G2 AI Categories: The Complete List and How to Get Into the Right One

TL;DR

G2 spent the last year-plus building a new AI taxonomy — categories that didn't exist eighteen months ago now have buyers comparing products inside them. Whether a given category is competitive yet isn't obvious from the outside: the review counts G2 displays on category pages don't predict it, and being listed isn't the same as being eligible for a Grid. A category with an eye-catching review count can have no Grid at all, while a newer one with a fraction of the volume already does.

This guide explains how G2 AI categorization works in practice — how placement decisions get made, why the displayed review count misleads, how to tell whether a category still has first-mover room, and what to do in my.G2 to get your product into the categories that actually matter.

Should You Prioritize Getting Into a G2 AI Category?

Yes, if:

• Your product uses AI as a core capability (agentic workflows, ML-driven features, generative AI)
• You already have a G2 profile with reviews in other categories
• You want to appear in AI-specific buyer comparison pages and Grid reports

Maybe, if:

• You've added AI features to an existing product and aren't sure if they qualify
• You're in a category that doesn't feel right anymore because your product has evolved

One clarification: Getting into a category is the easy part — it takes a support request and 1–2 business days if approved. The harder part is collecting enough reviews attributed to that specific category to appear on a Grid report. Many AI categories — especially the newest ones — don't have a Grid yet, which means no products hold ranked positions there. The section on how to tell whether a category has a Grid below explains why Grid status matters more than the review count displayed on a category page, and how to check it for yourself.

One in Three New G2 Categories Is Now AI

Between March 2025 and May 2026, G2 added dozens of new categories to its taxonomy — more than 45 of them AI-specific, and AI's share of everything new held at roughly a third (in some months, far higher — six of nine in May 2026).

Meanwhile, products listed directly under G2's "Artificial Intelligence Software" parent total more than 18,000 out of approximately 200,000 on the platform — nearly 1 in 10. (Many AI categories sit under functional parents like Sales Tools or Recruiting Software rather than under the AI parent directly, so the actual number of AI-categorized products is higher.) Most of those products are concentrated in a handful of massive categories. The newest AI categories are the opposite — nearly empty, with products that have zero reviews.

Here's what the timeline shows. The first wave (March/April 2025) established the foundations: Emerging AI Software as the catch-all incubator, GEO Tools, AI Customer Support Agents, AI IT Agents, AI SDRs, and AI Coding Assistants. These were categories G2 had been watching take shape inside broader categories for months.

By mid-2025, the categories got specific. G2 chose names like "Autonomous Endpoint Management" over something broad like "AI for security," and "AI Software Testing Tools" instead of a general "AI for testing." G2 was slicing by function.

Then came the agentic wave. AI SOC Agents, AI Agents for HR, AI Interview Agents — six categories following the same pattern: "AI [job function] Agents." G2 is organizing AI software by the job it performs. They confirmed this direction by launching "Best Agentic AI Products" as a new award in their 2026 Best Software Awards.

That pace didn't slow into 2026. In the three months from February through April 2026 alone, G2 introduced more than a dozen additional AI categories — and March 2026 was almost entirely AI: Conversational Interface Agents, AI Gateways, AI Search Visibility Optimization Tools, AI Search & Retrieval Infrastructure, AI Software Development Kits, AI Search and Discovery Platforms, plus vertical entries like AI Patient Engagement & Operations and AI Virtual Staging. April 2026 added AI Presentation Tools, AI Assistants for Financial Services, and Ambient AI Scribe Platforms. May 2026 held the pace: six of G2's nine new categories that month were AI — AI Marketing Agents, AI Sales Roleplay, AI Accessibility Tools, AI Agent Observability, AI Proposal Generator, and AI SRE Tools (announced June 2, 2026). The taxonomy keeps splitting AI software finer — by infrastructure layer, by function, and by industry.

The newest categories — the May 2026 batch, along with earlier 2026 additions like AI-SPM, AI Documentation Generators, and AI Medical Diagnostic Platforms — are mostly empty. Some have products listed with zero reviews. And the review count you see on a category page is a poor guide to whether the field is actually contested: a category can display tens of thousands of reviews and still have no Grid, because those are product-level totals carried over from other categories rather than reviews attributed to the new category specifically. Revenue AI, for instance, launched in January 2026 already showing ~48,000 displayed reviews, all of it carried in by established products like Salesforce, Gong, and Clari. The next section explains how to read past that number.

For a list of AI categories created during this period with creation dates, see the appendix.

