HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Onboarding and employee experience › September 2026 Edition

Employee onboarding

Asked as “employee onboarding software”, and as “new hire onboarding platform”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 45 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
BambooHR
Contested
29% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 50 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

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.
Small businessBambooHR38%ContestedStanding →Mid-marketBambooHR29%ContestedThis pageEnterpriseWorkday49%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01BambooHR29%9%54accepted challenger
02Rippling27%10%41accepted challenger
03Zoho People18%0%11accepted challenger
04HiBob7%8%26accepted challenger
05Gusto7%8%25accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
09Workday0%26%19criticized challenger
07Enboarder0%18%17accepted challenger
06Deel0%11%18accepted challenger
08WorkBright0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
BambooHR vs RipplingBambooHR vs Zoho PeopleRippling vs Zoho People

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01BambooHR29%
02Rippling27%
03Zoho People18%
04HiBob7%
05Gusto7%
06Deel0%
07Enboarder0%
08WorkBright0%
09Workday0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 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.
Workday
26%
5 of 19 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Enterprise tools (e.g., Workday, SAP) are overkill and pricey.” Grok 4.1 Fast, paraphrase prompt
BambooHR
9%
5 of 54 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“**BambooHR** \u2013 Higher Price but Popular - **Price**: $250/month minimum” Kimi K2, budget prompt
Rippling
10%
4 of 41 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“small-to-mid-sized businesses should exercise caution... Rippling may be overkill and lead to messy billing and setup.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
Asana
50%
3 of 6 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Avoid using your internal tools (like Asana, ClickUp, or Monday) as customer-facing onboarding portals.” Mistral Small, negative prompt

03What they cite

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

Sites the answers cite

64 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 771 links across 215 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

gartner.com
vendor site · Gartner30 answers · 32 citations · 9 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com
vendor site · People Managing People29 answers · 31 citations · 10 models
hr.university
25 answers · 26 citations · 10 models
hrcloud.com
vendor site · HR Cloud22 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
joinhomebase.com
21 answers · 23 citations · 10 models
forbes.com
18 answers · 22 citations · 7 models
siit.io
vendor site · Siit17 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
asana.com
vendor site · Asana16 answers · 16 citations · 9 models
g2.com
15 answers · 35 citations · 7 models
learn.g2.com
14 answers · 16 citations · 6 models
monday.com
vendor site · Monday.com13 answers · 13 citations · 6 models
trainual.com
vendor site · Trainual12 answers · 17 citations · 6 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.

gartner.com/reviews/market/onboarding-software
30 answers · 9 models
hr.university/tools/onboarding-software
25 answers · 10 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-hr-software-for-onboarding
25 answers · 10 models
hrcloud.com/blog/best-employee-onboarding-software
19 answers · 9 models
forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-onboarding-software
18 answers · 7 models
siit.io/blog/best-employee-onboarding-software
17 answers · 8 models
asana.com/resources/best-employee-onboarding-software
16 answers · 9 models
joinhomebase.com/blog/best-employee-onboarding-software
16 answers · 8 models
learn.g2.com/best-onboarding-software
14 answers · 6 models
firsthr.app/compare/onboarding/employee-onboarding-software
11 answers · 9 models

