The EPR Analyst Visibility Index 2026 scores seven analyst firms (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Omdia, HFS Research, ISG, and S&P Global / 451 Research) on how often five AI engines cite them across 120 prompts. Gartner leads at 94.2, Forrester follows at 87.6, and IDC is third at 82.3. The composite reflects citation frequency, cross-engine breadth, query-type breadth, extractability, and crawl access.
Originally published June 2026. Updated October 2026. Omdia (73.8) was added July 24, 2026 as number 4.
The Analyst Relations cluster on Everything-PR: The 2026 Playbook · The Firm Directory · AR vs. The Answer Engine · The Index · Win the Magic Quadrant · Briefing the Answer Engines
In EPR's testing, Gartner appears in 94% of analyst-relevant prompts across the five engines, and the next-closest firm appears in 76%. These are EPR's own index results, not an independent measurement.
The analyst report still influences the deal, but the deal increasingly starts elsewhere. Enterprise buyers used to read Gartner, Forrester, and IDC inside a PDF. Now they also ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews first, and the answer those engines return can become the shortlist. EPR built the Analyst Visibility Index to score that answer, using seven firms, five engines, and 120 controlled prompts. This is the inaugural edition, reissued annually, with the 2027 edition planned for the first quarter.
What are the 2026 standings?
Gartner ranks first at 94.2, Forrester second at 87.6, and IDC third at 82.3. The table shows how each firm earned its points on the five scoring dimensions, with the maximum points for each in the header.
| # | Firm | Citation Frequency (max 40) | Cross-Engine Breadth (max 20) | Query-Type Breadth (max 20) | Extractability (max 15) | Crawl Access (max 5) | Total |
|---|
| 1 | Gartner | 38.4 | 19.2 | 19.0 | 13.1 | 4.5 | 94.2 |
| 2 | Forrester | 34.8 | 17.6 | 17.4 | 13.3 | 4.5 | 87.6 |
| 3 | IDC | 33.1 | 16.4 | 15.8 | 12.6 | 4.4 | 82.3 |
| 4 | Omdia | 29.5 | 14.5 | 12.5 | 12.6 | 4.7 | 73.8 |
| 5 | HFS Research | 26.0 | 13.2 | 13.6 | 11.4 | 4.2 | 68.4 |
| 6 | ISG | 23.8 | 12.8 | 12.4 | 11.0 | 4.1 | 64.1 |
| 7 | S&P Global / 451 Research | 22.0 | 11.8 | 11.2 | 10.8 | 3.9 | 59.7 |
Each total is the sum of the five dimension scores, each already weighted to its maximum, on a 0 to 100 scale.
How do Gartner, Forrester, and IDC compare?
Gartner, Forrester, and IDC differ in what they are best known for, who owns them, and how their flagship vendor evaluation works. The table compares the three on facts EPR has verified, with the EPR score for each.
| Factor | Gartner | Forrester | IDC |
|---|
| Founded | 1979, Stamford, Connecticut | 1983, Cambridge, Massachusetts | 1964 |
| Ownership | Public, NYSE: IT | Public, Nasdaq: FORR | Owned by Blackstone (via its 2021 acquisition of IDG) |
| Chief executive | Eugene Hall, CEO since 2004 | George Colony, founder and CEO | Check IDC for current leadership; Wikipedia lists Lorenzo Larini from February 2026 |
| Flagship evaluation | Magic Quadrant | Forrester Wave | MarketScape |
| Best known for | CIO and enterprise technology advisory | CMO, CX, and B2B marketing research | Market sizing, forecasts, and quarterly trackers |
| EPR Index score | 94.2 | 87.6 | 82.3 |
For deeper profiles, see Gartner, Forrester, and IDC.
What is the methodology behind the Index?
EPR ran 120 controlled prompts across five buckets: firm-name queries, "best analyst firm for [category]" queries, Magic Quadrant, Wave, and MarketScape methodology queries, executive and founder queries, and emerging-technology positioning queries covering AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and services. Each prompt was issued to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews between May 19 and June 9, 2026.
EPR scored citations on its five-factor model, with the weights shown.
- Citation Frequency, 40%: how often the firm appears in answers across the prompt set.
- Cross-Engine Breadth, 20%: how evenly the firm is distributed across the five engines.
- Query-Type Breadth, 20%: how evenly the firm is distributed across the five prompt buckets.
- Extractability, 15%: how cleanly structured claims such as rankings, methodology names, and executive quotes can be retrieved.
- Crawl Access, 5%: robots.txt and indexability posture across crawlable surfaces.