A note on G2's taxonomy: Not all AI categories live under the "Artificial Intelligence Software" parent. G2 organizes many AI categories under their functional parent — Revenue AI sits under Sales Tools, AI Recruiting under Recruiting Software, AI SOC Agents under System Security, and so on. This means you won't find every AI category by browsing a single parent page. The appendix at the end of this guide consolidates categories from across G2's taxonomy.

The Emerging AI Software Category Deserves Special Attention

One category in this list works differently from the rest: Emerging AI Software.

G2's research team explicitly described it as an incubator. In their March/April 2025 category announcement, G2 principal research analyst Matthew Miller put it this way: the team created this category to track AI innovations, and as clusters form inside it, they investigate whether a new standalone category has emerged.

This means Emerging AI Software is both a landing zone and a launchpad. Products that don't fit neatly into existing AI categories get placed here. When enough similar products accumulate, G2 spins out a new category — and the products in that cluster become the founding members.

At the time of writing, Emerging AI Software has more than 15,000 displayed reviews across roughly 6,000 listed products. The bar for inclusion is broad: a product must be AI-first, with ML or deep learning at its core, and offer functionality that goes beyond existing AI categories.

If your product is novel — if buyers keep telling you "I don't know what category you're in" — this might be exactly where you belong. And being in the incubator when your cluster gets spun out means you're in the new category from day one, with a head start on reviews. If you want to accelerate that process, our guide to creating a new software category walks through G2's submission process and what to expect on other platforms.

How to Tell Whether a Category Has a Grid (and Why It Matters)

Grid status is the real signal of whether a category is contested.

When buyers research software on G2, the Grid report is what they see first. It's a quadrant chart — updated quarterly — that ranks products as Leaders, High Performers, Contenders, or Niche players based on customer satisfaction scores and market presence. If a category has a Grid, buyers are actively comparing products in it. If it doesn't, buyers browsing that category see a product list with ratings but no competitive ranking — no Leaders badge, no quadrant placement, no "best in category" positioning.

Example of a G2 Grid report. Source: G2 Research Scoring Methodologies

For vendors, Grid placement is the prize. A "Leader" or "High Performer" badge on G2 is a trust signal that shows up in search results, on product pages, and in sales collateral. Without a Grid, there are no badges to earn.

Not every category gets a Grid. According to G2's published methodology, a Grid report is only generated when at least six products have each collected 10 or more reviews attributed to that specific category, and the category has at least 150 total attributed reviews. The key word is "attributed" — this is not the same as the review count displayed on the category page (see "A note on category review counts" below for why these numbers differ).

That gap is why the displayed review count can't tell you whether a category is contested. A category can show tens of thousands of reviews and still have no Grid, because those are product-level totals carried in from other categories — while the Grid depends on attributed reviews, a separate layer you can't see from the outside.

How to check a category's Grid status — in about 30 seconds. Open the category page on g2.com and scroll past the product list. If a "G2 Grid® for [Category]" quadrant chart appears (it loads near the bottom of the page), the category is live — products hold ranked positions, and you'll need attributed reviews to break in. If the page runs straight from the product list into "Spotlight Categories" with no quadrant, there's no Grid yet — and that absence is the opening.

Why newer categories are the opportunity. A category with no Grid has no Leaders to displace, no incumbents holding the badge, no quadrant you have to climb. The products that collect attributed reviews before the Grid launches are the ones that show up as the first Leaders and High Performers when it does. As a rule of thumb, the more recently a category was created, the more open the field — which is why the appendix below lists every AI category by creation date, newest first. A focused review collection effort — see our guide to collecting G2 and Capterra reviews — can get you onto a new category's Grid within a quarter or two of it launching.

Not sure where your category stands? Grid status shifts every quarter, and checking it across dozens of categories by hand gets tedious fast. Blastra tracks this for you — tell us your product and we'll map which AI categories you qualify for and which still have an open Grid window. Get in touch.

You Might Already Be in an AI Category

Before you request a new category placement, it's worth checking what G2 has already done on your behalf. Products get added to categories through three paths:

When you first submit your product to G2, the research team evaluates your features and places you in all categories that fit. This happens during the initial 3–5 business day verification period.

When G2 creates a new category, the research team populates it with existing products that meet the inclusion criteria. G2's categorization methodology page confirms that products are added to categories "when submitted on G2, when a new category is created, and when a category cleaning occurs." This means your product could have been placed in an AI category without you requesting it — or even knowing about it.

During category cleaning, G2 analysts periodically audit the products in a category, updating definitions, inclusion criteria, and product placements.