04How 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.
ModelDirect“What is the best employee onboarding software for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which new hire onboarding platform would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top onboarding platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best employee onboarding software for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an employee onboarding software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which onboarding platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5HiBob
Two alternativesBambooHR, Sapling
BambooHRChanged
Three alternativesHiBob, Paycor, Rippling
no first choice
Five alternativesBambooHR, Donut, Rippling, WorkBright, Workday
against: EnboarderFirstHR
Three alternativesBreatheHR, Gusto, Zoho People
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniRippling
Three alternativesBambooHR, Paycor, Paylocity
BambooHRChanged
Two alternativesRippling, Sapling
BambooHR
Three alternativesGusto, Rippling, Workday
Gusto
Two alternativesBambooHR, Factorial
no first choiceagainst: ADP Onboarding, Hubstaff, Klipboard, Onboard
Gemini 3.5 FlashRippling
Four alternativesBambooHR, Donut, Enboarder, HiBob
RipplingHeld
Three alternativesEnboarder, HiBob, Trainual
no first choiceConnecteam, Zoho People
Three alternativesBambooHR, Deel, Gusto
against: Google Forms + Sheetsno first choiceagainst: ADP, Asana, ClickUp, Dayforce, Gusto, Monday.com, Rippling, Userpilot, WalkMe
Perplexity SonarRippling
Two alternativesBambooHR, HiBob
RipplingHeld
One alternativeBambooHR
no first choiceGusto
Three alternativesBambooHR, FirstHR, Zoho People
against: Homebaseno first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastBambooHR, Rippling
Two alternativesHiBob, Paycor
BambooHRChanged
Three alternativesGusto, Rippling, Trainual
against: Enboarder, SAP SuccessFactors, WorkdayRippling
Six alternativesAppcues, BambooHR, Greenhouse, Justworks, Userpilot, Workday
Zoho People
Two alternativesGusto, Homebase
against: BambooHR, Scribe, TangoBambooHR, Rippling
One alternativemonday service
against: HubSpot, Onboard, Rippling, Workday
Mistral SmallHiBob
Three alternativesBambooHR, Paycor, Paylocity
BambooHR, HiBobChangedno first choiceZoho People
Two alternativesBambooHR, Gusto
no first choiceagainst: Asana, ClickUp, Deel, Docebo, Monday.com, Rippling
DeepSeek V4 FlashRippling
Four alternativesBambooHR, HiBob, Paylocity, Personio
BambooHRChanged
Four alternativesEnboarder, HiBob, Rippling, isolved
Rippling
Seven alternativesBambooHR, Deel, Donut, Gusto, HiBob, Trainual, Waybook
Zoho People
Four alternativesEddy, Gusto, Homebase, Softr
BambooHR, Rippling
Six alternativesClick Boarding, Deel, Enboarder, HiBob, Sapling, WorkBright
against: ADP RUN, BambooHR, Deel, Mercor, Oracle, Oracle Taleo, Rippling, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceno first choiceHeldno first choiceZoho People
Four alternativesBambooHR, Click Boarding, Gusto, Tango
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 Flashisolved
Three alternativesBambooHR, Personio, Rippling
RipplingChanged
Three alternativesBambooHR, Enboarder, Trainual
Rippling
Eight alternativesBambooHR, Deel, Donut, Greenhouse, Gusto, HiBob, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday
Zoho People
Three alternativesHomebase, Monday.com, Notion
no first choice
Six alternativesCornerstone, Dezeck, Enboarder, Rippling, SpringWorks, Zenefits
against: Asana, BambooHR, Greenhouse, Gusto, Lattice, Lever, Monday.com, Personio, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday
Kimi K2BambooHR
Three alternativesHiBob, Paylocity, Rippling
BambooHR, RipplingChangedagainst: HiBobno first choice
Six alternativesBambooHR, Deel, Gusto, HiBob, Rippling, Workday
Homebase, Zoho People
Two alternativesFirstHR, Gusto
against: BambooHRno first choiceagainst: BambooHR, HR Cloud, Onboard, UKG Pro, Workday
GLM 4.7 FlashXRippling
Four alternativesBambooHR, HiBob, Personio, Trainual
BambooHRChanged
Three alternativesDeel, Rippling, WorkBright
against: ClearCompany, Enboarder, HiBobRippling
Nine alternativesAsana, BambooHR, Deel, Donut, Enboarder, Gusto, Innform, Trainual, Workday
ExactHire, Gusto
Three alternativesBambooHR, FirstHR, Softr
no first choiceagainst: Allstate, HubSpot, Microsoft ServiceNow, ServiceTitan, Wrike, ZoomShift
MiniMax M2.5BambooHR, Namely
Six alternativesADP, ClearCompany, Greenhouse, Lever, TriNet, Workday
BambooHRChanged
Three alternativesLeapsome, Paycor, Paylocity
BambooHR
Seven alternativesClick Boarding, Deel, Enboarder, HiBob, Personio, Rippling, WorkBright
Zoho People
One alternativeFirstHR
no first choiceagainst: First Advantage Form I-9 Compliance, Mercor
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The 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
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:02yes99 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:04yes36 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:01yes919 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:11yes197 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:08yes3918 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:06yes55 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:30yes812 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:15yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:02yes732 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:30yes1032 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:45yes2642 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:39no044 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:52yes99 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:39yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:51yes1624 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:53yes208 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:32yes3116 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:14yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:19yes2518 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:54yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:14no026 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:42yes1020 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:42yes955 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:56yes513 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:10yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:22yes97 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:46yes2023 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:24yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:47yes3519 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:05yes57 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:16yes1724 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:25yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:08yes520 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:55yes1961 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:39yes1530 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:59yes514 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:06yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:06yes36 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 22:01yes2252 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:06yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:08yes3114 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:32yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:12yes912 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:22yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:54yes1043 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:25yes515 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:30yes1049 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:40yes59 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:04no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:51no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:50yes1220 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:25yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:12yes1410 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:38no011 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 19:52yes2256 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:36yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:22no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:58yes1455 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:13yes1474 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:53no08 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:56no03 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:57yes66 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 22:03yes2646 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:05yes209 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:51yes3520 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:27yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:21yes2939 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 21:23yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 21:04yes1040 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:42yes2533 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:28yes2831 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:37yes1022 s

Noise floor in this category

Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.

Claude Haiku 4.5
2 of 4 flipped
GPT-5.4 mini
3 of 4 flipped
Gemini 3.5 Flash
3 of 5 flipped
Perplexity Sonar
3 of 4 flipped
Grok 4.1 Fast
5 of 6 flipped
Mistral Small
4 of 4 flipped
DeepSeek V4 Flash
4 of 5 flipped
Llama 4 Maverick
0 of 1 flipped
Qwen 3.7 Flash
4 of 5 flipped
Kimi K2
4 of 4 flipped
GLM 4.7 FlashX
2 of 4 flipped
MiniMax M2.5
3 of 4 flipped

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Absorb read as Absorb LMS
Deel HR read as Deel
HiBob HRIS read as HiBob
Oracle HCM read as Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM
SAP read as SAP SuccessFactors
Workday HCM read as Workday
Unresolved, counted raw
ADP Onboarding
Allstate
Dezeck
ExactHire
Google Workspace/Office 365
Klipboard
Lumos
Microsoft ServiceNow
SpringWorks
Talentech
Userflow
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in onboarding and employee experience

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
← Employee engagement survEmployee wellbeing →