AI recommendation study by industry #1
When someone asks AI for cloud accounting software, which products come up?
Measured on
More buyers now ask generative AI, not a search engine, which accounting software suits a sole proprietor or a small business. We used AI Reputation X-Ray to compare, in two measurements, how major cloud accounting products in Japan appear in AI answers.
This study assumes buyers consult generative AI such as ChatGPT. The answers were generated and evaluated by the AI Reputation X-Ray diagnosis engine; they are not captured answers from ChatGPT or any other service, and they do not rate the features or quality of any product.
Key findings
- In two measurements with different diagnosed products, freee Accounting ranked first and Money Forward Cloud Accounting second both times.
- Being mentioned is not the same as being recommended first: in measurement 1, Kanjo Bugyo Cloud was mentioned in all 9 comparisons yet scored 38.
- The set and order of candidates changed with the buyer's situation described in the question.
- In both measurements, every page AI pointed to as evidence was a vendor's official site, mostly pricing pages. No comparison or review sites appeared.
Method
One AI Reputation X-Ray diagnosis automatically selects direct competitors and compares visibility across the same question set. To check that the diagnosed product is not favored, we measured twice: once diagnosing freee Accounting and once diagnosing Money Forward Cloud Accounting.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Date | October 18, 2026 |
| Tool | AI Reputation X-Ray (diagnosis engine v2) |
| Measurements | 1: freee Accounting diagnosed; 2: Money Forward Cloud Accounting diagnosed. Comparison products were selected automatically each time |
| Questions | 15 questions per measurement (3 observations × 5 questions), including 9 comparison observations that did not name any product |
| Measurement confidence | Low in both (the diagnosed product's score ranged 77–95 and 56–93 across observations) |
Results
The AI visibility score is a relative score of how often and how early each product was recommended within the same question set. It is not a score of product quality.
Money Forward Cloud Accounting scored lower when it was the diagnosed product (82 to 60), so being diagnosed did not favor it. Measurement confidence was low both times, so read the ranking as an indication.
| Product | Measurement 1 (freee diagnosed) | Measurement 2 (Money Forward diagnosed) |
|---|---|---|
| freee Accounting | 1st · 89 | 1st · 80 |
| Money Forward Cloud Accounting | 2nd · 82 | 2nd · 60 |
| Yayoi Accounting (Next) | 3rd · 56 | 3rd · 42 |
| Kanjo Bugyo Cloud | 4th · 38 | 3rd · 42 |
| PCA Cloud Accounting | 6th · 13 | 5th · 31 |
| Jobcan Accounting | 5th · 18 | Not in set |
| MJSLINK DX | Not in set | 6th · 9 |
What the result can and cannot tell you
It shows how often and in what order each product was recommended for this question set at this time, and what the public information of frequently recommended products had in common.
It does not rank product features or quality, predict future answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or other services, or reflect Google or Yahoo! search rankings. AI answers change with wording, timing, and model.
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