Subcategory · AI Citation Index

Cloud Security

Cloud security is fragmented across AI discovery. Okta surfaces in nearly every buyer query, followed closely by Crowdstrike and Orca Security, but none of them dominate the head-to-head evaluations the way they dominate discovery share. The absent giants — Smartsheet, 1Password, Drata, Snyk, CyberArk, and IBM Guardium — each win most of their comparison matchups but rarely surface when buyers ask AI for cloud security shortlists. The kingmakers (Wiz and Prisma SD-WAN) show up in the most head-to-head fights, win or lose. The category is fragmented: no single brand controls both eyeballs and evaluation wins.

53 discovery queries · 129 head-to-heads · refreshed May 1, 2026

Discovery stage

The shortlist

Across 53 buyer-style "Cloud Security" queries

Okta shows up in 96% of buyer queries about cloud security across all four engines. Crowdstrike and Orca Security trail closely at 94% and 89%. Cloudflare and Lacework surface consistently but less frequently, at 74% and 60%. Every brand in the top ten appears across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity — no single-engine darlings among the frequently surfaced names.

7%23%38%53%69%Coverage — share of discovery prompts where the brand surfaces53%61%68%76%84%Engine diversity

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = coverage across discovery prompts · Y = engine diversity · Bubble size = total mentions
Tracked acrossChatGPT,Gemini,Claude

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Signal by intent

By topic

Top 5 most-cited brands per intent cluster. Brands with zero citations in a topic are not shown.

1Crowdstrike
16/16
2Okta
15/16
3Orca Security
14/16
4Sentinelone
11/16
5Cloudflare
10/16
1Orca Security
6/6
2Cloudflare
6/6
3Okta
6/6
4Cyberark
6/6
5Beyondtrust
6/6
1Okta
6/6
2Cyberark
6/6
3Orca Security
6/6
4Hashicorp
5/6
5Cloudflare
5/6
1Cloudflare
4/4
2Lacework
4/4
3Crowdstrike
3/4
4Qualys
3/4
5Datadog
3/4
1Okta
4/4
2Proofpoint
4/4
3Crowdstrike
4/4
4Sentinelone
4/4
5Mimecast
4/4
1Okta
3/3
2Crowdstrike
3/3
3Sentinelone
3/3
4Orca Security
3/3
5Proofpoint
2/3
1Crowdstrike
3/3
2Orca Security
3/3
3CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security
3/3
4Azure Key Vault
3/3
5Okta
3/3
1Crowdstrike
3/3
2Microsoft
3/3
3Okta
3/3
4Cyberark
3/3
5Delinea
3/3
≥50% cited
25–49%
<25%
Topics are discovery-stage prompt clusters · cloud-security

Evaluation stage

Head-to-head

How often AI cites each brand across uniform category evaluation prompts · median 55/100

When buyers ask AI to compare cloud security options head-to-head, Azure Secure and Well-Managed Cloud and Cloudflare both win most matchups with scores of 76-78. Lacework, Wiz, and Prisma SD-WAN lose more head-to-heads than they win, scoring below the category median of 55. Wiz and Prisma SD-WAN show up in the most comparison queries — 14 and 13 respectively — but neither wins consistently.

0255075100Evaluation citation rate — % of category evaluation prompts citing this brand0471114Evaluation prompts cited inmedian citation ratemedian exposure

Hover or click a logo to see brand details

X = evaluation citation rate · Y = evaluation prompts cited in · Bubble size = citation exposure
Median citation rate 55/100

Each brand's score is the share of category evaluation prompts where AI cited them across all four engines — the same prompt pool for every brand. Brands above the median citation rate have stronger presence in evaluation-stage queries.

Citation sources

Where AI pulls citations from

473 citations captured across Cloud Security prompt runs.

Vendor pages

203

Product, help, and marketing pages from tracked vendors

Independent sources

89

Reviews, encyclopedias, forums, press — not vendor-owned

Buyer questions

What AI cites for top Cloud Security questions

Buyers ask AI for cloud security recommendations by vertical and workload — 'cloud security for e-commerce platforms', 'cloud security for retail banking', 'cloud security for logistics and supply chain'. Every query in the mix is top-of-funnel exploration, with no head-to-head comparisons or pricing questions captured in this window. The framing is vertical-first: buyers want to know which tools fit their industry context.

Discovery

Buyers exploring the category

Evaluation

Buyers comparing options

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