Security Software & VPNs,
according to AI
Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about security software & vpns — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Microsoft Defender owns the conversation.
0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated
Microsoft Defender is the default answer.
Named in 35% of security software & vpns answers, typically in position 2.4. Bitdefender follows at 28%, Norton at 27%.
Every brand AI names, ranked.
Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Defender | 35% | 2.4 | 22% | 21% |
| 2 | Bitdefender | 28% | 2.6 | 9% | 20% |
| 3 | Norton | 27% | 1.7 | 9% | 27% |
| 4 | McAfee | 20% | 2.4 | 7% | 25% |
| 5 | Experian | 13% | 1.4 | 0% | 0% |
| 6 | BitLocker | 13% | 1.5 | 0% | — |
| 7 | Cifas | 12% | 2.6 | 6% | 25% |
| 8 | Equifax | 10% | 2.0 | 0% | — |
| 9 | TransUnion | 10% | 3.2 | 0% | — |
| 10 | FileVault | 10% | 3.5 | 6% | 10% |
| 11 | Google Family Link | 8% | 2.6 | 9% | 60% |
| 12 | Kaspersky | 8% | 3.6 | 7% | 100% |
| 13 | Avast | 8% | 4.2 | 2% | — |
| 14 | Ledger | 5% | 1.0 | 2% | 100% |
| 15 | VeraCrypt | 5% | 3.0 | 2% | 50% |
Microsoft Defender is named most. That is not the same as being wanted.
Being named is visibility. Underneath it, asked to rate each brand directly, the AI assistants judge it three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. They put 10% of the 51 brands rated above indifference. Have I Been Pwned leads the brands the answers name, at 74% of maximum Desire. On attraction, the most divided driver, Have I Been Pwned indexes 132 against Equifax at 70, on a category average of 100.
Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared (84 / 92 / 100 / 108 / 116). Above indifference means Desire above two-thirds of its maximum. See the full security software & vpns desire edition →
The referees of security software & vpns.
The independent sources AI models cite when answering security software & vpns questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.
Google Family Link converts reads into citations. FileVault doesn't.
When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Google Family Link converts 60% of reads; FileVault just 10%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.
Full data table
| # | Brand | Visibility | Avg. position | Citation share | Read→cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft Defender | 35% | 2.4 | 22% | 21% |
| 2 | Bitdefender | 28% | 2.6 | 9% | 20% |
| 3 | Norton | 27% | 1.7 | 9% | 27% |
| 4 | McAfee | 20% | 2.4 | 7% | 25% |
| 5 | Experian | 13% | 1.4 | 0% | 0% |
| 6 | BitLocker | 13% | 1.5 | 0% | — |
| 7 | Cifas | 12% | 2.6 | 6% | 25% |
| 8 | Equifax | 10% | 2.0 | 0% | — |
| 9 | TransUnion | 10% | 3.2 | 0% | — |
| 10 | FileVault | 10% | 3.5 | 6% | 10% |
| 11 | Google Family Link | 8% | 2.6 | 9% | 60% |
| 12 | Kaspersky | 8% | 3.6 | 7% | 100% |
| 13 | Avast | 8% | 4.2 | 2% | — |
| 14 | Ledger | 5% | 1.0 | 2% | 100% |
| 15 | VeraCrypt | 5% | 3.0 | 2% | 50% |
Three models. Three different answers.
Ask about security software & vpns and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Norton, Gemini → Bitdefender, ChatGPT → Microsoft Defender. Their top-five lists share just 38% of names.
Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.
The data behind this chart
| Brand | Claude | Gemini | ChatGPT | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BitLocker | 5% | 5% | 30% | 25pp |
| Norton | 30% | 35% | 15% | 20pp |
| Bitdefender | 25% | 40% | 20% | 20pp |
| Equifax | 0% | 20% | 10% | 20pp |
| TransUnion | 0% | 20% | 10% | 20pp |
| Kaspersky | 15% | 10% | 0% | 15pp |
| FileVault | 5% | 5% | 20% | 15pp |
| Microsoft Defender | 30% | 35% | 40% | 10pp |
| McAfee | 25% | 20% | 15% | 10pp |
| Experian | 10% | 20% | 10% | 10pp |
How-to guides carry security software & vpns.
Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. How-to guides supply the most citations; pricing convert best — 100% of the ones models opened were actually cited.
The data behind this chart
| Page type | Cited | Read but not cited | Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| How-to guides | 81 | 5 | 94% |
| Editorial | 38 | 13 | 75% |
| Comparisons | 33 | 6 | 85% |
| Listicles | 15 | 2 | 88% |
| pricing | 9 | 0 | 100% |
| Product pages | 9 | 3 | 75% |
| Community threads | 8 | 6 | 57% |
| Other | 3 | 14 | 18% |
Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.
Of the security software & vpns pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 18 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 19pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.
The data behind this chart
| Feature | Pages with | Cited % | Pages without | Cited % | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured data | 218 | 81% | 64 | 63% | +18pp |
| Answer up front | 145 | 83% | 137 | 70% | +13pp |
| Named author | 153 | 78% | 129 | 75% | +3pp |
| Comparison table | 89 | 75% | 193 | 77% | -2pp |
| Updated this year | 155 | 75% | 127 | 78% | -2pp |
| Hard statistics | 82 | 63% | 200 | 82% | -19pp |
SentinelOne builds pages AI can quote.
Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Avast is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.
| Brand | Readiness | Pages cited | Pages profiled |
|---|---|---|---|
| SentinelOne | 46 | 33% | 3 |
| Avast | 37 | 2% | 115 |
| Norton | 34 | 4% | 137 |
| Malwarebytes | 33 | 0% | 32 |
| Cryptomator | 32 | 14% | 7 |
| FileVault | 31 | 10% | 41 |
| Cifas | 31 | 22% | 9 |
| VeraCrypt | 29 | 14% | 7 |
| Experian | 28 | 0% | 4 |
| ESET | 27 | 5% | 62 |
Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.
The questions security software & vpns pages have to settle.
Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.
Nineteen more categories.
Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Sat, 17 Oct 2026 13:06:28 GMT.