HIGH SALIENCE / RESEARCH / BRANDS / TRELLO
BRAND DATA · PROJECT MANAGEMENT · CHATGPT, SEPTEMBER 2026
How ChatGPT Recommends Trello
We asked ChatGPT 100 buyer questions about project management software, with web search on, and coded every answer. ChatGPT positions Trello for a specific buyer: the label it used most was "Simple Kanban". This page shows who ChatGPT says Trello is for, how it does in head-to-head questions, what ChatGPT suggests instead of it, which sources sit behind its recommendations and which brands ChatGPT names alongside it.
BY MIKE HAWLEY, FOUNDER · PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2026
01The Numbers
How often ChatGPT names and recommends Trello
| Question type | Questions | Trello appeared | Trello recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category ("best X software") | 30 | 16 | 16 |
| Head-to-head ("X vs Y") | 30 | 8 | 5 |
| Alternatives ("X alternatives") | 20 | 14 | 6 |
| Advice ("which X should I use") | 20 | 9 | 5 |
| All questions | 100 | 47 | 32 |
Across 100 project management software questions, Trello appeared in 47 answers (rank 4 of every brand named) and was recommended in 32 (rank 4). That is a recommendation rate of 68% of its appearances, close to the 11-brand median of 73% for brands named 10 or more times.
When ChatGPT recommended Trello, it listed it first among its recommendations in 8 of 32 answers. On the 20 direct advice questions ("which should I use"), it was one of the picks 5 times.
02Positioning
Who ChatGPT says Trello is for
These are the labels ChatGPT attached to Trello in "best for" table columns and scenario lists, quoted as written. We found 51 such labels for Trello in this category; the most frequent are below.
- "Simple Kanban" (4 answers)
- "Simple projects" (3 answers)
- "Very small/simple teams" (2 answers)
- "Simple Kanban boards" (2 answers)
- "Simple task/kanban management" (2 answers)
- "Personal productivity" (2 answers)
If this is not how you describe your product, that gap is the first thing to fix: AI answers repeat the positioning they find most often across the sources they read.
03Head to Head
Trello in head-to-head questions
Trello was named in 6 comparison questions. ChatGPT recommended Trello and at least one named rival in 5, only Trello in 0, and only a rival in 0. In most of them ChatGPT gave each option a different buyer instead of declaring a winner.
| Question | Rival named | Trello | Rival recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| trello vs asana | Asana | Recommended | Asana |
| trello vs monday.com | monday.com | Not recommended | None |
| basecamp vs trello | Basecamp | Recommended | Basecamp |
| trello vs asana vs monday.com | Asana, monday.com | Recommended | Asana, monday.com |
| jira vs trello vs asana | Asana, Jira | Recommended | Asana, Jira |
| trello or asana for a small team | Asana | Recommended | Asana |
04Alternatives
What ChatGPT suggests instead of Trello
05Sources
The sources behind Trello's recommendations
The 32 answers that recommended Trello carried 123 source citations in total. The most-cited domains in those answers:
- clickup.com (vendor site): 20
- asana.com (vendor site): 18
- trello.com (vendor site): 10
- monday.com (vendor site): 8
- g2.com (review or media): 5
- atlassian.com (vendor site): 3
Trello's own site (trello.com) was cited 12 times across all 100 answers in the category, in 12 different answers.
Google check: for 0 of the 32 questions where ChatGPT recommended Trello, trello.com also ranked in Google's top ten organic results for the same question. So most of these recommendations came on questions where its own site did not rank.
06Competitive Set
Who ChatGPT names alongside Trello
The brands that appeared most often in the same answers as Trello. This is the competitive set ChatGPT has built for it, which is not always the one a vendor would choose.
- Asana: in 40 of Trello's 47 answers
- ClickUp: in 35 of Trello's 47 answers
- monday.com: in 33 of Trello's 47 answers
- Notion: in 26 of Trello's 47 answers
- Jira: in 19 of Trello's 47 answers
07What It Means
What this means for Trello
Trello is on ChatGPT's project management software shortlist but is not the default: it was recommended in 32 answers against 68 for Asana. The gap is widest on direct advice questions, where it was recommended in 5 of 20.
In the answers that recommended Trello, third-party pages such as g2.com and capterra.com carried much of the description, alongside 12 citations of trello.com across the category.
In 32 of its 32 recommendations, trello.com did not rank in Google's top ten for the same question, so Google rankings alone do not explain where ChatGPT sends buyers.
Finding which sources shape the answer in a category, and making sure they describe the brand accurately, is the core of AI SEO.
08Method
Where these numbers come from
Source: Teardown 01: project management software. Each teardown runs 100 buyer questions (category, head-to-head, alternatives and advice phrasing) through ChatGPT with web search on, logged out, United States, English, one run per question, and codes every brand mention as recommended, listed, passing or anchor using the published codebook.
"Appeared" counts answers where the brand was recommended or listed. "Recommended" means the answer endorsed it for at least one use. Use-case labels are quoted from the answers as written. Google checks use the top ten organic results for the same question collected the same day.
Limits: one run per question, one country, one point in time. AI answers vary between runs, so treat these as frequencies for this sample, not fixed positions. High Salience has no commercial relationship with any brand on this page. If you work for this brand and see an error, write to info@highsalience.com and we will check it against the dataset.
Full per-answer datasets (CSV) are on each teardown page. All brand pages.
09FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Does ChatGPT recommend Trello?
In our project management software teardown (web search on, United States, September 8, 2026), ChatGPT named Trello in 47 of 100 buyer questions and recommended it in 32.
What does ChatGPT say Trello is best for?
The label ChatGPT used most often for Trello was "Simple Kanban". Other labels included "Simple projects", "Very small/simple teams", "Simple Kanban boards".
Which brands does ChatGPT compare Trello with?
In project management software answers, Trello appeared most often alongside Asana, ClickUp, monday.com, Notion.
10Next Step
See how ChatGPT describes your brand.
The Category Salience Brief runs your category's buyer questions across Google and the AI surfaces, shows how each answer positions you against competitors, and ranks what to fix first.