HR AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Performance and talent management › September 2026 Edition

Skills intelligence

Asked as “skills intelligence platform”, and as “skills taxonomy and inference tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
TalentGuard
Contested
19% 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 businessSkills Base35%ContestedStanding →Mid-marketTalentGuard19%ContestedThis pageEnterpriseEightfold AI33%ContestedStanding →

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
01TalentGuard19%0%15accepted challenger
02Skills Base17%0%12accepted challenger
03iMocha9%0%18accepted challenger
04Lightcast Open Skills9%8%12accepted challenger
05TechWolf9%18%11accepted challenger
06365Talents6%0%11accepted challenger
07Eightfold AI4%59%27criticized challenger
08Fuel502%8%12accepted challenger
Show the eight products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
15Skillshare0%55%11criticized challenger
16Gloat0%52%21criticized challenger
13Workday Skills Cloud0%36%14criticized challenger
14Udemy Business0%35%17criticized challenger
11Coursera0%20%15accepted challenger
12Pluralsight Skills0%8%12accepted challenger
10edX0%8%13accepted challenger
09LinkedIn Learning0%7%14accepted 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
TalentGuard vs Skills BaseTalentGuard vs iMochaSkills Base vs iMocha

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
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative30%
Key
01TalentGuard19%
02Skills Base17%
03iMocha9%
04Lightcast Open Skills9%
05TechWolf9%
06365Talents6%
07Eightfold AI4%
08Fuel502%
09LinkedIn Learning0%
10edX0%
11Coursera0%
12Pluralsight Skills0%
13Workday Skills Cloud0%
14Udemy Business0%
15Skillshare0%
16Gloat0%

02What they warned about

Zero of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, 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.
Eightfold AI
59%
16 of 27 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“**Gloat** and **Eightfold AI** ... bring enterprise-grade complexity, cost, and lengthy implementations that usually overkill mid-market budgets” DeepSeek V4 Flash, direct prompt
Gloat
52%
11 of 21 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid** Eightfold/Gloat/Beamery unless you have enterprise-scale resources” Kimi K2, paraphrase prompt
Skillshare
55%
6 of 11 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Skillshare - mentioned as a "complete scam" and having numerous glitches, making it difficult to cancel a subscription.” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt
Udemy Business
35%
6 of 17 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Some reviewers suggest that Udemy is not worth paying for unless you carefully vet each course yourself.” 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

62 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. 744 links across 260 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

hrtechsaas.com
vendor site · HRTechSaaS25 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
fuel50.com
vendor site · Fuel5020 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
cloudassess.com
vendor site · Cloud Assess18 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
firsthr.app
vendor site · FirstHR16 answers · 16 citations · 9 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com
vendor site · People Managing People13 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
docebo.com
vendor site · Docebo13 answers · 14 citations · 8 models
acorn.works
vendor site · Acorn13 answers · 13 citations · 9 models
365talents.com
vendor site · 365Talents12 answers · 22 citations · 8 models
inop.ai
vendor site · INOP11 answers · 15 citations · 9 models
f6s.com
11 answers · 13 citations · 7 models
skillpanel.com
vendor site · SkillPanel10 answers · 11 citations · 4 models
metaview.ai
vendor site · Metaview10 answers · 10 citations · 7 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.

