Talent management agencies are increasingly being discovered through AI search, with a small number of firms capturing the majority of mentions when creators and brand-side buyers turn to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI products to research the category.
To better understand this shift, Net Influencer has partnered with AEO/SEO agency Grow and Convert, leveraging their Traqer AI Visibility platform to do a deep dive on which talent management agencies AI models surface when content creators and marketing professionals ask for recommendations. According to Grow and Convert’s analysis, 118 ranked entries surfaced across a standardized set of buyer-style queries run on five major AI platforms, with visibility heavily concentrated at the top of the list.
The analysis tracked how often each agency appeared in AI responses to five prompts run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode.
Methodology
Prompts ranged from broad (“What are the top talent management agencies?”) to specific creator queries (“I’m a creator with about 200K followers and I’m getting overwhelmed by brand deals. What talent agencies should I look at?” and “Can someone recommend good talent agencies for mid-tier YouTubers in the tech space?”). The query set was designed to mirror how content creators and marketing professionals actually research the agency landscape before making contact.
The Universe of Agencies
According to Grow and Convert’s analysis, 118 ranked entries were mentioned at least once across all 25 prompt-platform runs. That figure represents the full set of names AI models surfaced for buyers asking about talent management. The broader talent management landscape includes many more firms spanning both traditional entertainment and digital creator representation, suggesting many agencies in the broader category did not surface in any AI response across the tested queries.
How the Visibility Score Works
Each agency’s visibility score reflects the percentage of total prompt-platform runs where it appeared in an AI response. An agency that surfaced in every run would score 100%. An agency that surfaced in roughly half would score 50%.
Grow and Convert’s data segments scores into four ranges:
60% and above (Default Recommendation): The model cites the agency across most queries on most platforms. Buyers running almost any version of an agency search will encounter the name.
30% to 59% (Strong Consideration Set): The agency reliably surfaces on multiple platforms for multiple query types. Buyers will see the name often, depending on phrasing and platform.
15% to 29% (Selective Visibility): The agency shows up for specific queries or specific platforms. A buyer may encounter the name in some searches, but not consistently across platforms or query types.
Below 15% (Long Tail): The model surfaced the agency once or twice across 25 runs. Buyers running a small number of searches have low probability of seeing the name in their results.
The Top 10
Rank
Company
Visibility Score
Strongest Platforms
1
Viral Nation
48%
ChatGPT, Gemini
2
Creative Artists Agency
40%
ChatGPT, Perplexity
3
United Talent Agency
36%
Gemini, ChatGPT
4
William Morris Endeavor
28%
Gemini, ChatGPT
5
CAA
28%
ChatGPT, Gemini
6
WME
28%
ChatGPT, Perplexity
7
The Influencer Marketing Factory
24%
Perplexity, AIO
8
UTA
20%
ChatGPT, Gemini
9
Neoreach
20%
Gemini, Perplexity
10
Digital Brand Architects
20%
ChatGPT, AI Mode
No agency in the top 10 cleared the default recommendation threshold. Three ranked entries, Viral Nation, Creative Artists Agency, and United Talent Agency, sat in the strong consideration tier. Seven ranked entries appeared in selective visibility territory, though some entries reflect duplicate references to the same organizations by acronym and full name.
What the Data Shows
Viral Nation led all tracked entries at 48% visibility, eight percentage points clear of second-place Creative Artists Agency at 40%. No agency in the category cleared 60%, meaning AI models don’t treat any single firm as a near-universal default across queries and platforms.
The top 10 ranked entries showed presence across multiple prompt-platform runs. The category presents a notable structural split: AI models surface both digital-native influencer agencies and traditional Hollywood representation firms in response to the same query set. Viral Nation, The Influencer Marketing Factory, Neoreach, and Digital Brand Architects appear alongside traditional entertainment agencies such as Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency, William Morris Endeavor, CAA, WME, and UTA.
The data also shows duplication in how AI models reference certain firms. Creative Artists Agency and CAA both appear in the top five, while United Talent Agency and UTA both appear in the top 10. William Morris Endeavor and WME also appear as separate ranked entries, reflecting how AI responses cite the same organizations differently across platforms.
