• by Laurie Sullivan , 53 minutes ago

Fintech brands face greater challenges gaining visibility in AI-generated answers than brands in other sectors, but rank very high when their product offerings span several categories.

A leaderboard from advertising agency NP Digital identified this trend by evaluating brand performance using three criteria -- frequency, position and coverage -- with sentiment tracked separately.

Apple and Google earned the highest scores, according to the data. NP Digital attributed their performance to their presence across multiple categories rather than dominance in a single category. For example, both extend from technology into financial payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Apple ranked No.1 for AI visibility with a score of 65.6/100, boosted by Apple Pay in AI answers and product presence.

NP Digital released the "FinTech AI Visibility Index" after analysts analyzed 68,334 AI-generated answers to 250 fintech prompts in 10 subcategories across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude.

The data analyzed how real users ask AI for financial recommendations. Each brand received a “visibility” score. Sentiment was tracked as a supplementary signal, not part of the final score. It showed what share of a brand's mentions carried positive, neutral, or negative framing in the surrounding text to the answer.

SoFi, which ranked second overall, was the highest-scoring, pure-play fintech brand at 64.6, outpacing legacy brands such as Chase and Bank of America.

SoFi's second-place ranking was driven by a combination of frequency at 4.2% of prompts, an above-average-position score with an average ranking of 3.75, and cross-category presence across all 10 topics.

Fidelity and Wise both ranked above average for mentions. They consistently appeared early in answers, averaging a first mention, according to the data.

AI platforms do not share the same information sources. For example, Reddit is cited in ChatGPT answers more often than Perplexity and Claude.

Klarna showed up 92% of the time in answers for the Buy Now Pay Later category, suggesting it has a more strategic focus on saturation for the category versus gaining a broader presence.

Mentions are a critical factor, but for visibility, brands must also appear near the top of AI-generated answers.

PayPal had the most mentions, at 14,294, but ranked third overall because competitors were typically cited first.

Klarna appears in 91.8% of buy now, pay later (BNPL) answers, while no lending or credit brand reached 43.7%.

Of the 68,000 answers analyzed, only 2% were negative. This includes answers surfacing Reddit and other user-generated content results.

Third-party coverage is now an AI visibility lever. Comparison site and financial media coverage can influence which brands appear in AI-generated fintech answers.

By category, the top 3 brands for volume of answers and position in answers owned visibility, while brands that scored below the top three were nearly invisible.