HR AI Index

Index › Vendors › SumTotal · September 2026 Edition

2 categories · Named, not ranked

SumTotal

9Judge labels

0First choices

8Negative labels

6 of 12Models named it

2Categories

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.1, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

2 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. SumTotal was named 2 times in Learning experience plat and 1 other category, where Learn Amp led with 28%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business56 of 65

under the label threshold

Mid-market58 of 80

under the label threshold

Enterprisenot named

No model named it for this buyer.

In learning experience plat · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named SumTotal for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Learning experience platforms	Learning and development	0%	58 of 80	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by Learn Amp at 28%
Learning management systems	Learning and development	0%	71 of 74	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by TalentLMS at 48%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for SumTotal yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated SumTotal across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

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

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase0 labelsNone

Comparative1 labelNone

Budget-constrained1 labelNone

Scale-constrained0 labelsNone

Negative7 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative9 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

No positive label carried a quote.

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Unless you are a massive Fortune 500 company with a dedicated team of full-time LMS administrators, you should avoid them.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Learning management syst · negative prompt · hard negative

“Long-term roadmap is unclear as Cornerstone integrates it.” Kimi K2 · Learning experience plat · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as SumTotal, over the 9 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and SumTotal was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Docebo7 of 91Not in the top three

Cornerstone OnDemand7 of 90Not in the top three

Moodle5 of 90Not in the top three

Saba5 of 90Not in the top three

Absorb LMS4 of 90Not in the top three

Blackboard Learn4 of 90Not in the top three

360Learning3 of 90Not in the top three

Canvas LMS3 of 90Not in the top three

SAP SuccessFactors Learning3 of 90Not in the top three

Workday Learning3 of 90Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named SumTotal. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 7 of the 9 answers that named SumTotal and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

elearningindustry.com5

docebo.com4

firsthr.app3

g2.com3

lmspedia.org3

reddit.com3

stylelearn.com3

talentedlearning.com3

360learning.com2

cypherlearning.com2

Thirty-one of the thirty-one domain citations in answers naming SumTotal came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

stylelearn.com/the-worst-lms-in-the-world-is3

docebo.com/learning-network/blog/best-learning-management-system2

firsthr.app/compare/performance/succession-planning-software2

intervue.io/blog/best-enterprise-lms-software2

lmspedia.org/sap-successfactors-learning-alternatives2

research.isg-one.com/buyers-guide/business-technologies/employees-and-hcm/learning-managem2

softwareadvice.com/hr/succession-planning-comparison2

successionstack.com/best-succession-planning-software2

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as SumTotal

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as SumTotal; a claim can dispute any of them.

SumTotal Systems 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when SumTotal's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as SumTotal, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at sumtotal.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.