Concentration and Drop-Off
The drop-off between ranked entries is steep. Viral Nation sits at 48%. Creative Artists Agency follows at 40%, United Talent Agency at 36%, and William Morris Endeavor, CAA, and WME each score 28%. By rank 7, The Influencer Marketing Factory falls to 24%, followed by UTA, Neoreach, and Digital Brand Architects at 20%.
Three ranked entries cleared 30% visibility. Ten ranked entries scored 20% or above. The next three entries, Independent Artist Group, Gleam Futures, and Wasserman, scored 16%. The field then drops to 12% at rank 14 and to 8% at rank 23 before falling to 4% for the large majority of the list.
Eighty-seven ranked entries scored 4%, the floor of the dataset. The bottom tier of the 118 ranked entries scored 4%, indicating those names appeared once across all 25 prompt-platform runs.
According to Grow and Convert, this level of concentration exceeds the gap between top and bottom rankings observed for comparable query sets in traditional Google search results.
Platform Distribution
Total mentions varied across the five AI platforms tested. ChatGPT produced the highest total at 60 mentions, followed by Gemini at 52, AI Mode at 44, Google AI Overviews at 32, and Perplexity at 29. The distribution indicates that AI search visibility is not uniform across engines.
Citation Sources
The data also tracked which domains AI models referenced when generating their answers. The most frequently cited sources were reddit.com with 14 mentions, backstage.com with 7, youtube.com and freshcontentsociety.com with 6 each, and linkedin.com with 5. A mix of creator community forums, entertainment industry resources, video platforms, agency rankings, and professional networking sources accounted for a significant share of the source material AI models drew from when forming agency recommendations.
The most cited URLs included Fresh Content Society’s “Best Influencer Marketing Agencies in the United States (2026),” Backstage’s guides to talent agencies for actors and social media influencers, EntertainmentCareers.Net’s “What Are The Top 5 Talent Agencies?,” and a Mandy Network article about when influencers need an agent.
How the Rankings Were Calculated
Rankings were generated by Grow and Convert using five prompts run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Prompts covered general agency searches and specific creator queries related to brand deal management, mid-tier YouTube representation, and timing of representation decisions. A mention is counted when an AI response names the agency in its answer. The visibility score reflects the percentage of total prompt-platform runs where the agency appeared across all platforms. Citation source data captures which domains and URLs AI models referenced when generating their answers.
Full rankings, prompt-level detail, and source citations are available on the Grow and Convert ranking page for this vertical.
Nii A. Ahene is the founder and managing director of Net Influencer, a website dedicated to offering insights into the influencer marketing industry. Together with its newsletter, Influencer Weekly, Net Influencer provides news, commentary, and analysis of the events shaping the creator and influencer marketing space. Through interviews with startups, influencers, brands, and platforms, Nii and his team explore how influencer marketing is being effectively used to benefit businesses and personal brands alike.
Talent management agencies are increasingly being discovered through AI search, with a small number of firms capturing the majority of mentions when creators and brand-side buyers turn to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s AI products to research the category.
To better understand this shift, Net Influencer has partnered with AEO/SEO agency Grow and Convert, leveraging their Traqer AI Visibility platform to do a deep dive on which talent management agencies AI models surface when content creators and marketing professionals ask for recommendations. According to Grow and Convert’s analysis, 118 ranked entries surfaced across a standardized set of buyer-style queries run on five major AI platforms, with visibility heavily concentrated at the top of the list.
The analysis tracked how often each agency appeared in AI responses to five prompts run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode.
Methodology
Prompts ranged from broad (“What are the top talent management agencies?”) to specific creator queries (“I’m a creator with about 200K followers and I’m getting overwhelmed by brand deals. What talent agencies should I look at?” and “Can someone recommend good talent agencies for mid-tier YouTubers in the tech space?”). The query set was designed to mirror how content creators and marketing professionals actually research the agency landscape before making contact.
The Universe of Agencies
According to Grow and Convert’s analysis, 118 ranked entries were mentioned at least once across all 25 prompt-platform runs. That figure represents the full set of names AI models surfaced for buyers asking about talent management. The broader talent management landscape includes many more firms spanning both traditional entertainment and digital creator representation, suggesting many agencies in the broader category did not surface in any AI response across the tested queries.