Here's what we don't know: whether G2 notifies vendors when their product is added to a new category through this automatic process. G2's notification system supports alerts for Grid quadrant movements and new reviews, but there's no documented notification specifically for new category placements. Their category name change FAQ explicitly states they don't send communications for category updates.

How to check: Go to my.G2, navigate to Product Profile → Product Information → Product Categories. You'll see every category your product is currently listed in.

How to Request an AI Category (Step by Step)

If your product isn't in the AI category where it belongs, here's the process:

Step 1: Find the right category. Browse G2's category pages and look at the inclusion criteria. Every category has a "What is [category name]?" section — click "Show More" to see the specific feature requirements. Your product needs to meet these requirements — general relevance alone won't qualify.

Step 2: Request the addition. Go to my.G2 → Product Profile → Product Information → Product Categories → select "Request Updates." This opens a support case with G2.

Step 3: Provide evidence. G2 encourages submitting specific evidence that your product meets the feature requirements: recorded demos, blog content, presentations, or documentation showing how your product delivers the required functionality. The more concrete you are, the faster the evaluation goes.

Step 4: Wait for evaluation. A market research analyst reviews your request against the category's inclusion criteria. If approved, changes reflect on the site within 1–2 business days.

A few things to know about this process: G2 categorizes products by functionality and features. They'll place your product in all categories it qualifies for. There's no limit to how many categories your product can be in, and this applies equally to free and paid profiles. Category placement itself is free.

One more detail that matters: G2's documentation doesn't describe a process for voluntarily removing your product from a category once you're in. As long as your product continues to meet the feature requirements, the listing stays. Getting into an AI category is a durable visibility gain.

From Grid Placement to Grid Impact

Being in a category is step one. Here's what determines whether it helps you:

How Review Attribution Works (And Why You Should Audit It)

Reviews on G2 get attributed to categories through three mechanisms, in order of reliability:

Reviewer selection: When users write reviews, they select which categories their review applies to. If you're in AI SDRs but your reviewers only select "Sales Engagement Software," those reviews won't count toward your AI SDRs Grid placement. You may need to guide reviewers to select the AI category when leaving feedback.

NLP auto-attribution: G2 uses natural language processing to analyze review text and attribute reviews to relevant categories on an as-needed basis. The timing of this process is unpredictable.

Manual audit: G2 occasionally performs manual reviews to ensure attribution accuracy. This happens on G2's timeline, not yours.

The takeaway: don't assume reviews are landing in the right category. Check your review attribution in my.G2 periodically, especially after being added to a new AI category. Existing reviews don't automatically re-attribute — new reviews going forward will give reviewers the option to select the new category.

A note on category review counts

The review count shown on a category page and the reviews that count toward Grid eligibility appear to be two different things.

From what we can see, the category page total reflects the combined reviews of all listed products — regardless of which category the reviewer originally selected. Products like Salesforce Sales Cloud and Gong appear on the Revenue AI page carrying the same review counts they show in CRM or Conversation Intelligence. Revenue AI launched in January 2026 showing ~48,000 reviews, because it includes established products that already had large review volumes built up elsewhere.

Grid reports tell a different story. According to G2's published methodology, a product needs at least 10 reviews attributed to a specific category to be Grid-eligible — and the category itself needs at least six such products and 150 attributed reviews. Because attributed reviews are a separate, invisible layer, the displayed count doesn't predict whether a Grid exists: a category showing tens of thousands of reviews may have none, while a far smaller one already has its quadrant. The only reliable check is to look at the category page itself for the Grid.

The practical takeaway: Don't use the displayed review count to judge whether a category is competitive. Check whether a Grid report exists. The Grid is G2's quarterly quadrant chart that ranks products as Leaders, High Performers, Contenders, and Niche players — it's the basis for the badges that appear on product profiles and in search results. If a Grid exists, buyers are actively using it to compare products, and competitors already hold ranked positions. If no Grid exists, there are no rankings yet, no badges to compete against, and no quadrant placements — that's the first-mover window.

Grid Eligibility and Badge Rules

10 reviews in a category unlocks Grid eligibility. G2 publishes Grid reports quarterly for categories that meet their data requirements. The minimum threshold for a product is 10 reviews in that specific category. (The category itself also needs at least six products with 10+ reviews and 150+ reviews overall.) In a brand-new AI category, being among the first products to hit 10 reviews puts you on the Grid early.

Grid placement is free. Badge usage requires a paid plan. As of the Summer 2025 report release (June 2025), displaying badges (Leader, High Performer, etc.) in your marketing materials requires a G2 Brand Starter plan or higher, starting from $2,999/year for small businesses in Year 1 (increasing in Year 2). Grid placement itself — appearing on the Grid, being ranked — costs nothing. For a deeper dive into how badges work, see our complete guide to earning G2 badges.

