Before anyone picks up the phone to call an executive search firm, someone on the buying side has usually already asked an AI model which ones to call. For this first volume of The AI Shortlist, we asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the twelve questions a real buyer would type in, three times each, then asked Google the same twelve questions to see how the two answers compare. No firm was picked ahead of time. Whoever the models named is who made the list.
If you lead marketing at a search firm, or at any professional services business competing for that first mention, this is what those two answers look like, side by side.
The finding
The firms AI trusts most are nearly invisible on Google
Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles and Russell Reynolds Associates are named in roughly seven of every ten AI answers in this study. We ran the same twelve questions as plain Google searches. The four of them together turn up in exactly two of the twelve, three appearances in total.
Heidrick & Struggles doesn’t appear in Google’s organic results at all.
2 of 12
Google searches show any of the four global firms in their organic results.
Ranking overview
AI and Google are building two different shortlists
That gap holds even once you look past the top four. We ran the same twelve buying questions through the models and through Google, and lined up who each one comes back with most often.
Named by AI
Mention rate across 108 responses · ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
| # | Firm | Mention rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Korn Ferry | 72% |
| 2 | Spencer Stuart | 71% |
| 3 | Heidrick & Struggles | 70% |
| 4 | Russell Reynolds Associates | 69% |
| 5 | Egon Zehnder | 47% |
| 6 | JM Search | 43% |
| 7 | True Search | 38% |
| 8 | DHR Global | 33% |
| 9 | Bespoke Partners | 28% |
| 10 | ON Partners | 27% |
Ranked by Google
Share of the 12 organic searches it appeared in
| # | Firm | What ranks | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Talentfoot | Own ranking post | 75% |
| 2 | Cowen Partners | Own ranking post | 50% |
| 3 | Alpha Apex Group | Third-party ranking | 50% |
| 4 | Christian & Timbers | Own ranking post | 42% |
| 5 | JM Search | Own service page | 33% |
| 6 | JRG Partners | Own service page | 33% |
One name appears on both lists above: JM Search.
Agreement
The three models don’t even agree with each other
That combined 108-response number hides a bigger disagreement. Split the answers back out by model and the three don’t look much like each other.
| Firm | ChatGPT | Claude | Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Egon Zehnder | 56% | 61% | 25% |
| True Search | 56% | 53% | 6% |
| JM Search | 72% | 14% | 42% |
| Cowen Partners | 6% | 17% | 47% |
| Talentfoot | 3% | 25% | 39% |
Each model sees a different part of the story.
Gemini is the one most likely to swap a global name for a firm that publishes about itself. Claude has the opposite lean.
Gemini is the one most likely to swap a global name for a firm that publishes about itself. It names Egon Zehnder in a quarter of its answers, against 56 to 61% for the other two models, and all but drops True Search, to 6%, against roughly 55% for ChatGPT and Claude. Run the same comparison the other way and the pattern holds: Gemini names Cowen Partners in 47% of its answers to ChatGPT’s 6%, and Talentfoot in 39% to ChatGPT’s 3%.
Claude has the opposite lean. It sticks with the four global names more than either of the other two, an average of 82% across them against 70% for ChatGPT and 60% for Gemini, and it’s the model least likely to name JM Search at all, 14% against ChatGPT’s 72%. Inside ChatGPT specifically, that 72% puts JM Search ahead of Korn Ferry, which ChatGPT names in 61% of its answers.
Both lists
JM Search made both lists without publishing a ranking
Which makes JM Search’s position in the AI answers more interesting, not less. Everyone else on the Google side got there by publishing something about itself. JM Search didn’t need to. One other firm comes close, by playing that game harder than anyone.
JM Search
In the answers43% mention rate, sixth overall. It’s the only firm outside the four global names to get anywhere close to them, and it beats Egon Zehnder outright in more than a third of the questions where both appear.
On the pageShows up in 4 of the 12 searches, every time through its own practice pages. Nothing on jmsearch.com is framed as a “top firms” ranking.
Cowen Partners
In the answers23% mention rate, eleventh overall. Real, but well behind JM Search.
On the pageShows up in 6 of the 12 searches, more than any firm except Talentfoot, largely through a series of category rankings, including one titled “Top 5 CFO Search Firms” that names Cowen Partners the top result.
By question type
The harder the question, the more AI sticks with the four global firms
JM Search’s own numbers hint at why it can compete: a 67% mention rate on the broad “best firms” questions, less than half that on the situational ones. That split holds across the whole study.
e.g. “hiring a CFO”
e.g. “healthcare firms”
e.g. “founder succession”
e.g. “best firms overall”
Average combined mention rate of the four global firms, by question type.
