Edition 1 · 3 engines · 18 April 2026

KAIS AI Visibility Barometer — edition 1

55 queries from the European B2B buying journey, asked of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. 1,240 citations extracted, 444 companies ranked by KVS, two sectors covered.

55
Queries tested — SaaS/Tech (15) and Finance/Fintech (40)
1,240
Individual citations extracted from the answers
444
Unique companies cited at least once
165
Answers analysed (55 queries × 3 engines)

The edition 1 protocol

The query panel. 55 discovery- and evaluation-stage questions, split between SaaS/Tech (15 queries) and Finance/Fintech (40 queries, a more granular market). Language balance: 35 in French, 20 in English. No query contains a brand name, to avoid priming bias.

Querying the models. Each query was submitted once per engine — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity — in a neutral session, with no history or personalisation, within a 48-hour window to limit algorithmic drift between models. Total: 165 answers.

Difference with edition 2. From June 2026, the protocol moves to three runs per question per engine, to absorb the variability inherent to generative answers. A score gap between edition 1 and edition 2 is therefore partly explained by that protocol change, not only by a shift in the visibility of the ranked players.

The KVS formula, as applied in edition 1

KVS = Σ(CTRrang × AIweight) × (1 + bonuscoverage)

What edition 1 found

83% of the cited leaders are European. Of the 60 companies in the combined top 30 (SaaS/Tech and Finance/Fintech), 50 are headquartered in Europe.

Multi-engine coverage is the most decisive signal. 91% of the top 40 is cited by all three models. A company cited by a single engine caps at around 40 points.

France accounts for 40% of the European SaaS/Tech leaders cited, with 16 companies in the SaaS top 40. The United Kingdom dominates finance/fintech with 10 companies. Germany places 5 companies in the combined top 40.

European SaaS / Tech top 10 — 18 April 2026

#CompanyCountryEnginesKVS
1Mistral AIFrance3/3100.0
2DoctolibFrance3/390.8
3OdooBelgium3/374.2
4ContentsquareFrance3/372.9
5QontoFrance3/366.8
6DataikuFrance3/365.1
7IndyFrance3/352.0
8PipedriveEstonia3/348.9
9AlgoliaFrance3/345.9
10StripeIreland3/341.5

European Finance / Fintech top 10 — 18 April 2026

#CompanyCountryEnginesKVS
1RevolutUnited Kingdom3/3100.0
2AdyenNetherlands3/396.0
3StripeIreland3/383.2
4WiseUnited Kingdom3/375.4
5QontoFrance3/369.4
6PennylaneFrance3/342.1
7MollieNetherlands3/331.9
8AirwallexUnited Kingdom3/331.5
9Checkout.comUnited Kingdom3/327.4
10PigmentFrance3/326.7

The full two top-40 rankings, the country analyses and the 10-lever framework are in the v1.0 PDF report of 18 April 2026.

What this edition did not measure