Which secrets and non-human identity management vendors AI assistants name, Oct 2026
How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode answer 3 buyer questions on secrets and non-human identity management: 15 answers, 19–21 Oct 2026, India.
What this page is. AEOLedger sells answer engine optimization services, so we have an interest in these results. 15 answers (3 questions × 5 runs), collected 21 October 2026 from one location, read by hand. Vendors are named only when an assistant named them; being listed here is a count, not an endorsement or a ranking. The data is downloadable as CSV.
Summary
- AWS Secrets Manager was named in 10 of 15 answers and one other secrets-management vendor in 10+ of 15; Doppler was named in 9 and first in 5, all on the startup question.
- On the non-human identity question, every answer to that question carried a note about acquisitions in the category, and acquired vendors were still named and in one case recommended first.
- On secrets for AI agents, Google AI Mode answered with 'credential brokers' before vaults and named first a vendor whose own page it cited; that vendor was not named by ChatGPT or Perplexity.
- 17 further vendors were named in 1 or 2 of 15 answers each.
- 2 further vendors named in 3 to 9 of 15 answers are not shown (see limits).
The 3 buyer questions
Written in buyer wording, without any vendor’s name. Each question was asked in a fresh session every run (runs per question: ChatGPT 3, Perplexity 1, Google AI Mode 1), so 5 answers per question and 15 in all.
| # | Type | Question |
|---|---|---|
| C8-1 | shortlist | “What are the best non-human identity security platforms?” |
| C8-2 | requirements | “Which tools manage secrets and credentials for AI agents and automated workloads?” |
| C8-3 | requirements | “Which tools should a startup use to manage secrets and environment variables across teams?” |
Who gets named
Named in X of N: answers whose text recommends or lists the vendor.
Apps, 21 October 2026, Bengaluru, India. ChatGPT (logged out, fresh chat, 3 runs per question); Perplexity (signed in to one account, fresh thread, 1 run per question); Google AI Mode (signed in, personalisation off, 1 run per question). N = 15 answers per vendor.
| Vendor | Answers | Named | By assistant |
|---|---|---|---|
| A secrets and identity vendor | — | 10+ of 15 | split not shown |
| AWS Secrets Manager | 10 of 15 | ChatGPT 6/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 2/3 | |
| Doppler | 9 of 15 | ChatGPT 5/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 2/3 | |
| CyberArk | 8 of 15 | ChatGPT 6/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 | |
| HashiCorp Vault | 8 of 15 | ChatGPT 5/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| 1Password | 7 of 15 | ChatGPT 4/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| Azure Key Vault | 7 of 15 | ChatGPT 4/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| Google Cloud Secret Manager | 7 of 15 | ChatGPT 4/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| Akeyless | 6 of 15 | ChatGPT 4/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 0/3 | |
| Entro Security | 5 of 15 | ChatGPT 2/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 | |
| Oasis Security | 5 of 15 | ChatGPT 2/9, Perplexity 2/3, Google AI Mode 1/3 |
What gets cited
Domains the assistants linked as sources, counted once per answer.
| Domain | Type | Cited in |
|---|---|---|
| aws.amazon.com | cited site | 7 of 15 |
| doppler.com | cited site | 6 of 15 |
| startwithidentity.com | cited site | 5 of 15 |
| akeyless.io | cited site | 4 of 15 |
| azure.microsoft.com | cited site | 4 of 15 |
| 1password.com | cited site | 4 of 15 |
| cyberark.com | cited site | 3 of 15 |
Method
- Fieldwork 19–21 Oct 2026, Bengaluru, India, consumer apps. 3 buyer questions written without any vendor name. ChatGPT was asked each question 3 times (logged out, fresh chat); Perplexity and Google AI Mode once each. 15 answers, every one read in full.
- A vendor counts as named when the answer recommends or compares it, including a row in a comparison table. Vendors mentioned only as an acquisition note, as 'the big names to avoid', or in follow-up suggestions are not counted. Product lines are counted under their company.
The full protocol is on the methodology page.
Limits
- 15 answers per category, 5 per question: enough to say 'named in every answer' or 'in none', not to order vendors in the middle (95% intervals overlap).
- One location (India), no VPN. Perplexity ran in one signed-in account and Google AI Mode signed in with personalisation off; logged-out results may differ.
- Companies we track are not named on this page. As anonymised vendors they appear as 'a secrets and identity vendor' only when named in 10 or more of 15 answers, shown as '10+ of 15' without a per-assistant split, and are otherwise left out; their sites are left out of the sources list.
Data
Download the data (CSV): one row per vendor and per cited domain, with the count, N, assistant split, date and location. Licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with a link to this page.
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How to cite and changes
AEOLedger. “Which secrets and non-human identity management vendors AI assistants name, Oct 2026.” AI Shortlist Index v1.0, 22 October 2026. https://aeoledger.com/research/ai-shortlist/secrets-and-nhi/
- v1.0, 22 October 2026: first published.
Spotted an error? Write to hello@aeoledger.com. Corrections are dated here.