Introducing Heatmap: A Powerful New Way to Compare Conversations Across Communities
At eCairn, we believe the future of audience intelligence isn’t just about tracking volume—it’s about understanding who is talking, how they’re connected, and what truly matters to them. Listening to “the crowd” is no longer enough. You need to listen by tribe, by geography, and by role.
Our new Heatmap feature in eCairn Conversation™ helps you do exactly that. It lets you visually compare how much attention a topic receives across different subgroups of your mapped audience—whether by geography, job level, gender, age … or community cluster.
From regional differences to deep tribal dynamics, Heatmap helps you move from broad social listening to precise, contextual audience intelligence.
What Does Heatmap Do?
Heatmap sits on top of your audience segmentation—whether manual or graph-based—and reveals:
Which communities talk most about a specific topic
How different regions or roles prioritize emerging trends
Where awareness or engagement gaps exist
What topics may be rising in one tribe but invisible in another
From macro-level comparisons (regions, industries) to micro-level contrasts (technical vs. business personas), Heatmap unlocks community-specific insight at a glance.
Case Study: Tracking Artificial Intelligence Discourse Across 20 000 Influencers in the last three months.
To show what Heatmap can uncover, we analyzed a curated audience of 20,000 AI experts—including engineers, researchers, founders, and digital leaders—grouped by both geography and tribal affiliation using eCairn's social graph engine.
We looked at who is talking about the major players in AI—from dominant names like OpenAI and Google to emerging or open-source challengers like Meta, Mistral, and Deepseek.
Part 1: Regional Differences in Open-Source AI Attention
We began by segmenting the audience by geography: US-West, US-East, Canada, UK, France, India, and China.
Regional Takeaways: OpenAI and Google Dominate, But in Very Different Ways
Looking at the full geo-based Heatmap (including OpenAI and Google), one thing is immediately clear: OpenAI and Google are in a league of their own—but they don't dominate in the same places
Google is on par with OpenAI on the US West Coast (0.78% vs 0.72%), and actually leads on the East Coast and in the UK.
This may reflect Google’s long-standing presence through DeepMind and its enterprise credibility in those regions.
OpenAI dominates internationally, generating 3x more mentions than Google in France, India, and Canada.
Meta (via LLaMA) and Deepseek are consistently present across regions but only at about ~1/7 the volume of OpenAI or Google, showing early traction.
Mistral shows marginal engagement overall, with a slight spike in France and Canada
Part 3: Tribal Segmentation – Research vs. Enterprise
Next, we explored Heatmap through the lens of tribal clusters, defined by the social graph. Two dominant groups emerged:
🟣 AI Thinkers: Researchers, professors, and deep-tech engineers
🔷 Tech Execs: Digital transformation leaders, strategists, and consultants
The AI community naturally organize around a more “deep tech” cluster and a “digital transformation/AI users” clusters
Key insights: OpenAI Wins the Executive Mindshare
Among AI Thinkers, OpenAI (1.42%) and Google (1.35%) are essentially neck and neck, showing both brands have deep mindshare in the technical community.
Among Tech Execs, however, OpenAI (0.33%) far outpaces Google (0.12%)—nearly 3x more mentions.
This suggests that OpenAI has captured the imagination of the executive class, perhaps due to its media visibility, forst mover advantage with ChatGPT and perceived disruptiveness.
Google, while still highly relevant in research circles, appears to resonate less in executive conversations, possibly due to being seen as more incremental or enterprise-focused.Why This Matters
Heatmap is more than a chart—it's a way to:
Align messaging to specific communities
Detect early signals of adoption or disengagement
Compare market traction across strategic regions
Make data-driven decisions about where to focus, speak, or partner
With segmentation by geo, role, cluster, or topic, Heatmap becomes your lens into how real people in real communities engage with the trends that matter to you.
Ready to Explore Heatmap?
Whether you’re analyzing a niche movement, launching a new product, or monitoring global opinion shifts, Heatmap gives you the visibility to act with confidence.
Want a personalized walkthrough or to explore your own audience segments?
