePeople34 answers · 35 citations · 11 models
33 answers · 36 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Deel30 answers · 40 citations · 11 models
vendor site · ADP29 answers · 47 citations · 13 models
28 answers · 31 citations · 11 models
25 answers · 26 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Guideflow24 answers · 24 citations · 10 models
vendor site · G223 answers · 23 citations · 11 models
22 answers · 22 citations · 12 models
17 answers · 18 citations · 8 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 “best peo”, “peo”, “peos”. 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 visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 days
ADP parent site
ADP TotalSource 62%
62%1462,740,00023,897
TriNet trinet.com12%19074,000909232,419$53330
Rippling rippling.com10%1260301,00017,886712,399$42,013115
Infiniti HR infinitihr.com2%141,600212,85320
Remote remote.com2%213110,000426,655766,598$15,85888
Paychex paychex.com
Paychex 2%, Paychex PEO 0%
2%92550,0004,7772,394,39668
ADP TotalSource®2%
Insperity HRScale2%
Total Employment Solutions2%
Justworks justworks.com2%28260,500452236,868$2,424120

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 21 sites; 2 of them are among the sites the models cited here (adp.com, deel.com). The first result for “best peo” is trustradius.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 PEO for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which professional employer organization would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade PEOs and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best PEO for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a PEO. What should we look at?”Negative“Which PEOs should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5ADP TotalSource
Three alternativesInsperity, Rippling, TriNet
no first choiceChangedADP TotalSource, TriNet
Two alternativesInsperity, Rippling
ADP TotalSource
One alternativePaychex
against: TriNet
no first choiceagainst: ADP TotalSource
GPT-5.4 miniADP TotalSource
Four alternativesDeel, Remote, Rippling, Velocity Global
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Two alternativesPaychex PEO, VensureHR
ADP TotalSource
Three alternativesInsperity, Paychex PEO, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
One alternativeTriNet
against: Justworks
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashRippling
Four alternativesADP TotalSource, Deel PEO, Sequoia One, TriNet
ADP TotalSourceChanged
Three alternativesInsperity, Rippling, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Four alternativesInsperity, Rippling, Sequoia One, TriNet
Rippling
Two alternativesADP TotalSource, Insperity
against: Justworks
no first choiceagainst: ADP TotalSource, Justworks
Perplexity SonarADP TotalSource
Three alternativesRemote, Rippling, TriNet
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Two alternativesDeel, Infiniti HR
against: TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Four alternativesInfiniti HR, Remote, Sequoia One, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Two alternativesPaychex, TriNet
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastADP TotalSource
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, Paychex PEO
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Two alternativesInsperity, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Three alternativesInsperity, Paychex PEO/Oasis, TriNet
against: Justworks, Rippling
ADP TotalSource
Two alternativesInsperity, TriNet
against: Justworks
no first choiceagainst: Onvoi Business Solutions
Mistral SmallADP TotalSource
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, Rippling
PaychexChanged
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, Insperity
ADP TotalSource, Paychex PEO
Four alternativesINS Global, Insperity, Justworks, TriNet
Remote
Two alternativesJustworks, TriNet
no first choiceagainst: Paychex
DeepSeek V4 FlashADP TotalSource
Two alternativesInsperity, TriNet
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Four alternativesCoAdvantage, Insperity, Paychex PEO, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Five alternativesDeel PEO, Insperity, Paychex PEO, Rippling, TriNet
TriNet
One alternativeADP TotalSource
against: Justworks
no first choiceagainst: Justworksagainst: ADP TotalSource, Insperity, Paychex Flex, TriNet
Llama 4 MaverickInfiniti HR
One alternativeTotalSource
no first choiceChangedno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Paychex
Qwen 3.7 FlashRippling
Five alternativesDeel, Justworks, Randstad Workforce Solutions, TriNet, Velocity Global
against: ADP TotalSource
TriNetChanged
Three alternativesADP TotalSource, Insperity, Justworks
ADP TotalSource
Three alternativesJustworks, Paychex PEO, TriNet
Total Employment Solutions
Four alternativesADP TotalSource, Insperity, Paychex, TriNet
against: Gusto, Justworks, Risk Paycom
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2ADP TotalSource, TriNet
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, Insperity
against: Justworks
ADP TotalSourceChanged
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Five alternativesInsperity, Justworks, Paychex PEO, Rippling, TriNet
Justworks
One alternativeADP TotalSource
no first choiceagainst: ADP TotalSource, Insperity, Justworks, Paychex PEO
GLM 4.7 FlashXADP TotalSource
Two alternativesPaychex PEO, TriNet
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Four alternativesCoAdvantage, Insperity, Paychex PEO, TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Six alternativesDeel, Insperity, Justworks, Paychex, Rippling, TriNet
no first choice
Seven alternativesADP PEO / ADP Workforce Now, BBSI, Deel, Infiniti HR, Paychex PEO, Remote, TriNet
no first choiceagainst: AccuPay, Golden State Employment Corp.
