The table

AI Share of Answer, by company.

Share of Answer is the percentage of the 40 scored answers that name the company or one of its products. Recommended is the share that explicitly put it forward. Position is where in the answer it first appears (1 = named first). Change is measured against the September 28, 2026 edition.

US Drone Industry AI Visibility Index · run 2026-10-12 · Claude + Gemini
#	Company	Share of Answer	Claude	Gemini	Recommended	Avg. position	Δ vs last run
1	AeroVironment	75.0%	70%	80%	50%	3.3	▲ 2.5
2	Anduril Industries	70.0%	60%	80%	43%	3.7	▲ 7.5
3	Northrop Grumman	42.5%	50%	35%	13%	5.2	▲ 2.5
4	Skydio	42.5%	40%	45%	33%	5.5	▲ 12.5
5	Shield AI	40.0%	35%	45%	25%	4.5	▼ 5.0
6	Red Cat Holdings	37.5%	40%	35%	28%	6.9	▼ 2.5
7	Boeing / Insitu	30.0%	30%	30%	18%	4.9	▲ 2.5
8	General Atomics Aeronautical Systems	27.5%	25%	30%	20%	4.5	±0
9	Lockheed Martin	27.5%	30%	25%	10%	6.8	▲ 2.5
10	Neros Technologies	25.0%	25%	25%	23%	6.3	▼ 5.0
11	Performance Drone Works	22.5%	25%	20%	15%	9.3	▼ 2.5
12	Textron Systems	22.5%	20%	25%	10%	6.0	▲ 2.5
13	Kratos Defense & Security Solutions	20.0%	15%	25%	10%	5.5	▼ 10.0
14	Firestorm Labs	7.5%	10%	5%	3%	9.3	±0
15	Edge Autonomy	5.0%	5%	5%	5%	9.0	±0

One sample per question per engine per week, so each company's number moves in steps of about 2.5 points per answer. Read it as a ranking with wide error bars, not a stock price. Per-engine columns are that engine's own share; the headline share pools every engine equally. The full data, including every edition, is in data.json (CC BY 4.0).

What the engines cite

Where the answers come from.

Domains the engines cited while answering, ranked by how many of the 40 answers cited them. A roster company's own site is tagged; everything else is the third-party coverage that actually decides visibility.

defensescoop.comthird-party12 answers
defensenews.comthird-party11 answers
en.wikipedia.orgthird-party11 answers
breakingdefense.comthird-party9 answers
youtube.comthird-party8 answers
insideunmannedsystems.comthird-party6 answers
airandspaceforces.comthird-party5 answers
aviationweek.comthird-party5 answers
publicspendforum.netthird-party5 answers
uavcoach.comthird-party5 answers

The 20 questions

What we asked.

Written the way buyers ask, never naming a roster company. The set is frozen: changing a question changes the denominator for everyone, so additions become a new index edition, not a quiet edit.

Small UAS (Group 1–2)Which American companies make small drones the U.S. Army is buying for infantry squads and platoons right now?
Small UAS (Group 1–2)Which U.S. manufacturers build NDAA-compliant, Blue UAS-listed quadcopters for the military and federal agencies?
Small UAS (Group 1–2)I'm a Marine Corps requirements officer. Which U.S. vendors should I look at for a hand-launched ISR drone a rifle company can carry?
Group 3+ and MALE platformsWhich U.S. companies build runway-independent Group 3 drones for maritime and expeditionary ISR?
Group 3+ and MALE platformsWho are the American manufacturers of medium-altitude long-endurance military drones today?
Group 3+ and MALE platformsWhich companies are competing to replace the Army's aging brigade-level reconnaissance drones?
Loitering munitions and one-way attack dronesWhich U.S. companies produce loitering munitions for the Department of Defense?
Loitering munitions and one-way attack dronesWho makes low-cost one-way attack drones in the United States, and which have been fielded?
Loitering munitions and one-way attack dronesWhich vendors are involved in the Army's Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO) effort?
FPV, attritable mass and ReplicatorWhich American companies can supply military FPV drones at scale, similar to what Ukraine is using?
FPV, attritable mass and ReplicatorWhich companies have been selected under the Pentagon's Replicator initiative for attritable autonomous systems?
FPV, attritable mass and ReplicatorWhich U.S. drone startups are best positioned to benefit from the Pentagon's push for drone dominance and mass production of cheap drones?
FPV, attritable mass and ReplicatorWhich U.S. companies can manufacture military drones in the tens of thousands per year without Chinese components?
Autonomy software and collaborative combat aircraftWhich companies provide the autonomy software that lets military drones operate without GPS or a data link?
Autonomy software and collaborative combat aircraftWhich companies are building Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones for the U.S. Air Force?
Autonomy software and collaborative combat aircraftWhich U.S. companies are working on drone swarms for the military?
Buyer and market questionsWhat are the top U.S. defense drone companies, and what is each one known for?
Buyer and market questionsWhich publicly traded U.S. companies have meaningful military drone businesses?
Buyer and market questionsWhich U.S. drone makers also sell counter-UAS or interceptor drones to the military?
Buyer and market questionsI run a DoD program office standing up a new unmanned aircraft program. Which American vendors should be on my shortlist and why?

Methodology

How the number is made.

The metric

AI Share of Answer = scored answers that name the company ÷ all scored answers, as a percentage. Every question carries equal weight; every engine carries equal weight. It is a plain mention rate. It is not prominence-weighted, and it says nothing about whether what the engine said was accurate or flattering.

The instrument

Engines: Claude (claude-sonnet-5), Gemini (gemini-3.5-flash), each called through its official API with web search enabled, so the answers reflect what a signed-in user of the consumer product would see on that day. Each edition states which engines ran.
Sampling: 20 questions × 2 engines, one sample each per weekly run = 40 scored answers per edition. Answers that fail or return nothing are excluded from the denominator; the edition only publishes when every engine returned at least 90% of its answers.
Scoring: a separate model reads each answer against the roster's names, product names and domains and records who was named, in what order, and whether the answer recommended them. A brand counts only if it is named or linked in the answer text itself, not because a search result was retrieved behind the scenes.
Roster: 15 U.S. companies that design and build uncrewed aircraft systems for defense buyers: primes with UAS lines, the established mid-tier, and venture-backed entrants. No company paid to be listed and none can pay to be removed. Suggest an addition and it goes into the next edition, never the current one.
Cadence: the index re-runs every Monday.

Corrections

The page reports counts, not characterizations. If a roster entry is wrong (a product name misattributed, a domain missing, a company that no longer exists), email matthew@industrialbasealpha.com. Corrections are applied to the roster and noted in the next edition.

We make true things visible. We never make false things plausible.

Everything here is public-source. No CUI, no export-controlled data, ever. NOT LOBBYING · NO COVERED-OFFICIAL CONTACTS · ACCURACY FIRST, EVEN WHEN THE ERROR FLATTERS OUR CLIENT

US Drone Industry AI Visibility Index