Peer to Peer Lending: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Upstart led the peer to peer lending category in August 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 67.5%, ahead of Upgrade at 59.7% and SoFi at 52.9%. The only movement beyond normal monthly variation was LendingClub's decline, which fell from 46.6% in July 2026 to 30.8% in August 2026. Best Egg posted the largest increase among the remaining brands, rising from 17.5% to 20.8%, though this stayed within normal monthly variation. Avant and Upgrade also moved up modestly, while SoFi, Upstart, and Prosper eased slightly; none of these moves reached the threshold for significant movement. Upstart remained the category leader across both months.

July 2026 and August 2026 are currently the only two comparable months in this series. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 643 qualified observations in August 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.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how August 2026 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

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all, regardless of how it is framed. Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears with enough surrounding detail to constitute an actionable recommendation. Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is placed among the top three recommendations; rank-one rate is the share where it is placed first. Net sentiment is the balance of positive over negative mentions among observations where the brand appears. For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Prosper: Current Position and Competitive Gap

Prosper enters August 2026 with a presence rate of 27.7%, a valid recommendation coverage of 15.1% — down from 17.2% in July 2026 — a top-three rate of 2.9%, a rank-one rate of 1.4%, and a net sentiment of 0.65. Across all seven tracked brands, Prosper posts the lowest valid recommendation coverage, the lowest top-three rate, and the second-lowest net sentiment in the category.

Upstart records 67.5% valid recommendation coverage, while Prosper stands at 15.1%. The more important issue is what that gap means for Prosper's recommendation position: Prosper's presence rate of 27.7% is nearly identical to Best Egg's 27.8%, yet Best Egg converts that presence into recommendation coverage of 20.8% against Prosper's 15.1%. Measured as a conversion ratio, Prosper turns roughly 55% of its presence into a valid recommendation, the lowest conversion rate of any brand in this benchmark — lower even than LendingClub, whose 15.8-point coverage decline was the only movement in the category flagged as beyond normal monthly variation. This is a measurable recommendation gap, not a presence gap: Prosper is showing up in AI responses at a rate close to Best Egg, but that visibility is failing to convert into an actionable recommendation more often than it does for any competitor in the set.

Highest-priority diagnostic: What specific content, citation, and product-differentiation gaps are causing Prosper's presence in AI/search responses to convert into a valid recommendation at a lower rate than every other tracked brand, and what would need to change for that conversion rate to reach category-competitive levels?

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Largest Decline: LendingClub

LendingClub's valid recommendation coverage fell from 46.6% in July 2026 to 30.8% in August 2026, a decline beyond normal monthly variation. Presence rate fell from 65.7% to 50.9%, top-three rate fell from 17.5% to 12.4%, and rank-one rate fell from 3.8% to 1.6%. Each of these supporting moves was also beyond normal variation. Net sentiment was steady at 0.7 in both months. This is the brand's only comparable month in the current series.

Category Leader: Upstart

Upstart led the category with valid recommendation coverage of 72.0% in July 2026 and 67.5% in August 2026. While its coverage declined by 4.5 points, this was within normal month-to-month variation. Upstart's top-three rate rose from 34.7% to 38.6% over the same period, and its rank-one rate rose from 14.1% to 14.3%.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The following table compares placement rates for the leading brands.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates. For example, Upgrade and Upstart had comparable top-three rates in August 2026, but SoFi's rank-one rate of 28.1% far exceeded both, despite its lower overall coverage.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in the current public series 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

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. It records what AI/search surfaces presented in response to the collected prompts during the measurement window.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index is a neutral, repeatable benchmark of how AI/search surfaces present brands in response to category-level prompts. It is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, surface, answer, and outcome, and 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

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