Quarterly deadlines matter. G2 publishes its report schedule on their research agenda — check there for exact deadlines. The next window is Fall 2026: the review deadline is July 28, 2026, with the report released August 25, 2026. If you're trying to appear in a Grid report for a new AI category, work backward from that review deadline — reviews collected after it count toward the following quarter.

A Category Win in Under a Year: Profound

Here's what getting AI category strategy right looks like in practice.

Profound is an Answer Engine Optimization platform — it helps brands monitor and manage how AI systems represent them. When G2 created the GEO Tools category in March 2025 (later renamed to AEO Tools), Profound was one of the products placed there. By February 2026, Profound was named a Top 50 AI Product in G2's 2026 Best Software Products, ranking #34 across all B2B software.

That's under a year from category creation to Best Software recognition. At the time of their February 2026 Series C announcement ($96 million round at a $1 billion valuation, bringing total funding to more than $155 million), Profound reported serving more than 700 enterprises. Their CEO, James Cadwallader, used the G2 recognition as a signal that AEO had become a core marketing discipline — the G2 category placement became part of their market-creation narrative.

Profound reached Grid eligibility quickly in the new category and used the G2 recognition to reinforce their market positioning. The category was new, they moved fast, and they turned a G2 listing into a visibility engine.

Why This Matters for AI Search Visibility

G2 categories are structured, labeled data — exactly the kind of signal AI systems rely on when assembling answers about software comparisons. A product that exists in the right G2 AI category with reviews has a fundamentally different discoverability profile from one that doesn't. AI search visibility depends on your product being present across the third-party sources AI systems trust, and G2 is one of the highest-authority sources in B2B software.

G2 knows this. Their post-acquisition hiring shows explicit investment in becoming the primary citation source for LLMs and AI agents — with new engineering and product leadership focused on AI-powered software discovery and a growing team dedicated to how G2 content surfaces in generative search. Getting into the right AI category now positions your product for how G2 plans to serve buyers going forward.

One more thing to watch: In January 2026, G2 acquired Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice from Gartner — consolidating four of the largest software review platforms under one company. The deal closed in early February 2026. Both the Spring 2026 and Summer 2026 report cycles have since run on G2's existing taxonomy — neither announcement mentioned the acquisition, and no changes to G2's category structure have been announced as a result of it. But the combined platform will eventually unify its taxonomy across all four properties. If you're planning your category strategy, this is worth monitoring — what you do on G2 today may carry across a much larger footprint in the future.

What We Don't Know

G2's documentation is thorough on some points and silent on others. A few things we couldn't verify:

How quickly auto-placement happens for new categories. When G2 creates a new category, we know they populate it with existing products — but we don't know the timeline. It could be simultaneous with the category launch, or it could take weeks.

Whether vendors are notified about auto-placement. We found no documentation confirming that G2 sends a notification when your product is added to a new category through their research team's initiative. The safest assumption is that they don't.

The exact rejection rate for category placement requests. G2 doesn't publish data on how often placement requests are denied. Anecdotally, if your product clearly meets the feature requirements, approval is straightforward.

Key Takeaways

1. G2 created more than 45 AI-specific categories between March 2025 and May 2026 — and was still adding several a month into mid-2026 (six of nine in May 2026 alone). If your product has AI capabilities, there's likely a category for it.
2. Check my.G2 right now — you might already be in an AI category without knowing it.
3. Category placement is free and has no limit. The paid tier gates badge usage, not categorization.
4. The review count on a category page doesn't tell you whether it's contested — a category can show tens of thousands of reviews and still have no Grid. Scroll the category page to see whether a Grid quadrant exists; the newest categories are likeliest to have none yet, which is the first-mover window. Per G2's methodology, 10 attributed reviews can make a product Grid-eligible.
5. Emerging AI Software is G2's incubator. If your product doesn't fit anywhere else, this is both a landing zone and a launchpad for when your category eventually gets created.

Appendix: AI Categories Created (March 2025 – May 2026)

This appendix lists the AI-specific categories G2 created between March 2025 and May 2026, sorted by creation date — newest first. As a rule of thumb, the more recently a category was created, the more likely it is to be without a Grid yet — the open first-mover window. To check any one for certain, use the 30-second method above. G2's full AI category taxonomy — including older categories like AI Writing Assistants, Chatbots, and Machine Learning — is at g2.com/categories/artificial-intelligence.

