GetIntel asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity 20 questions a buyer asks when hiring a SaaS marketing agency, three times each, on 18 October 2026. The 180 answers named 179 different agencies. Directive Consulting, a B2B SaaS marketing agency, was named in 87 of them (48%) and came first in 42, which is 23% of all answers and more than any other agency. Kalungi (74 answers) and Omniscient Digital (61) followed.
121 of the 179 agencies (68%) were named by only one engine, against 57% in the same test of SaaS SEO agencies run that day. This is one day, one country (the US), three runs and 20 questions we wrote, so read it as a snapshot.
This is what AI engines say, not our recommendation. GetIntel did not vet, hire or rank these agencies, and none of them paid to be listed. GetIntel sells AI visibility tracking, which is how we ran the questions. Every agency's counts are downloadable as a CSV.
In this article
- Which SaaS marketing agencies do AI engines name most?
- Where does Directive Consulting lead?
- Do the engines agree?
- Which agency comes up for paid ads, brand or demand generation?
- Are these the same agencies as for SaaS SEO?
- How we asked the questions
- How should you use this list?
Which SaaS marketing agencies do AI engines name most?
Directive Consulting (87 of 180 answers), Kalungi (74) and Omniscient Digital (61). Across 180 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity on 18 October 2026, these were named most often:
Answers naming each agency, split by engine. An agency counts once per answer. Chart by GetIntel, October 2026.
| Agency | Answers naming it (of 180) | ChatGPT (of 60) | Gemini (of 60) | Perplexity (of 60) | Named first |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directive Consulting | 87 | 30 | 26 | 31 | 42 |
| Kalungi | 74 | 27 | 33 | 14 | 18 |
| Omniscient Digital | 61 | 27 | 17 | 17 | 7 |
| Powered by Search | 57 | 33 | 6 | 18 | 8 |
| Hey Digital | 42 | 21 | 15 | 6 | 1 |
| Refine Labs | 42 | 23 | 5 | 14 | 6 |
| Skale | 38 | 5 | 20 | 13 | 5 |
| GrowthSpree | 36 | 8 | 9 | 19 | 14 |
| SimpleTiger | 35 | 12 | 15 | 8 | 1 |
| Animalz | 35 | 7 | 13 | 15 | 0 |
| NoGood | 34 | 5 | 20 | 9 | 0 |
| Siege Media | 27 | 2 | 14 | 11 | 0 |
The field was spread wide. The top three agencies took 18% of all 1,214 agency mentions and the top ten took 42%, against 23% and 49% in our SaaS SEO agency count. An average answer named about seven agencies.
Where does Directive Consulting lead?
On first mentions as well as total mentions. Directive Consulting was the first agency named in 42 of the 180 answers: 19 on Gemini, 12 on ChatGPT and 11 on Perplexity. The next most frequent opener, Kalungi, came first in 18.
It also held up across question types. Directive Consulting was named in all nine answers (three engines, three runs) to six of the 20 questions, including the broad ones ("What are the best SaaS marketing agencies in 2026?"), demand generation and enterprise SaaS. Being named first may read as a top pick, though we did not measure what readers do with it.
Among the agencies we counted, some were named often but rarely first. Hey Digital was in 42 answers and first in 1. Animalz, NoGood and Siege Media were named 96 times between them and never first.
Do the engines agree?
Rarely. On 18 October 2026, 32 agencies were named by all three engines and 121 by only one.
- Powered by Search was named 33 times by ChatGPT but only 6 times by Gemini.
- NoGood and Skale were named 20 times each by Gemini and only 5 each by ChatGPT.
- GrowthSpree was named 19 times by Perplexity, more than on the other two engines combined.
Asking the same question again changed the answer too. We counted the agency and question pairs that came back in all three runs:
| Engine | Agency and question pairs named in all 3 runs |
|---|---|
| Perplexity | 68% (119 of 175) |
| Gemini | 46% (94 of 206) |
| ChatGPT | 40% (68 of 172) |
Perplexity searches the live web for every answer, so its steadiness may come from stable search results rather than the model. ChatGPT, which ran no web search in any of these answers, dropped or swapped an agency in 6 of every 10 pairs on 18 October 2026.