hrtechsaas.com/blog/skills-intelligence-software
23 answers · 10 models
cloudassess.com/blog/best-skills-intelligence-platforms
17 answers · 8 models
firsthr.app/compare/training/skills-management-software
15 answers · 9 models
docebo.com/learning-network/blog/skills-intelligence-platforms
13 answers · 8 models
fuel50.com/blog/skills-intelligence-platforms
11 answers · 8 models
365talents.com/en/resources/skills-intelligence-platform-buyers-guide
10 answers · 8 models
metaview.ai/resources/blog/talent-intelligence-platforms
10 answers · 7 models
inop.ai/top-platforms-for-skills-intelligence
9 answers · 8 models
darwinbox.com/blog/best-skills-management-software
8 answers · 6 models
peoplemanagingpeople.com/tools/best-skills-management-software-for-enterprises
8 answers · 6 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 skills intelligence platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which skills taxonomy and inference tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top skills platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best skills intelligence platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a skills intelligence platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which skills platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5TalentGuard
Two alternativesAmplemarket, iMocha
against: 6sense, Demandbase, Eightfold AI, Gloat, ZoomInfono first choiceChangedAcorn PLMS
Two alternativesDocebo, OpenSesame
Pin
One alternativePluralsight Skills
against: Beameryno first choiceagainst: Outskill, Science of Skill, Skill Arbitrage, Skillshare, Skillwise, Treehouse
GPT-5.4 miniEightfold AI, SkillPanel
Three alternativesFuel50, Retrain.ai, Workday Skills Cloud
Lightcast Open SkillsChanged
Two alternativesESCO, TechWolf
no first choiceSkillHub, skilly
One alternativeSkillPanel
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat, Lightcast Open Skills, Workday Skills Cloudno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashCareer Bird
Three alternativesDocebo, Fuel50, Workera
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, GloatLightcast Open Skills, iMochaChanged
Five alternativesESCO, O*NET, Retrain.ai, Teammeter, agyleOS
against: Eightfold AI, TechWolfEightfold AI, Gloat
Eight alternativesCodeSignal, Coursera, Degreed, Fuel50, HackerRank, Sapia.ai, TestGorilla, Workday Skills Cloud
Skills Base
Three alternativesMuchSkills, Pin, SkillPanel
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat, Workday Skills Cloudno first choice
Seven alternatives365Talents, Cloud Assess, Kahuna, MuchSkills, TalentGuard, TechWolf, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, Gloatagainst: 2U, BloomTech, ClawHub, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, MCP.so, SkillHub, Trilogy Education Services, Udemy Business, Upwork, Vercel's `skills.sh`, edX
Perplexity SonarTalentGuard
Four alternativesINOP, SkillPanel, Skills Base, iMocha
against: Eightfold AI, PinLightcast Open Skills, Skills MapChangedDegreed
Two alternativesKahuna, TechWolf
Cloud Assess, Skills Base
One alternativeAG5
no first choiceagainst: MasterClass, Skillshare
Grok 4.1 FastTalentGuard, iMocha
One alternativeFuel50
against: Eightfold AI, PhenomLightcast Open Skills, TechWolfChanged
Three alternativesESCO, O*NET, OVI
against: Eightfold AI, Workday Skills CloudCoursera
Two alternativesUdemy Business, edX
Skills Base
Three alternativesMuchSkills, SkillPanel, SkillsDB
against: Degreed, Pin, Workdayno first choiceagainst: Eightfold AI, SAP SuccessFactorsagainst: Coursera, ExpertSkills.org, Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Outskill.com, SkillArbitrage, Skillshare, Udemy Business, Upwork, pwskills.com
Mistral SmallTalentGuard, iMocha
Two alternativesBryq, INOP
no first choiceChangedno first choiceSkills Base
Three alternativesCloud Assess, TestGorilla, Vervoe
no first choiceagainst: AgentSkillsHub, MCP Market, Skillshare, Teachable, Udemy Business, skillsmp
DeepSeek V4 FlashFuel50, TalentGuard
Two alternativesMuchSkills, Skills Base
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat365TalentsChanged
Two alternativesAcorn PLMS, Lightcast Open Skills
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat, TechWolfFuel50
Four alternativesCodility, HackerRank, Skills Base, TestGorilla
Skills Base
One alternativeSkillsDB
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, Gloat, SeekOut, hireEZ365Talents, SkillPanel, TechWolfagainst: SAP SuccessFactors Skills, Workday Skills Cloudagainst: Coursera, MasterClass, Skillshare, Udemy Business, Upskillist
Llama 4 MaverickTalentGuard
Three alternativesCriteria Corp, Engagedly, iMocha
no first choiceChangedno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: LinkedIn Learning, MasterClass, Pluralsight Skills, Skillshare, Udemy Business
Qwen 3.7 FlashEightfold AI
Four alternativesClad.io, DeepSkill, Gloat, Lightcast Open Skills
TalentGuardChanged
One alternativeAcorn PLMS
Eightfold AI
Three alternativesFuel50, Gloat, Phenom
Lattice, Skillfully
Three alternativesBambooHR, Eightfold AI, Rippling
against: Fuel50, Gloatno first choiceagainst: Alison, Coursera, Udemy Business
Kimi K2TalentGuard
Four alternatives365Talents, Engagedly, Fuel50, TechWolf
against: Eightfold AI, Gloat365Talents, TechWolfChanged
Two alternativesLightcast Open Skills, iMocha
against: Beamery, Eightfold AI, Gloat, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday Skills CloudCoursera
Four alternativesLinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, Udemy Business, edX
Skills Base
Three alternativesAG5, Kahuna, SkillsDB
no first choiceagainst: Udacity
GLM 4.7 FlashXiMocha
Three alternativesMuchSkills, Skills Base, TalentGuard
SkillsDBChanged
Two alternativesLeapsome, TechWolf
360Learning, OpenSesame
Three alternativesAcorn PLMS, ClearCompany, Coursera
MuchSkills, Skills Base
Two alternativesPluralsight Skills, TestGorilla
against: Cloud Assessno first choiceagainst: AI Pro University, Air AI, Finestro.io, Great Learning, Learning People, PW Skills, Study.com
MiniMax M2.5TalentGuard
Two alternatives365Talents, Gloat
against: Eightfold AITechWolfChanged
Three alternativesAcorn PLMS, Lightcast Open Skills, OVI
no first choiceSkills Base
Two alternativesGoSkills, Lessie AI
no first choiceagainst: Fiverr, Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour, Upwork
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 21:06yes96 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:08yes56 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:31yes2529 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 21:45yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:49yes4321 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:38yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:10yes1920 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:32yes63 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:18no028 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:30yes1335 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:38yes1133 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:37yes1018 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:17no03 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:52yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:34yes1728 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:19yes207 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:13yes2517 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:26no01 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 21:11yes1618 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:42yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:53yes532 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:15yes2332 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:22yes29142 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:19yes1458 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:02yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:22no05 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:11yes2026 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:05yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 17:53yes2313 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:25yes56 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:04yes2017 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:02yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:45yes1037 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 18:18yes920 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:51yes9102 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 18:18yes517 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:39yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:16yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:53yes1544 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:54yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:46yes3315 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:15yes107 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:06yes912 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:18yes54 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:38no029 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:12yes1321 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:26yes937 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:15yes1231 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 21:07no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:40no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 20:02yes1524 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 20:00yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:52yes1610 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:20no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:47yes1318 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:44yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:17yes929 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:17yes929 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:19yes1394 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 21:28yes514 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 21:34yes189 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:25no02 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:09yes2528 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:45yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:06yes2010 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 21:11yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:38yes1820 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:48yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:38no034 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 21:19yes1525 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:33yes27151 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:57yes525 s

