ChatGPT's Influence on Software Stocks Reveals Private Companies as Leaders

ChatGPT's influence on software stocks has become increasingly apparent as it recommends certain brands over others. The AI search tool reached 900 million weekly active users in February 2026, and its answers now matter for companies like Automatic Data Processing (ADP), PayPal (PYPL) and HubSpot (HUBS). On October 1, 2025, Reddit's (RDDT) shares fell about 12% in a single session after data from tracking firm Promptwatch showed ChatGPT citing Reddit far less often than it had weeks earlier.

High Salience, the AI search and SEO agency founded by Bike Hawley, put 2,100 software-buying questions to ChatGPT in September 2026. They recorded every brand it named and every source it cited. Across 21 software categories, several publicly traded companies were ChatGPT's most frequent pick, including HubSpot with 69 out of 100 CRM answers.

Private companies like Gusto and Stripe led ADP and Paychex in payroll and PayPal in payment processing, at least in ChatGPT's answers. Gusto was picked in 61 of the 100 payroll software answers, while ADP was picked in 23 and Paychex (PAYX) in 8.

The data shows that most AI search picks went to brands that did not rank on Google for the same question, with 4,944 out of 6,475 picks going to brands whose own website was not in Google's top 10 organic results. This means that investors need to consider ChatGPT answers as a signal about distribution, rather than relying solely on Google ranking data.