Which agency comes up for paid ads, brand or demand generation?
Each discipline had its own leaders. For each specialist question on 18 October 2026, the agency named most often out of 9 answers (3 engines, 3 runs each):
| Question | Named most often | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Best demand generation agency for B2B SaaS | Directive Consulting, Powered by Search and Refine Labs (9 each) | Kalungi (6) |
| Best paid ads agency for SaaS companies | Hey Digital (7) | Directive Consulting and TripleDart (6 each) |
| Best LinkedIn ads agency for B2B SaaS | B2Linked (9) | Impactable (8) |
| Best brand and positioning agency for SaaS | Focus Lab (8) | Clay (7) |
| Best SaaS content marketing agency | Animalz and Omniscient Digital (9 each) | Siege Media (7) |
| Best B2B SaaS marketing agency for a Series A startup | GrowthSpree and Kalungi (9 each) | SimpleTiger and Understory Agency (6 each) |
| Affordable marketing agencies for SaaS startups | GrowthSpree (9) | Bay Leaf Digital (6) |
| Best marketing agency for a fintech SaaS company | Powered by Search (8) | Directive Consulting (5) |
| Best marketing agency for a developer tools company | Draft.dev (9) | Infrasity (8) |
| Best SaaS marketing agency for AI search visibility | Skale (8) | Omniscient Digital (7) |
| Best SaaS marketing agencies in the UK and Europe | Gripped, Hey Digital, Skale, The Growth Syndicate and Transmission (6 each) | Omnius (5) |
On brand and positioning, Focus Lab (8 of 9 answers) and Clay (7) led, and Focus Lab was named for no other question. The UK and Europe question had no clear leader at all, with five agencies tied.
Are these the same agencies as for SaaS SEO?
Partly. On the same day we asked the same engines 20 questions about SaaS SEO agencies. 12 of the 20 agencies named most often here were also named in that study, including Directive Consulting, Kalungi, Omniscient Digital and Skale. Across both lists, 51 of the 179 marketing agencies also appeared as SEO agencies.
The order changed, though. Skale led GetIntel's SaaS SEO agency count with 106 answers but came seventh here with 38. Directive Consulting was fifth for SEO with 60 and first here with 87. About 28% of the agencies (51 of 179) appeared in both studies. A buyer after paid media or brand work should name that job in the question.
How we asked the questions
We asked 20 buyer questions, each three times, on three engines, all on 18 October 2026, from the United States.
- ChatGPT and Gemini were asked through their real web apps, using the same Bright Data (a data-collection vendor) scrapers GetIntel uses for its own tracking. ChatGPT ran no web search for any of the 60 answers, so its picks came from what the model already knew. The Gemini app answered with its Flash-Lite model and showed no citations.
- Perplexity was asked through its API with the sonar model, which searches the web for every answer.
- Counting: Claude Haiku listed the agencies each answer named as options to hire, leaving out directories, review sites and software tools. Every one of the names it listed appears word for word in its answer. We merged spellings of the same agency ("Directive" and "Directive Consulting"), and an agency counts once per answer. "Named first" is the first agency in the answer's own order.
- Limits: GetIntel wrote the 20 questions, all listed in the method file, and we did not test why any agency was named.
How should you use this list?
As a shortlist for the discipline you need, not a ranking of quality. A high count shows an agency is visible to AI engines, not that it will do good work for you. Ask the engine about the exact job (LinkedIn ads, positioning, developer marketing), because the specialist answers named different agencies from the broad ones. Then ask each agency for SaaS case studies with numbers.
If you run an agency, check more than one engine and more than once. In our test the answers changed by engine and by run. Our guide to AI visibility for agencies covers what to measure, and the AI share of voice calculator turns your counts into shares. GetIntel runs those checks daily.