Consumer Banking: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Regions Bank leads the Consumer Banking benchmark with 17.3% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026, up from 0.0% in July 2026. The next closest brand, Flagstar Bank, trails by 4.7 percentage points in the same metric.

No tracked brand recorded a significant change in valid recommendation coverage between August 2026 and September 2026. The largest month-over-month movements were small: Regions Bank eased from 18.3% in August 2026 to 17.3% in September 2026, while First Horizon Bank and City National Bank each added 0.8 percentage points.

Seven of the ten tracked brands moved significantly from zero coverage in July 2026 to rates between 2.9% and 17.3% in September 2026. Three brands, East West Bank, Webster Bank, and Zions Bank, remained stable across the three-month window.

The benchmark began with 700 prompt-surface observations in September 2026 and produced 277 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth reflects the six canonical AI and search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. September 2026 recorded qualified observations on five of the six families, with no qualified Gemini observations that month.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The qualification funnel for each month is shown below.

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

Current Brand Standings

The table below shows current-month metrics for all ten tracked brands, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all, regardless of context or position.
• Valid recommendation coverage: the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: the share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: the share of qualified observations where the brand is the first and top recommendation.
• Net sentiment: a score from -1 to 1 measuring the balance of positive versus negative mentions, where 0 is neutral.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

The August-to-September period was quiet. First Horizon Bank and City National Bank both added 0.8 percentage points, and Santander Bank added 0.8 percentage points, but none of these moves was significant. Zions Bank gave back 0.6 percentage points, returning to 0.0% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026 after reaching 0.6% in August 2026.

Largest Increase: Regions Bank (baseline-to-current)

Regions Bank posted a gain of 17.3 percentage points from July 2026 to September 2026, moving from zero coverage to the category lead. This came from 48 valid recommendation observations out of 277 qualified observations in September 2026. Regions Bank also led all tracked brands in presence rate at 57.8% in September 2026, up from 0.0% in July 2026 (160 mentions out of 277 observations).

Category Leader: Regions Bank

Regions Bank leads the category with 17.3% valid recommendation coverage in September 2026. The next closest brand, Flagstar Bank, holds 12.6% valid recommendation coverage, a leadership gap of 4.7 percentage points. Regions Bank also leads all brands in presence rate at 57.8%, top-three rate at 9.8%, and rank-one rate at 3.2% for the month.

No tracked brand recorded a significant decline in valid recommendation coverage between July 2026 and September 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The table below compares top-three and rank-one rates for the three leading brands.

Flagstar Bank holds the second-highest coverage rate but a lower first-choice rate (0.4%) than brands with smaller overall coverage, including First Horizon Bank at 2.2%. Close coverage can hide different first-position strength.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

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

All qualified observations sat in the Brand Recommendation class in both months, so the current public series measures that class of discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

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

Evidence and Source Layer

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 public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index measures how brands appear across six canonical AI and search surface families: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. It tracks presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment as distinct signals.

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

Get a Company-Level Authority Index

The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper.

Get my free AI Company Index