MiniMax M2.5ADP TotalSource, Rippling
Three alternativesInfiniti HR, Justworks, Paychex PEO
ADP TotalSourceChanged
Two alternativesInfiniti HR, Insperity
ADP TotalSource, TriNet
Two alternativesInsperity, Paychex PEO
ADP TotalSource, TriNetagainst: PaychexADP TotalSourcenothing named
GPT-6 LunaADP TotalSource
Two alternativesADP Comprehensive Services, Insperity
ADP TotalSourceHeld
Two alternativesHCM Managed Services, Insperity
ADP TotalSource, Paychex PEO
Two alternativesInsperity HRScale / HR360, TriNet
Insperity HRScale
Two alternativesADP TotalSource, TriNet
no first choiceagainst: America's Back Office, Inc., ESC Choice, Inc., Empower HR, LLC, Human Capital Concepts LLC
Muse Glimmer 30BADP TotalSource
Two alternativesInsperity, TriNet
ADP TotalSource®Changed
One alternativeInfiniti HR
against: TriNet
ADP TotalSource
Five alternativesFrankCrum, G&A Partners, Insperity, Paychex PEO, TriNet
TriNet
Two alternativesADP TotalSource, Infiniti HR
no first choiceagainst: ADP TotalSource, TriNet
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
Eighty-four rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:28yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:27yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:25yes1731 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:19yes204 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:38yes2014 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:38yes159 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:40yes2223 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:25yes54 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:42no028 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:35yes1943 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:18yes2220 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:22yes1022 s
Direct recommendationGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:25yes313 s
Direct recommendationMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:21yes1415 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:40no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:38yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:32yes2429 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:31yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:37yes2412 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:36yes106 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:26yes2423 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:18yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:30no025 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:25yes1738 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:26yes2233 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:27yes1535 s
ParaphraseGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:37yes316 s
ParaphraseMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:36yes1318 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:19yes169 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:22yes1012 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:38yes2433 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:21yes206 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:23yes2211 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:30yes2015 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:18yes2334 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:28yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:37yes1033 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:32yes2134 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:29yes1425 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:34yes1426 s
ComparativeGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:40yes625 s
ComparativeMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:32yes1428 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:26yes1010 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:30yes36 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:20yes2030 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:31yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:40yes2015 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:36yes118 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:32yes1938 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:40yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:30no027 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:34yes2570 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:38yes2342 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:42yes2172 s
Budget constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:27yes319 s
Budget constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:34yes1732 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:24yes3722 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:25yes413 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:38yes1733 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:23yes187 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:23yes159 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:23no014 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:42yes2535 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:21yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:28no031 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:18yes2233 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:43yes1250 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:32yes515 s
Scale constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:28yes426 s
Scale constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:27yes1522 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 21:28yes2813 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 21:31yes45 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 21:25yes2130 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 21:34yes173 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 21:27yes2111 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 21:20yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 21:30yes2435 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 21:42yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 21:36yes962 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 21:35yes2534 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 21:22yes2450 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 21:39yes928 s
Negative framingGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 21:36yes324 s
Negative framingMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 21:38yes2533 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
ADP read as ADP TotalSource
ADP (Enterprise PEO) read as ADP TotalSource
ADP (Workforce Now or Lyric HCM + Comprehensive Services) read as ADP TotalSource
ADP (via ADP Vantage) read as ADP TotalSource
Unresolved, counted raw
ADP Comprehensive Services
ADP PEO / ADP Workforce Now
ADP TotalSource®
AccuPay
America's Back Office, Inc.
ESC Choice, Inc.
Golden State Employment Corp.
HCM Managed Services
INS Global
Insperity HRScale
Insperity HRScale / HR360
Onvoi Business Solutions
Randstad Workforce Solutions
Risk Paycom
Total Employment Solutions (TES)
TotalSource
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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