Annuities: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which annuity brand leads the October 2026 benchmark on valid recommendation coverage?
• Which brands posted coverage movements beyond normal variation since the July 2026 baseline?
• How much did MassMutual and New York Life gain month over month?

MassMutual leads the October 2026 annuities benchmark with 82.5% valid recommendation coverage. Valid recommendation coverage measures the share of qualified observations where a brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist. New York Life is second at 77.0%, a gap of 5.5 points.

Across the four-month series, MassMutual is the only significant riser on valid recommendation coverage, up 8.5 points to 82.5% in October 2026 from 74.0% in July 2026. Corebridge Financial is the only significant decliner, down 8.3 points to 12.4% in October 2026 from 20.7% in July 2026, though it has risen in each of the last two months and remains below its July level.

Month-over-month, MassMutual's rise from September 2026 (68.3%) was also beyond normal variation, up 14.2 points, extending its baseline gain. Nationwide and New York Life each posted month-over-month gains beyond normal variation (Nationwide up 11.4 points to 70.0%; New York Life up 14.4 points to 77.0%), though neither move was large enough to register as a significant change against the July baseline. The remaining six brands — Allianz Life, Athene, Brighthouse Financial, Fidelity, Lincoln Financial, and Pacific Life — were stable across the series, including Pacific Life, which recorded the month's largest raw decline at 2.2 points (21.6% to 19.4%), within normal month-to-month variation.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 217 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. September 2026 recorded 227 qualified observations between the two months shown above.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Annuities

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• Why is the qualified observation count smaller than the raw prompt-surface collection?
• Which stage of the research funnel becomes the public denominator for brand-level percentages?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. Every brand-level percentage in this report uses the qualified observation count as its denominator, not the raw collection volume.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which annuity brands lead on presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, and top-three placement?
• How do presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, and top-three rate differ for each brand?
• What does net sentiment measure in these standings?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned.
• Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the first three recommendation slots.
• Rank-one rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment describes the framing of benchmark mentions, not customer sentiment, and reflects the share of positive mentions minus negative mentions among mentions.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which annuity brand posted the largest coverage increase since the July 2026 baseline?
• What happened to Corebridge Financial's coverage and raw mention presence over the series?
• Did MassMutual's rank-one rate rise alongside its coverage gains?

Largest Increase: MassMutual

MassMutual rose to 82.5% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 74.0% in July 2026, up 8.5 points, the largest movement across the series and a move beyond normal variation versus the July baseline. The increase from September 2026 (68.3%) was 14.2 points, also beyond normal month-to-month variation. MassMutual also posted the highest presence rate in the benchmark at 88.5% in October 2026, up 3.5 points from its July 2026 level. Its rank-one rate fell to 10.1% in October 2026 from 20.3% in July 2026, even as overall coverage rose, showing that broader coverage did not translate into more first-position placements.

Largest Decline: Corebridge Financial

Corebridge Financial fell to 12.4% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 from 20.7% in July 2026, down 8.3 points, a decline beyond normal variation versus the July baseline. The decline was accompanied by a drop in raw mention presence to 14.8% in October 2026 from 25.6% in July 2026, down 10.8 points. The brand has risen in each of the two most recent months but remains below its July level.

Category Leader: MassMutual

MassMutual held the coverage lead in each month of the four-month series. Its coverage moved from 74.0% in July 2026 to 46.0% in August 2026 to 68.3% in September 2026 to 82.5% in October 2026. New York Life finished second at 77.0% in October 2026, up 5.5 points from 71.5% in July 2026 within normal variation, and posted the highest rank-one rate in the benchmark at 45.2%.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which annuity brand recorded the highest rank-one and top-three rates in October 2026?
• How can two brands with similar coverage end up with very different first-position rates?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. New York Life posted a 45.2% rank-one rate in October 2026, the highest in the benchmark, while leading the benchmark on top-three rate at 68.2%. Allianz Life recorded the second-highest top-three rate at 64.1%.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates. New York Life and MassMutual finished 5.5 points apart on coverage in October 2026, but New York Life held a rank-one rate more than four times MassMutual's.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand-recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand held the coverage lead in each month of the measured series?
• What was the largest coverage movement in each measurement month?

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What does source presence in the benchmark evidence show and not show?
• Can a citation's presence prove it caused an AI recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

• This benchmark does not measure market share.
• It does not measure attributable sales or revenue.
• It does not capture every possible AI response.
• It does not measure organic-search ranking.
• It does not measure social mention volume.
• It does not cover private or sponsored channels.
• It does not establish causality from a metric movement alone.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• What types of sources dominate the citation list, and does any annuity brand's own domain appear?
• How concentrated is citation volume across the most-cited domains?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,594 citations drawn from 786 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains account for roughly 38 percent of citation volume across 786 unique domains, with the single most-cited domain at 8.6 percent. No tracked annuity brand's own domain appears in the top 10. The list is dominated by consumer finance comparison sites and personal finance publishers, with general-reference and news outlets also present, and annuity.org being the only vertical-specific industry source in the group.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often and how prominently brands appear in AI-generated recommendations across six canonical AI surface families. Each month, a standardized set of prompts is run across ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, then qualified through a public research funnel.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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