AI visibility for financial services and law firms.
When someone asks an AI assistant how to choose a financial adviser, a mortgage lender or a personal injury lawyer, the engines cite firms directly almost half the time. The firms they cite are rarely the biggest; they are the ones with a page that answers the question.
Who do AI assistants cite when your buyers ask?
We asked ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Claude 10 questions clients ask before choosing a firm (a retirement adviser, a high-yield savings account, a mortgage lender, a personal injury lawyer, an estate attorney, business insurance for a practice, a small-business accountant, and others) on 20 October 2026: 148 citations from 116 sites. Firm sites, meaning advisers, banks, insurers, accountants and law firms, took about 66 of them.
Source: Abovance, one run of each question on 20 October 2026 (US Central time), API versions of each engine with web search. Shares are from a manual classification of every cited domain. A snapshot, not a constant.
| Site | Citations | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| nerdwallet.com | 7 | Personal finance publisher |
| kiplinger.com | 4 | Personal finance publisher |
| bankrate.com | 4 | Personal finance publisher |
| nolo.com | 4 | Legal publisher |
| wsj.com | 3 | General media |
| cnbc.com | 3 | General media |
| consumerfinance.gov | 2 | Regulator |
| nasaa.org | 2 | Regulator association |
| chase.com | 2 | Bank |
| northwesternmutual.com | 2 | Insurer and adviser |
| Engine | Answers | Citations | Leans on |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT search | 10 | 22 | Publishers (Kiplinger, NerdWallet, Nolo) with one or two firm sites per answer |
| Perplexity | 10 | 89 | Many sources per answer; publishers, regulators and a long tail of firm sites |
| Claude | 10 | 37 | Publishers for product questions, firm sites for how-to-choose questions |
Two patterns. On product questions (best savings account, is a fintech app safe) the engines cite NerdWallet, Bankrate and the regulators, and a firm's own site rarely appears. On how-to-choose questions (an adviser, a lawyer, an accountant) the engines cite firm pages that explain the choice: what a fee-only adviser is, what questions to ask a wealth manager, what to look for in an injury lawyer. Thirteen different law firms were cited on the two legal questions, none of them twice: the lane is open and nobody owns it.
What gets a financial or legal firm cited
The four conditions a page has to meet before a model cites it, applied to an adviser, lender, insurer or law firm.
Crawlers can reach and parse the page
robots.txt that admits the AI crawlers, no crawl delays, a visible H1, an llms.txt at the root, and a sitemap in both search consoles. Disclosures published only as PDFs are not read the way HTML pages are.
One entity everywhere
FinancialService, InsuranceAgency or LegalService schema with sameAs links; matching records on Wikidata, Crunchbase, Bing, the SEC's adviser search or the state bar directory, so every engine resolves the firm and its principals to one identity.
Evidence a model can quote
Client-question pages on your own domain: how to choose, what it costs, what the rules require, with the regulation or statute cited and a named author with credentials. These are the pages the engines cited in our run; a services page was not among them.
Named where the models already look
Being named where the engines look for firms: the professional directories they already cite (XY Planning Network, NAPFA, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Avvo), local business press, and the publishers above, through journalist sourcing.
The rules every page has to clear first
Financial and legal advertising is governed by the SEC Marketing Rule, FINRA Rule 2210, state insurance and lending rules, and each state bar's advertising rules. We build to these so that compliance review is routine.
- SEC Marketing Rule for advisers. Rule 206(4)-1 allows testimonials and endorsements with required disclosures, and sets conditions on performance claims and hypothetical performance. Every page that could be an advertisement is logged in the claims register for compliance review.
- FINRA Rule 2210 for broker-dealers. Retail communications must be fair, balanced and not misleading, and many need principal approval before use. We deliver pages in a form your principal can approve.
- Bar advertising rules for lawyers. ABA Model Rule 7.1 and the state versions prohibit misleading claims; most states restrict specialist and expert language and some require disclaimers on results. No page says best lawyer.
- Lending and insurance disclosures. Rate and product pages carry the disclosures UDAAP, TILA and state insurance rules require, and never quote a rate without its conditions.
This is how we run the claims register, not legal advice. Your counsel or compliance officer signs off on the rules that apply to you; we build so that sign-off is easy to give.
Proof
Our published case studies are in regulated health (CalmGut), where claim rules are at least as strict. Financial and legal engagements run on the same Answer Layer with the SEC, FINRA and bar rules above in the claims register. The citation data on this page comes from the same study pipeline we use on every engagement.
Check a question your buyers ask
Pick one or write your own, then run it in the free checker to see which sites each engine cites today and whether yours is one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI assistants cite financial advisers and law firms directly?
Yes. On 10 client questions in October 2026, firm sites took about 45% of 148 citations. The cited pages explained how to choose, what it costs or what the rules require; services pages were not cited.
Can an RIA do GEO under the SEC Marketing Rule?
Yes. Educational content about how advisers are paid, what a fiduciary is or how to compare firms is the content the engines cite, and it is the easiest content to clear under Rule 206(4)-1. Testimonials and performance claims follow the rule's disclosure conditions and go through your compliance review.
Can a law firm do this without violating bar advertising rules?
Yes. Pages that explain how a case type works and how to choose counsel are informational, not comparative claims. We avoid specialist and best language unless your state permits it with substantiation, and your firm's ethics reviewer signs off before publication.
What does it cost?
Engagements begin with a Foundation build, from $15,000. The GEO Retainer follows from $5,000 per month. The Deep Audit and Roadmap is a standalone $5,000 diagnostic, credited toward a Foundation started within 60 days.
Start with the audit.
The AI visibility audit runs the questions your buyers actually ask, maps who AI cites instead of you, and ranks what to fix first. Complimentary, by application. Engagements begin with a Foundation build, from $15,000; the GEO Retainer follows from $5,000 per month.