How the Visibility Score Works
Each agency’s visibility score reflects the percentage of total prompt-platform runs where it appeared in an AI response. An agency that surfaced in every run would score 100%. An agency that surfaced in roughly half would score 50%.
Grow and Convert’s data segments scores into four ranges:
The Top 10
No agency in the top 10 cleared the default recommendation threshold. Three ranked entries, Viral Nation, Creative Artists Agency, and United Talent Agency, sat in the strong consideration tier. Seven ranked entries appeared in selective visibility territory, though some entries reflect duplicate references to the same organizations by acronym and full name.
What the Data Shows
Viral Nation led all tracked entries at 48% visibility, eight percentage points clear of second-place Creative Artists Agency at 40%. No agency in the category cleared 60%, meaning AI models don’t treat any single firm as a near-universal default across queries and platforms.
The top 10 ranked entries showed presence across multiple prompt-platform runs. The category presents a notable structural split: AI models surface both digital-native influencer agencies and traditional Hollywood representation firms in response to the same query set. Viral Nation, The Influencer Marketing Factory, Neoreach, and Digital Brand Architects appear alongside traditional entertainment agencies such as Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency, William Morris Endeavor, CAA, WME, and UTA.
The data also shows duplication in how AI models reference certain firms. Creative Artists Agency and CAA both appear in the top five, while United Talent Agency and UTA both appear in the top 10. William Morris Endeavor and WME also appear as separate ranked entries, reflecting how AI responses cite the same organizations differently across platforms.
Concentration and Drop-Off
The drop-off between ranked entries is steep. Viral Nation sits at 48%. Creative Artists Agency follows at 40%, United Talent Agency at 36%, and William Morris Endeavor, CAA, and WME each score 28%. By rank 7, The Influencer Marketing Factory falls to 24%, followed by UTA, Neoreach, and Digital Brand Architects at 20%.
Three ranked entries cleared 30% visibility. Ten ranked entries scored 20% or above. The next three entries, Independent Artist Group, Gleam Futures, and Wasserman, scored 16%. The field then drops to 12% at rank 14 and to 8% at rank 23 before falling to 4% for the large majority of the list.
Eighty-seven ranked entries scored 4%, the floor of the dataset. The bottom tier of the 118 ranked entries scored 4%, indicating those names appeared once across all 25 prompt-platform runs.
According to Grow and Convert, this level of concentration exceeds the gap between top and bottom rankings observed for comparable query sets in traditional Google search results.
Platform Distribution
Total mentions varied across the five AI platforms tested. ChatGPT produced the highest total at 60 mentions, followed by Gemini at 52, AI Mode at 44, Google AI Overviews at 32, and Perplexity at 29. The distribution indicates that AI search visibility is not uniform across engines.
Citation Sources
The data also tracked which domains AI models referenced when generating their answers. The most frequently cited sources were reddit.com with 14 mentions, backstage.com with 7, youtube.com and freshcontentsociety.com with 6 each, and linkedin.com with 5. A mix of creator community forums, entertainment industry resources, video platforms, agency rankings, and professional networking sources accounted for a significant share of the source material AI models drew from when forming agency recommendations.
The most cited URLs included Fresh Content Society’s “Best Influencer Marketing Agencies in the United States (2026),” Backstage’s guides to talent agencies for actors and social media influencers, EntertainmentCareers.Net’s “What Are The Top 5 Talent Agencies?,” and a Mandy Network article about when influencers need an agent.
How the Rankings Were Calculated
Rankings were generated by Grow and Convert using five prompts run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Prompts covered general agency searches and specific creator queries related to brand deal management, mid-tier YouTube representation, and timing of representation decisions. A mention is counted when an AI response names the agency in its answer. The visibility score reflects the percentage of total prompt-platform runs where the agency appeared across all platforms. Citation source data captures which domains and URLs AI models referenced when generating their answers.
Full rankings, prompt-level detail, and source citations are available on the Grow and Convert ranking page for this vertical.
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