GEO for cybersecurity in France: who AI recommends — and who it ignores
32 French cybersecurity brands measured on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude. Thales leads at 95/100. 68% score below 50. The NIS2 citation effect is real — and measurable.
Market overview
When a CISO asks ChatGPT "best cybersecurity solution for a French SME under NIS2", the answer is a shortlist of 3 to 5 names. That shortlist is not random. It is measured. The LLM Visibility Index tracks which brands are cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude on buyer-intent prompts in the French cybersecurity market. July 2026 data covers 32 brands.
Full ranking — 32 brands, cybersecurity France
Source: LLM Visibility Index — llm-visibility-index.com/category/cybersecurity-france/ — July 2026
Why NIS2 and DORA are reshaping citation patterns
NIS2 (October 2024) and DORA (January 2025) created a wave of high-intent AI queries: "which solution for NIS2 compliance", "best EDR for regulated French SME". Brands that produced structured answer-first content before these deadlines captured a citation lead that compounds over time.
What works — and what does not
Top performers share three traits: (1) high domain authority from institutional co-citations — ANSSI reports, ENISA publications, CLUSIF documents — (2) structured answer-first content targeting exact regulatory vocabulary (NIS2, DORA, ANSSI, EDR, SIEM), (3) consistent coverage across all four AI engines.
What does not generate citations: product landing pages, press releases, generic "our solution is NIS2-compliant" copy. LLMs do not cite promotional content on informational queries.
90-day action plan for brands below 60/100
Month 1: Measure current citation score on 20 priority NIS2/DORA/RSSI prompts. Map which competitors appear in your place.
Month 2: Produce 3 answer-first assets targeting the highest-gap prompts — regulatory article analyses, operational checklists, anonymized case data. Distribute in tier-1 cyber media (MISC, L'Informaticien) and r/netsec.
Month 3: Re-run the prompt corpus, measure delta, adjust based on which assets generated the most citation uplift.
- LLM Visibility Index — llm-visibility-index.com/category/cybersecurity-france/ — July 2026
- ANSSI — panorama de la menace informatique 2025
- ENISA threat landscape report 2026