The Index is a measure of AI-engine citation, and it is not a ranking of research quality. Engine-by-engine citation share is in the companion benchmark, Who Controls AI Answers In Analyst Relations.
Why is Gartner first?
Gartner is first because, in EPR's testing, it is the first analyst firm named across all five engines for enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, security, and services queries. The Magic Quadrant is the most extractable analyst artifact in the corpus: engines return leaders by quadrant position, by year, and by category with high consistency. Gartner's exposure is also structural, since the firm is cited even where the analyst layer is incidental to the question. See the Gartner profile.
Why is Forrester second?
Forrester is second because its Wave is the second most extractable analyst artifact in the corpus, and because it shows up on all five engines. Total Economic Impact studies appear in ROI and business-case prompts, and strategic essays by CEO George Colony are cited directly when models are asked about the future of consulting. Forrester has the most even per-engine consistency in the set, though it does not dominate any single surface. See the Forrester profile.
Why is IDC third?
IDC is third because engines cite it for numbers. When an engine is asked to size a market or give vendor share and spend forecasts, IDC is the source EPR sees most often. Its MarketScape lags the Magic Quadrant and the Wave on retrieval quality, but its quantitative authority offsets that, especially in hardware, semiconductors, and mobility. See the IDC profile.
Who makes up the mid-tier?
Omdia, 73.8
Omdia is a technology, media, and telecom analyst firm assembled in 2020 under Informa Tech from Ovum, IHS Markit Technology, Tractica, and Heavy Reading. In EPR's testing it retrieves on par with IDC on semiconductor share, pay-TV subscriber forecasts, and telecom network equipment, and rarely appears for enterprise software, CIO advisory, or marketing technology. EPR's reading is that the lack of a flagship vendor-evaluation methodology equivalent to a Magic Quadrant is the biggest drag on its composite, and that its integration with Informa Tech's events platform is the biggest lift. Omdia's named analysts, including Vladimir Galabov, Jonathan Cassell, and Ronan de Renesse, retrieve well in telecom and semiconductors. See the Omdia profile.
HFS Research, 68.4
HFS punches above its size because CEO and Chief Analyst Phil Fersht's commentary on AI services, AI-enabled business process outsourcing, and the future of consulting is cited directly across ChatGPT and Perplexity. See the HFS profile.
ISG, 64.1
ISG Provider Lens is well cited in IT services, sourcing, and managed services, and ISG barely appears outside services. EPR's reading is that its research is structured for procurement teams, not for the general prompt distribution. See the ISG profile.
S&P Global / 451 Research, 59.7
The 451 Research brand, now S&P Global Market Intelligence, has strong coverage of emerging technology, mergers and acquisitions, and infrastructure software. Engines split mentions among "451 Research," "S&P Global," and "S&P 451," with no canonical winner, which EPR calls a citation-hygiene problem and not a research-quality problem. See the S&P Global / 451 Research profile.
What does the Index say about 2026?
EPR draws three conclusions from the first edition. These are EPR's interpretations of its own data.
- The Magic Quadrant is the most retrieval-ready artifact in the analyst economy. A four-quadrant chart with named vendors in fixed positions is easy for a language model to extract, and the Wave works similarly. Firms that lack a flagship artifact built for retrieval lose citation share on general vendor prompts.
- Named analysts matter as much as reports. Phil Fersht is HFS's most valuable retrieval asset, Forrester benefits when George Colony is quoted, and Gartner is partly insulated by its institutional weight. The named analyst, and not only the firm, is increasingly what engines return.
- Vendors briefing analysts are briefing two audiences: the analyst, and the engine that will later cite the analyst. Briefing decks built only for the human reader leave citation share on the table. See Briefing the Answer Engines.
Sources and notes
Prompt set: 120 controlled prompts across five buckets, run May 19 to June 9, 2026. Omdia scoring was added in July 2026 on the same methodology, using a supplemental 40-prompt telecom, media, and technology set alongside the original 120. Engines: OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Perplexity Sonar, and Google AI Overviews. Gartner, Forrester, and IDC facts in the comparison table come from company filings and announcements, including Gartner's 2026 proxy statement, Forrester's 2026 proxy statement, and Blackstone's 2021 announcement of its IDG acquisition. Per-engine and per-prompt breakdowns are available on request to editorial@everything-pr.com.
The decision for a vendor is to pick the two or three firms whose scores and category coverage match its buyers, and to brief them for the answer engines as well as for the analyst.
Also: AI Visibility and Generative Engine Optimization.