Ask a model something specific and high-stakes, a private equity firm placing a new CEO, a founder stepping down, and the four global names average a 96% combined mention rate across all three models. Spencer Stuart alone hits 100% there, named in all 27 responses to those questions. Ask the broad version instead, what are the best executive search firms, what are the alternatives to the big firms, and that average falls to 33%. The general questions are exactly where the rest of this study’s findings live. It’s where JM Search, Talentfoot and Cowen Partners each pick up their biggest share of the conversation.
The sources
Most of Google’s results are written by the search firms themselves
Before going further, it’s worth seeing what all 108 Google results are made of.
- The firm’s own service or practice page43
- The firm’s own ranking, self-published37
- Someone else’s ranking9
- Forums and community threads8
- Independent trade press7
- Professional association resources2
- Other2
Put the first two rows together and 80 of the 108 results (74%) are pages a search firm wrote about itself, whether that’s a plain service page or a ranking with its own name at the top. Seven results, fewer than one in fifteen, come from a source with no stake in the answer.
The AI answers lean on a similar mix, just with different names doing the leaning. Across all 108 responses, these are the domains models cited most often as their source:
- talentfoot.com27 citations
- gofractional.com12
- huntscanlon.com (trade press)11
- noon.ai10
- alphaapexgroup.com9
One domain accounts for more citations than the next two combined.
The case
How Talentfoot became the most cited name in the study
One firm shows this whole pattern at full scale.
Talentfoot
Talentfoot is a Chicago-based executive search firm with a national retained-search practice.
What it publishes
- A series of category rankings, for CFO search, healthcare, manufacturing, and the general “best executive search firms” question, refreshed by year, each placing Talentfoot at or near number one.
- Those categories line up closely with the ones this study measured.
- In one answer, Claude named Talentfoot directly, alongside KORE1 and MSH, as a firm “topping its own list,” and suggested checking the rankings independently. In several other answers, Claude raised the same concern about self-published rankings without naming a firm, while still citing talentfoot.com as a source in that same response.
What that produced
- Appears in the organic results for 9 of the 12 searches, the most of any name in the study, firm or otherwise.
- talentfoot.com is cited as a source in 27 of the 108 AI responses, one out of every four, more than double the next most-cited domain.
- Its AI mention rate is 22%, twelfth overall. A real result, and higher than most of the 150-plus other firms named in this study, but well behind the four global firms it’s competing with for visibility, and about half of JM Search’s rate.
This describes a pattern in what was published and what came back, not a judgment on Talentfoot as a firm. A 22% mention rate is a genuine, above-average result. What’s notable is the gap between how often Talentfoot’s own content shows up and how often the models recommend it, and that at least one model flagged the self-ranking directly while still citing it as a source in the same answer.
Worth watching, not yet measured
Google’s own AI Overview didn’t agree with Gemini either
All twelve Google searches returned an AI Overview above the organic results, a separate generated answer from the same company as Gemini. For the CFO question, the Overview named six firms, including Cowen Partners and ON Partners. Gemini’s own chat assistant answered the identical question three separate times and never named either one.
This came from twelve screenshots taken in passing, not twelve tracked, repeated runs, so it isn’t held to the same standard as the rest of this study. From Volume 02 on, AI Overviews gets measured the same way as the other three surfaces.
How this volume was run
| Study run | September 19 to 20, 2026 |
| Models | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini |
| Location | Chicago, IL (VPN, all runs) |
| AI responses | 108 (12 questions × 3 models × 3 runs) |
| Google results | 108 organic results (12 questions, one run each) |
| Sessions | Clean sessions, no memory, no account history |
| Not measured | AI Overviews (observed once per question, not tracked); whether each model used live web search on a given answer |
Model answers vary between users, locations and versions, and so do search results. This is a sample taken on the dates above and is meant as a directional read, not a definitive measurement. No firm was selected in advance: every name here came out of the responses.
The questions
The 12 questions, so you can run them yourself
All twelve, exactly as they were typed, in the models and in Google. Run them and you should land somewhere close to what we found.
By function
- What are the best executive search firms in the US for hiring a CFO?
- Which executive search firms in the US specialize in placing chief revenue officers?
- Who should a US company hire to run a CTO search?
By sector
- What are the top executive search firms for healthcare organizations in the US?
- Which executive search firms work with US financial services and fintech companies?
- What are the best executive search firms for US manufacturing and industrial companies?
By situation
- A private equity firm needs to place a new CEO at a US portfolio company. Which search firms are best for that?
- A US company is replacing its founder as CEO. Which executive search firms handle founder succession?
- Which firms in the US run board director searches?
General
- What are the best executive search firms in the US?
- What are good alternatives to the large global executive search firms for a US mid-market company?
- Which boutique executive search firms in the US are worth considering?
