AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Security operations › Awareness training › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

Security awareness training for enterprise buyers

Asked as “security awareness training platform”, and as “phishing simulation and training tool”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
74%
Clear leader
74KnowBe414Hoxhunt04Proofpoint ZenGuide08others

74% of first choices, clear leader.

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.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01KnowBe474%12%73endorsed leader
02Hoxhunt14%12%50accepted challenger
03Proofpoint ZenGuide4%14%63accepted challenger
04SoSafe2%3%29accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10MetaCompliance0%27%15criticized challenger
09Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness0%18%11accepted challenger
08Mimecast Engage0%18%17accepted challenger
05Cofense PhishMe0%8%26accepted challenger
06Adaptive Security0%8%13accepted challenger
07Infosec IQ0%8%13accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-one head-to-head pages: the top seven products, each against each

One product takes 74% of first choices here, so the chart would put nine markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. One product carries a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Six of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 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.
Proofpoint ZenGuide
14%
9 of 63 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Described as "clunky" with poor UI/UX, non-customizable trainings, and integration headaches.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
KnowBe4
12%
9 of 73 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid If**: Your workforce is distributed/remote, needs modern AI/personalized engagement... Trustpilot rating ~1.9-2.9/5 (85% 1-star in some samples)” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Hoxhunt
12%
6 of 50 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“Several newer, AI-focused platforms (Adaptive Security, Phished, SoSafe, Hoxhunt, RansomLeak) are gaining traction, but many are very young” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
MetaCompliance
27%
4 of 15 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“appear to have some phishing-related and feature/experience complaints in review summaries; worth testing heavily” GPT-5.4 mini, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1103 links across 201 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Hoxhunt49 answers · 71 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Adaptive Security46 answers · 120 citations · 12 models
vendor site · KnowBe436 answers · 63 citations · 13 models
34 answers · 45 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G234 answers · 34 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G232 answers · 70 citations · 12 models
vendor site · RansomLeak28 answers · 35 citations · 11 models
26 answers · 35 citations · 12 models
23 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
21 answers · 28 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Proofpoint20 answers · 27 citations · 9 models
vendor site · EasyLlama18 answers · 18 citations · 10 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.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best security awareness training platform”, “security awareness training platform”, “security awareness training platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
KnowBe4 knowbe4.com74%20674,0001,009156,597215
Hoxhunt hoxhunt.com14%1232,900315,77223
Proofpoint parent site
Proofpoint ZenGuide 4%
4%13127,1001,488
SoSafe sosafe-awareness.com2%72320711,234
DefendWise defendwise.com2%4
Living Security livingsecurity.com2%5
Microsoft Defender parent site
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Attack Simulation Training 2%
2%1618,1003,525
Cofense PhishMe cofense.com0%46110241,39222
Adaptive Security adaptivesecurity.com0%295,4009817,395$4,390108
Infosec IQ infosecinstitute.com0%355901755,091111

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 18 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (easyllama.com, g2.com, gartner.com, knowbe4.com, proofpoint.com). The first result for “best security awareness training platform” is proofpoint.com.