Creation dates are drawn from G2's monthly category announcements. Parent categories for the February–May 2026 additions are inferred from G2's taxonomy, since the monthly announcements don't always state them; entries marked "2025" appeared during the year without a precise month in the announcements. G2 adds new categories monthly and occasionally revises slugs and parents — verify against g2.com/categories/artificial-intelligence for current status.

About this guide: Blastra helps B2B software companies manage their presence across directories like G2, Capterra, and 30+ other platforms. Our Visibility Posture assessment can tell you which G2 AI categories your product qualifies for and whether you're already listed.

Source Documentation

Primary Sources (Dated)

Additional Monthly Category Announcements

G2 publishes new category announcements monthly. All announcements from May 2025 through May 2026 were reviewed for this guide. They're available at company.g2.com/news.

FAQ

How does G2 create new categories?

G2 creates categories in response to market signals: user search behavior, vendor taxonomy requests, analyst coverage, and emerging product patterns. Between March 2025 and May 2026 G2 added more than 45 AI-specific categories — roughly one in three of all new categories during that window, and the pace held into mid-2026 (more than a dozen new AI categories from February through May 2026, including six of nine in May alone). Categories can also spin out of the Emerging AI Software incubator when enough similar products cluster inside it. G2 publishes new category announcements monthly at company.g2.com/news.

What is G2's research methodology for categories?

G2's research team places products into categories based on whether they meet published inclusion criteria — the specific feature requirements listed on each category page (click "Show More" under "What is [category name]?" to see them). Products get placed at three moments: on initial profile submission, when G2 creates a new category and populates it with matching existing products, and during periodic "category cleaning" audits. General relevance alone doesn't qualify — the product must meet the feature requirements.

How does G2 set its research priorities for new categories?

G2's public signal on prioritization is monthly category announcements plus their annual year-in-review posts. They've been clear about leaning into AI: nearly one-third of new categories in 2025 were AI-specific, and G2 explicitly launched "Best Agentic AI Products" as a new award category in the 2026 Best Software Awards. The Emerging AI Software category serves as an incubator that G2's research team uses to identify clusters that deserve their own category.

How many AI categories has G2 created?

More than 45 AI-specific categories between March 2025 and May 2026 — roughly one in three of all new categories G2 added during that window. The appendix lists them all by creation date, newest first. Whether any specific category has a Grid yet (and is therefore competitive) shifts every quarter — the newer the category, the likelier it is to still have an open first-mover window — so check the live category page for the current state.

How do I get my product listed in a G2 AI category?

Four steps: (1) Find the right category — check G2's inclusion criteria on each category page. (2) Go to my.G2 → Product Profile → Product Information → Product Categories → "Request Updates." (3) Provide evidence that your product meets the feature requirements (recorded demos, documentation, blog content). (4) Wait 1-2 business days for evaluation. Placement itself is free and there's no limit to how many categories your product can be in — G2 will place you in every category you qualify for.

What's the difference between a G2 category with a Grid and one without?

A category with an active Grid report has the quarterly quadrant chart that ranks products as Leaders, High Performers, Contenders, and Niche players — buyers use it to compare products, and competitors already hold ranked positions. A category without one yet has no ranking, no badges, no quadrant placement, and no established competitors holding Leader positions — that's the first-mover window. To tell which you're looking at, open the category page on g2.com and scroll past the product list: if a "G2 Grid® for [Category]" quadrant appears, it's live; if the page runs straight into "Spotlight Categories," there's no Grid yet. Grids refresh quarterly, so check before you commit — and as a rule, the more recently a category was created, the likelier it is to still be open.

Can my product be in multiple G2 AI categories?

Yes. There's no limit. G2 will place your product in every category whose feature requirements you meet — this applies equally to free and paid profiles. Category placement is free. What's paid is badge display: you can appear on Grids for free, but using Grid-based badge graphics in your marketing requires a paid G2 plan starting at $2,999/year.

How do I check which G2 categories my product is already in?

Go to my.G2 → Product Profile → Product Information → Product Categories. You'll see every category your product is currently listed in. This matters because G2 adds products to new categories automatically when creating them — you may already be in an AI category without knowing it, and G2's notification system doesn't specifically alert vendors about new category placements.

Related Guides

• How to Get Ranked on G2 — Satisfaction and Market Presence mechanics behind Grid placement
• G2 Badges Guide — Earning badges once a category has a Grid
• Software Directories That Actually Reach Latin America — Regional coverage when G2 categorization isn't reaching your LATAM buyers
• How G2 Is Building G2.ai Into an Expertise Marketplace — G2's AI ambitions go past categories: a firsthand tour of the G2.ai platform