Is the vertical AI agent market growing or shrinking?
Miles FosterOwner and tester, RankDude
The answer▼ Shrinking
- Visits, year on year
- -56%
- Visits, last six months
- -33%
- Name searches vs October 2025
- -23%
Every month I add up the Google visits to the 46 vertical AI agent sites I track (DataForSEO estimates) and how often people in the US search for them by name (Google Ads). In September 2026 they got about 2.9 million visits.
The total hides very different stories: one site grew 115% in a year while another lost 93% of its visits. See who grew and who shrank, the visits month by month and the name searches, plus what I expect for October 2026.
Vertical AI agent market demand: key numbers, September 2026
Four numbers for September 2026. Visits mean visits from Google search to the 46 tracked sites. Tap one for the detail below.
- Visits from Google2.9Mvisits-56% vs a year ago
- Name searches, US152Ksearches-23% vs October 2025
- Top five sites75.5%of visitsfastest grower: Hippocratic AI
- Expected in October2.9Mvisitslikely 2.6M to 3.1M
- The vertical AI agent market is shrinking as of September 2026.
- The 46 vertical AI agent sites RankDude tracks got 2,928,029 visits from Google search in September 2026, 56% fewer visits than in September 2025.
- People in the US searched Google for these sites by name 152,180 times in September 2026, 23% fewer searches than in October 2025.
- The five most-visited vertical AI agent sites get 75.5% of all visits.
- Fastest-growing vertical AI agent site over the year: Hippocratic AI, +115% (8.1K to 17.3K visits a month).
- Steepest fall over the year: GPT for Work, -93% (636K to 41.8K visits a month).
- Forecast for October 2026: about 2.9M visits, likely between 2.6M and 3.1M.
Source: DataForSEO visit estimates and Google Ads search data, published 15 October 2026 by RankDude.
1.Are more people visiting vertical AI agent sites than a year ago?
Down 56% on a year ago; about level with August 2026 (-2%)
No. The 46 tracked vertical AI agent sites got 2,928,029 visits from Google search in September 2026. That is 56% fewer visits than in September 2025, and about the same as in August 2026.
The highest month of the last two years was May 2025, with 6,828,322 visits; September 2026 is 57% below it. In the US, visits were 525,706, down 42% on a year ago.
WorldVisits a month to vertical AI agent sites, worldwide, two years
Source: DataForSEO, Google search visits, all tracked sites.
Worldwide, this month
2.9M
-55.6% on a year ago
United States, this month
526K
-41.7% on a year ago
Two-year high
6.8M
May 2025
US share of visits
18%
of worldwide visits
Miles explains
Visits are lower than a year ago. September 2026 was level on August 2026, but the forecast still points down, so the fall may not be over. Name searches fell (-23%), but Google Trends interest in the term rose (+117%). The counted sites are losing ground; that does not mean interest in vertical AI agent sites is falling.
2.Are people searching for vertical AI agent sites by name?
Down 23% on October 2025; 152K name searches a month in the US
Fewer than before. People in the US searched Google for the names of the counted vertical AI agent sites 152,180 times in September 2026, 23% fewer searches than in October 2025. Someone who searches a site’s name already knows it, so this is the clearest sign of people coming back on purpose. The term “vertical ai agents” itself gets about 170 US searches a month (Google Ads, 12-month average).
USName searches a month for vertical AI agent sites, US
Source: Google Ads via DataForSEO, to September 2026.
USMost searched vertical AI agent sites by name, searches a month
HireVue18.1K a month
Holistiplan12.1K a month
Zocks12.1K a month
EvenUp9.9K a month
Hippocratic AI9.9K a month
FloQast8.1K a month
Miles explains
Name searches are down, so fewer people are coming back on purpose. Better Google rankings will not fix that.
3.Which vertical AI agent sites grew, and which shrank?
The five most-visited sites hold 75.5% of all visits; the ten most-visited hold 87%
The five most-visited vertical AI agent sites get 75.5% of all visits, so one of them winning or losing a big Google ranking moves the whole total. Fastest grower over the year: Hippocratic AI, from 8,067 to 17,341 visits (+115%). Steepest fall: GPT for Work, from 635,677 to 41,849 visits (-93%).
Growing fastest, year on year
- Hippocratic AI17.3K visits+115%
Billtrust21.3K visits+111%
Hebbia12.4K visits+65%- FloQast23.6K visits+48%
Numeric22.8K visits+28%
Falling fastest, year on year
GPT for Work41.8K visits-93%
Julius AI192K visits-91%
BlackLine18.3K visits-79%
Suki5.7K visits-75%
Quadratic11.4K visits-74%
Source: DataForSEO. Sites with 5,000+ visits a year ago.