How 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.
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ModelDirect“What is the best security awareness training platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which phishing simulation and training tool would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade security awareness training platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best security awareness training platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a security awareness training platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which security awareness training platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Hoxhunt, KnowBe4
Two alternativesProofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
KnowBe4Changed
Three alternativesCofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Hoxhunt, KnowBe4
Three alternativesProofpoint ZenGuide, RansomLeak, SoSafe
against: MetaCompliance
KnowBe4
One alternativeProofpoint ZenGuide
no first choiceagainst: Cofense PhishMe, KnowBe4, MetaCompliance, Proofpoint ZenGuide
GPT-5.4 miniKnowBe4
Four alternativesHoxhunt, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
KnowBe4Held
Three alternativesCofense PhishMe, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4
Six alternativesCofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, IRONSCALES, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
DefendWise
One alternativeKnowBe4
against: Proofpoint ZenGuide
no first choiceagainst: CybeReady, Infosec IQ, MetaCompliance, Nimblr
Gemini 3.5 FlashHoxhunt
Five alternativesCybSafe, KnowBe4, Living Security, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
HoxhuntHeld
Four alternativesKnowBe4, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
no first choice
Six alternativesAdaptive Security, Hoxhunt, Infosec IQ, KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
Living Security
Two alternativesHoxhunt, KnowBe4
no first choiceagainst: Hook Security, Huntress Managed Security Awareness Training, Phin Security, Wizer, usecure
Perplexity SonarKnowBe4
Four alternativesArctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness, Hoxhunt, MetaCompliance, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4Held
Two alternativesHoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Three alternativesAdaptive Security, Hoxhunt, SoSafe
KnowBe4
Two alternativesHoxhunt, Huntress Managed Security Awareness Training
no first choiceagainst: KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Grok 4.20KnowBe4
Three alternativesHoxhunt, Infosec IQ, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4Held
One alternativeProofpoint ZenGuide
against: Hoxhunt, IRONSCALES
KnowBe4
Six alternativesCofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Infosec IQ, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe, Terranova Security
KnowBe4against: Cofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuideKnowBe4
Four alternativesAdaptive Security, Infosec IQ, Proofpoint ZenGuide, Terranova Security
against: Hoxhunt, usecure
against: Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness, KnowBe4, Phished, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Mistral SmallHoxhunt, KnowBe4
One alternativeProofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4Changed
Three alternativesEgress, IRONSCALES, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Hoxhunt, KnowBe4
Two alternativesHuntress Managed Security Awareness Training, SoSafe
KnowBe4
One alternativePhished
no first choiceagainst: KnowBe4against: CybeReady, KnowBe4
DeepSeek V4 FlashKnowBe4
Two alternativesHoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4Held
Three alternativesCofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Hoxhunt, KnowBe4
Four alternativesArctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness, Cofense PhishMe, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
KnowBe4
Two alternativesHoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
against: Microsoft Defender for Office 365
no first choice
Six alternativesHoxhunt, Keepnet, KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe, Terranova Security
against: Adaptive Security, Hoxhunt, KnowBe4, Phished, RansomLeak, SANS Security Awareness, SoSafe, Wombat
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceKnowBe4Changedno first choiceHoxhunt, KnowBe4, SoSafeno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashHoxhunt, KnowBe4
One alternativeMetaCompliance
KnowBe4Changed
Three alternativesCofense PhishMe, IRONSCALES, Microsoft Defender
KnowBe4
Four alternativesAdaptive Security, Cofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4
Two alternativesClickIT, Proofpoint ZenGuide
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide
Two alternativesHoxhunt, IRONSCALES
against: Mimecast Engage
KnowBe4Changed
Three alternativesCofense PhishMe, IRONSCALES, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4
Four alternativesCofense PhishMe, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SANS Security Awareness
against: Mimecast Engage
KnowBe4
Two alternativesDefendWise, Proofpoint ZenGuide
no first choiceagainst: KnowBe4against: KnowBe4, Proofpoint ZenGuide
GLM 4.7 FlashXKnowBe4
Four alternativesArctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide, SoSafe
KnowBe4Held
Two alternativesAdaptive Security, Cofense PhishMe
no first choiceKnowBe4
One alternativeProofpoint ZenGuide
against: Hoxhunt
no first choiceagainst: Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness, KnowBe4, MetaCompliance, Proofpoint ZenGuide
MiniMax M2.5no first choiceKnowBe4Changed
Two alternativesCofense PhishMe, Proofpoint ZenGuide
KnowBe4
Four alternativesCofense PhishMe, CybSafe, Hoxhunt, Proofpoint ZenGuide
no first choiceKnowBe4
Four alternativesCofense PhishMe, Microsoft, Mimecast Engage, Proofpoint ZenGuide
nothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The 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-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:51yes168 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:33yes55 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:08yes1524 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:08yes195 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 10:59yes249 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:56yes137 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 12:00yes2430 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:36yes51 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:38yes824 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:47yes1021 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:41yes1436 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:08yes523 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:52yes179 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:41yes64 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 12:49yes723 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 08:46yes192 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:15yes236 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:56yes157 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 13:39yes2043 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:49yes51 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:32yes1426 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:54yes1320 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:56yes24115 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:55no044 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:43yes910 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:08yes79 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 11:14yes2328 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:23yes205 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 12:46yes2413 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:31yes128 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:50yes2346 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 13:47yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 08:36yes722 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:55yes2336 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:23yes1479 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 13:21yes1216 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:57yes189 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:15yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:19yes1424 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:00yes185 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:42yes236 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:14yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 11:45yes2332 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 10:42yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 11:49no036 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:23yes1925 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:37yes2150 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:18yes2048 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:22yes1815 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 12:13yes310 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:49no017 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 12:06yes186 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 08:10yes1610 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:51no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:43yes2343 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 13:11yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 12:33no031 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 10:16yes1829 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:04yes1545 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:18yes513 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 09:29yes1610 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 13:09yes76 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 13:17yes1935 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 13:31yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 13:52yes1915 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 09:10yes146 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 13:03yes2244 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:17yes51 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:55yes1042 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:38yes2528 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:53yes2354 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 11:27yes2335 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

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Category-scoped readings
Arctic Wolf read as Arctic Wolf Managed Security Awareness
Barracuda read as Barracuda Security Awareness Training
Cofense read as Cofense PhishMe
Cofense (PhishMe + Cofense Learn) read as Cofense PhishMe
Cofense (PhishMe) read as Cofense PhishMe
Cofense (formerly PhishMe) read as Cofense PhishMe
Huntress read as Huntress Managed Security Awareness Training
Huntress Managed Security Awareness read as Huntress Managed Security Awareness Training
Microsoft Attack Simulation Training read as Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Attack Simulation Training
Microsoft Defender Attack Simulation Training read as Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Attack Simulation Training
Mimecast read as Mimecast Engage
Proofpoint read as Proofpoint ZenGuide
Proofpoint (Wombat) read as Proofpoint ZenGuide
Proofpoint (ZenGuide) read as Proofpoint ZenGuide
Proofpoint (ZenGuide/ThreatSim) read as Proofpoint ZenGuide
SANS read as SANS Security Awareness
Terranova read as Terranova Security
Terranova (Fortra) read as Terranova Security
Unresolved, counted raw
Autopilot
Beauceron
ClickIT
Cyber Aware
ESET Security Awareness
Infima
Nimblr
Offensive Security OffSec Flex
Q9
SANS Workforce Security
Security Mentor
Spartan Global
Unlimited Cyberaware
Wombat (now part of Proofpoint)
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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