SOCi Ranked #1 by Entrepreneur, Named to the Inc. 5000 for a Ninth Straight Year, and Advances as a Five-Category Finalist in The 2026 A.I. Awards

Three independent evaluations in a single quarter: the franchisors who use SOCi, the market measuring its growth, and judges assessing its agentic AI work.

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- SOCi Inc., the Agentic Workforce built for multi-location visibility, today announced three recognitions earned in the third quarter of 2026: a #1 ranking in Marketing Products & Services on Entrepreneur's 9th Annual Top Franchise Suppliers list, a ninth consecutive appearance on the Inc. 5000, and finalist placements in five categories at The 2026 A.I. Awards.

Each recognition is decided by a different group applying different criteria. The Entrepreneur ranking comes from franchisors rating the suppliers they actually work with. The Inc. 5000 measures revenue growth. The A.I. Awards are judged on the artificial intelligence work itself. Together they describe a company whose customers rate it highest in its category, whose growth has held for nearly a decade, and whose agentic AI work is being evaluated at the industry level.

Ranked #1 by the franchisors who use it
Entrepreneur's Top Franchise Suppliers list, now in its ninth year, is built from an annual survey of franchisors that drew more than 1,000 responses this year. Respondents identify the suppliers they work with, then rate them on quality, cost, and value. More than 180 suppliers are ranked across 13 categories.

More than 75 franchise brands reported using SOCi, giving it an average rating of 4.57 out of 5 and the top position in Marketing Products & Services. It is SOCi's second consecutive year at #1 in the category and its seventh straight year in the top three. The ranking appears in Entrepreneur's September/October 2026 double issue.

The ranking reflects how franchise brands are using SOCi's Genius Agents to run local marketing at scale. Rita's Italian Ice reached a 100% review response rate across more than 550 locations while cutting time spent on reviews by 93%. Liberty Tax moved from 60% to 90% of its 2,200-plus locations appearing in the Google local 3-Pack.

A finalist in five categories at The 2026 A.I. Awards

The A.I. Awards, operated by international cloud computing awards body The Cloud Awards, recognizes organizations driving the next generation of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Now in its third year, the 2026 program drew entries from organizations across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and APAC, spanning established technology companies and early-stage startups.

SOCi advanced to the finals in five categories:

• Best Agentic AI Solution
• AI Deployment of the Year
• Best Consideration of Ethics and Governance in AI
• Best Use of AI in Retail and eCommerce
• Best Use of AI in Sales & Marketing

"Unveiling the finalists for the 2026 A.I. Awards is a significant moment," said James Williams, CEO of The Cloud Awards. "With the sheer volume of entry submissions this year, the competition is fierce, and the quality of work on display is extraordinary. We look for genuine real-world execution that turns technological promise into tangible outcomes. SOCi and their fellow finalists have exemplified this."

The five categories span the full arc of SOCi's AI work: the agentic technology, its deployment at scale, the governance controls that make it deployable inside enterprise and regulated environments, and its application across retail and sales and marketing use cases.

Final judging is underway. The Cloud Awards will announce winners in each category on October 13.

A ninth consecutive year on the Inc. 5000
SOCi has been named to the Inc. 5000, Inc.'s annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America, for the ninth consecutive year.

Nine consecutive years spans the full arc of change in local discovery. SOCi's 2026 Local Discovery Index, a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, found that 83% of consumers used a search engine to find a local business in the last 30 days, 55% used social media, and 52% used an AI tool. That last figure was 9% a year earlier.

SOCi's Genius Agents are built for that environment. More than 412,000 brand-trained agents are now deployed in production, executing over 27 million localized marketing tasks across more than 3 million managed locations and eliminating more than 5 million hours of manual marketing work.

About SOCi

SOCi is redefining how multi-location enterprises achieve local and AI search visibility with the industry's first agentic workforce. Built specifically for distributed brands, SOCi's brand-trained agents are guided by a unified visibility engine that autonomously executes and optimizes local marketing work across AI search, GEO ecosystems, social, and reviews, ensuring every location is visible, discoverable, and growing in today's geo-driven landscape. Trusted by leading brands like Ford, Ace Hardware, and Liberty Tax, and recognized by Fast Company as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies, SOCi transforms marketing from software you manage into work that gets done, intelligently, consistently, and at scale.

Learn more at www.soci.ai or contact [email protected].

SOURCE SOCi