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
Acorn read as Acorn PLMS
Cornerstone read as Cornerstone OnDemand
Coursera for Business read as Coursera
Eightfold read as Eightfold AI
Freelancer read as Freelancer.com
Guru read as Guru.com
Lightcast read as Lightcast Open Skills
Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) read as Lightcast Open Skills
Pluralsight read as Pluralsight Skills
SAP read as SAP SuccessFactors
Skillsoft read as Skillsoft Percipio
Unresolved, counted raw
AI Pro University
Accredible
AgentSkillsHub
Amplemarket
BloomTech
Brilliant
Career Bird
Clad.io
ClawHub
ClickFunnels
Cognistry
Cornerstone OnDemand / Docebo / Learning Pool
Corporate Finance Institute
Credly
DeepSkill
ESET AI Skills Checker
ExpertSkills.org
Finestro.io
Google Career Certificates
Great Learning
INSPYR Solutions (Symphony)
Invisible
Kaggle
Learning People
MCP Market
MCP.so
Open Badges
Outlier
Outskill
Outskill.com
PW Skills
Science of Skill
Skill Arbitrage
SkillArbitrage
Skillfully
Skills Management Software
Skills Map
SkillsCat
Skillwise
Study.com
Surge AI
The Odin Project
Treehouse
Trilogy Education Services
Upskillist
Vercel's `skills.sh`
WBSP's open-source toolkit
Zapilio
pwskills.com
skillsmp
skilly
spaCy
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in performance and talent management

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