Dynatrace Reads Cleanest, Two New Field Leaders

Corrected and restated on 2 November 2026. The first version of this edition set the 1 September reading against one taken a different way and counted thirteen new No.1s; the Index has since also changed how it scores profile links. Every figure below is on the new method, against the 1 August reading. What changed, figure by figure, is at the end.

On 1 September 2026 the Crane Index^™ scan covered twenty benchmarks and published nineteen. Dynatrace reads most cleanly of any organisation on the published board, at 88 out of 100, and technology and software leads the field with a median composite of 58. The score matters for one reason: when a buyer asks an AI assistant who to use, the brand the machine can read confidently is the brand it names.

Technology and software sets the ceiling this month

Dynatrace is the most AI-readable site across every published field, at 88 out of 100, and it sits in the field with the strongest median composite. A high composite means an AI engine can not only reach the site but read it cleanly enough to describe the business and name it in an answer. Technology and software carries the strongest median composite at 58, well clear of the rest. What puts it there is not measured here, only that its field reads better than any other. Automotive, the weakest field, trails at 40.

Two fields have a new No.1 against 1 August

Against the 1 August reading, scored the same way, two tables put a new name at the top. MRI Software leads real estate and property at 77, where Safestore led at 78. Fettes College leads education at 78, where Babbel led at 86; Babbel was not on the education list read on 1 September, so that change is partly a change in which sites were read. In the other seventeen tables the leader held, two of them jointly: Mercer and Saffery in professional services at 76, and Dreams and Office in UK ecommerce at 68.

Two leaders rose, fourteen held, three edged down

Against the 1 August reading, two of the nineteen leading scores rose, fourteen held and three edged down. The two that rose are Pan Macmillan in media and entertainment, from 78 to 79, and GSK in the FTSE 100, from 66 to 67. I do not name a score that slipped: a single month is noise until it becomes a trend. The standing leaderboard is public and updates month to month, so you can watch the movement in your own sector directly.

The full September leaderboard

Every figure below comes from one reading on 1 September 2026, scored on the same rules, so the numbers are comparable across every industry in the table.

The September AI Readability Board Addendum PDF carries the same table for a board meeting.

The gap between the strongest and weakest field is a gap in being named

The eighteen-point spread between technology's median of 58 and automotive's 40 is not a judgement on the quality of the businesses in either field, and it does not track their size or their marketing budgets. It measures how cleanly each one presents itself to a machine. A field with a low median holds plenty of capable companies whose sites an AI engine can reach but cannot confidently describe, so when a buyer asks for a recommendation, those companies are simply absent from the answer. The leader in every field above has closed that gap. The median tells you how much of the field still has it open.

One consistent account of your business is the move that closes the gap

A leading or rising score buys you presence in the answer itself, before anyone reaches a website. The single move worth making is to give AI one clear, consistent account of who you are, what you sell and where you operate, so a machine reads the same facts wherever it looks and repeats them without hedging. Opening hours that differ across two pages, or a core price that lives only inside an image, is exactly the ambiguity that makes an engine leave you off the shortlist. If you want the number for your own site rather than an impression of it, the Crane Index scan returns the same composite these leaders are measured on. Read where you stand, then close your own gap.

What changed on 2 November 2026

Two changes, in this order.

A correction. The first version of this edition set the 1 September reading, one page a site, against the 6 August reading, which averaged up to three pages a site. Readings taken two different ways should not have been compared. On that basis it counted thirteen new No.1s, and fifteen leading scores up, one held and three down.

A change of method. A profile link a site declares, such as LinkedIn or X, now counts unless its page answers not found or gone, and the Index does not check that the profile belongs to the organisation. The earlier rule gave full credit only where the profile page the Index's reader received named the business, and the platforms answered that reader differently from month to month, so scores moved without the sites changing. Every reading from 19 July 2026 that read one page a site was scored again on the new rule from the stored results, with no new scan. The 6 August reading stays as read. The methodology records the change.

Every figure in this edition that changed: