Mortgage: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Rocket Mortgage led the Mortgage AI Market Discovery Index in September 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 62.8%, up 1.2 points from 61.6% in August 2026. The gap to the next brand, Veterans United Home Loans at 42.2%, was 20.6 points in September 2026. No tracked brand increased valid recommendation coverage beyond normal variation this month. The largest coverage decline across the full series was New American Funding, falling from 28.8% at the July 2026 baseline to 17.0% in September 2026, a decline of 11.8 points.

The benchmark recorded no significant movement this month, with changes remaining within normal month-to-month variation across all six tracked brands. Across the full series from the July 2026 baseline, three brands declined in valid recommendation coverage beyond normal variation: New American Funding, PennyMac, and Rocket Mortgage. Despite retaining category leadership, Rocket Mortgage's coverage fell by 9.9 points since baseline, and the gap to Veterans United Home Loans narrowed from 25.8 points in July 2026 to 20.6 points in September 2026. Veterans United Home Loans and Freedom Mortgage showed modest declines within normal variation, while loanDepot held effectively steady.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 642 qualified observations in September 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. August 2026 sat between the baseline and current months, with 625 qualified observations recorded in that month.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how observations were qualified.

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

Current Brand Standings

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand receives a valid recommendation.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the first three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive minus negative sentiment among brand mentions, on a scale from negative to positive.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Largest Decline: New American Funding

New American Funding's valid recommendation coverage fell from 28.8% in July 2026 to 17.0% in September 2026, a decline of 11.8 points beyond normal variation since the baseline, with the brand falling in each of the two months measured. Presence rate also declined from 30.8% in July 2026 to 20.9% in September 2026, a 9.9-point drop. The brand was recommended in 109 of 642 qualified observations in September 2026, compared with 195 of 678 in July 2026. In August 2026, coverage stood at 21.0%, and in September 2026 it fell a further 4.0 points to 17.0%.

Largest Decline: PennyMac

PennyMac's valid recommendation coverage fell from 29.3% in July 2026 to 23.7% in September 2026, a decline of 5.6 points beyond normal variation, with coverage dropping in consecutive months and presence falling 5.2 points to 39.9%. The brand was recommended in 152 of 642 qualified observations in September 2026, compared with 199 of 678 in July 2026.

Largest Decline: Rocket Mortgage

Rocket Mortgage's valid recommendation coverage fell from 72.7% in July 2026 to 62.8% in September 2026, a decline of 9.9 points beyond normal variation since the baseline, with the largest single-month move of 11.1 points occurring from July 2026 to August 2026. Presence rate declined from 97.9% in July 2026 to 95.2% in September 2026, a 2.7-point drop. Despite the decline, Rocket Mortgage retained the category lead. The brand was recommended in 403 of 642 qualified observations in September 2026, compared with 493 of 678 in July 2026.

Category Leader: Rocket Mortgage

Rocket Mortgage remained the category leader in September 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 62.8%, a 20.6-point lead over Veterans United Home Loans at 42.2%. The lead widened from 19.5 points in August 2026. The gap between loanDepot and Rocket Mortgage narrowed from 46.0 points in July 2026 to 36.5 points in September 2026.

Freedom Mortgage

Freedom Mortgage recorded valid recommendation coverage of 14.8% in September 2026 on a presence rate of 30.5%, a top-three rate of 4.5%, a rank-one rate of 0.8%, and net sentiment of 0.5. Coverage moved from 17.5% in July 2026 to 13.1% in August 2026, then up 1.7 points to 14.8% in September 2026, a net decline of 2.7 points since baseline that the benchmark classifies as within normal month-to-month variation.

Rocket Mortgage records 62.8% on valid recommendation coverage, while Freedom Mortgage stands at 14.8%. The more important issue is what that gap means for Freedom Mortgage's recommendation position: 14.8% is the lowest valid recommendation coverage of all six tracked brands this month, and Freedom Mortgage's presence-to-coverage conversion rate trails every other tracked brand. Freedom Mortgage's presence rate of 30.5% is also among the lowest in the category, and of the observations where the brand does appear, only a minority convert into a valid recommendation — a lower conversion rate than every other tracked brand. This is a measurable, category-wide gap on the metric that most directly reflects whether AI surfaces are actually recommending Freedom Mortgage to prospective borrowers, and it warrants direct investigation rather than being read as ordinary month-to-month noise.

Highest-priority diagnostic: What is driving Freedom Mortgage's valid recommendation coverage to trail every other tracked brand, including New American Funding despite its steep decline, and what would it take to close even part of the 48.0-point gap to category leader Rocket Mortgage?

Other Stable Brands

loanDepot and Veterans United Home Loans each held within normal month-to-month variation across the series. loanDepot held steady near 26% across all three months. Veterans United Home Loans declined from 46.9% in July 2026 to 42.1% in August 2026, then rose 0.1 points to 42.2% in September 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Placement rates reveal where brands appear within the recommended list. Among the leading brands, Rocket Mortgage was recommended in the top three in 48.1% of observations in September 2026 and as the first recommendation in 28.3%. Veterans United Home Loans followed at 29.4% for top-three placement and 16.5% for first position.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates, as seen with loanDepot, whose top-three rate of 9.8% in September 2026 came with a rank-one rate of just 0.6%. Freedom Mortgage's placement figures — a 4.5% top-three rate and a 0.8% rank-one rate — reinforce that its recommendation gap extends beyond coverage alone into how rarely it is placed prominently when it does appear.

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 other buyer-intent 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 or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response, only the sampled surfaces and prompts
• Organic-search ranking performance
• Social mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index tracks how often tracked brands are mentioned, recommended, and ranked across major AI and search surfaces each month. It is a neutral, industry-level benchmark built from prompt-level observations.

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

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