Roth IRAs: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand leads the Roth IRAs category in October 2026?
• Which brands saw the largest coverage increases or declines since July 2026?

Fidelity led the Roth IRAs category in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 90.3%, up from 86.5% in July 2026. Charles Schwab followed at 89.4%, up from 83.5% in July 2026, a gap of 0.9 points behind the leader. Betterment LLC recorded the largest coverage increase in the tracked set, rising to 23.8% in October 2026 from a zero baseline in July 2026; among brands with a full four-month measurement history, E*TRADE recorded the largest increase, rising 20.7 points from 27.4% to 48.1%, beyond normal month-to-month variation. Betterment recorded the largest coverage decline, falling 61.8 points from 61.8% to 0.0%, coinciding with the appearance of Betterment LLC under a new name; Wealthfront recorded a similar decline of 52.5 points to 0.0% as Wealthfront Corporation entered the tracked set. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 518 qualified observations after qualification in October 2026.

The category is tightly contested at the top, while the bottom of the field is being reshaped by entity renames rather than by competitive movement.

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 recorded 654 qualified observations, and September 2026 recorded 640.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

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

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands lead the Roth IRAs category in recommendation coverage?
• How do presence rate and top-three rate differ across the leading brands?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned, regardless of recommendation status.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended in the top three positions.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended first.
• Net sentiment: Positive mentions minus negative mentions, divided by total mentions.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands gained or lost the most recommendation coverage since July 2026?
• Why did Betterment and Wealthfront show large coverage declines while Betterment LLC and Wealthfront Corporation entered the tracked set?

October 2026 recorded a broad rise across most tracked brands, with eight brands classified as significant risers and three as significant decliners. Charles Schwab rose 5.6 points from September 2026, E*TRADE rose 23.7 points, Robinhood rose 12.8 points, SoFi rose 9.2 points, Fidelity rose 4.5 points, and Merrill Edge rose 6.5 points, each beyond normal month-to-month variation. A broad rise lifted most of the field, but the three decliners were driven by entity renames rather than competitive loss.

Largest Increase: Betterment LLC

Betterment LLC entered the tracked set in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 23.8%, up from a zero baseline in July 2026 and from 0.0% in September 2026, a move beyond normal month-to-month variation. Its presence rate stood at 25.3%, its top-three rate at 2.3%, and its rank-one rate at 0.2%. This is the first month in which the entity appears under this name, and one month of data is not yet a trend.

Largest Decline: Betterment

Betterment recorded a valid recommendation coverage of 0.0% in October 2026, down from 61.8% in July 2026, a decline of 61.8 points beyond normal month-to-month variation. This includes a decline of 59.1 points from September 2026 to October 2026 and a decline of 2.4 points from August 2026 to September 2026. Betterment declined in each of the three months since July 2026. Its July 2026 baseline presence rate was 70.7%, its top-three rate was 7.5%, and its rank-one rate was 3.2%. The decline tracks a name change, not a verified loss of recommendation standing.

Largest Decline: Wealthfront

Wealthfront recorded a valid recommendation coverage of 0.0% in October 2026, down from 52.5% in July 2026, a decline of 52.5 points beyond normal month-to-month variation. This includes a decline of 42.0 points from September 2026 to October 2026 and a decline of 3.7 points from August 2026 to September 2026. Wealthfront declined in each of the three months since July 2026. Its July 2026 baseline presence rate was 61.1%, its top-three rate was 4.3%, and its rank-one rate was 1.0%. The zero reading reflects the exit of the old entity name, not a collapse in recommendation coverage.

Category Leader: Fidelity

Fidelity led the category in October 2026 with 90.3% valid recommendation coverage, up 3.8 points from 86.5% in July 2026 and beyond normal month-to-month variation. Its presence rate stood at 99.6%, and its top-three rate rose 22.8 points from 63.3% to 86.1%. Its rank-one rate rose 8.4 points, from 49.5% to 57.9%. The leader position was re-established after September 2026, when Fidelity recorded 85.8% coverage.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands convert their coverage into top-three or first-position recommendations most often?
• How can two brands with nearly identical coverage still differ sharply in rank-one rate?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands in October 2026, top-three and rank-one rates varied considerably relative to overall coverage.

Fidelity held the strongest first-position rate at 57.9% in October 2026, while Charles Schwab and Vanguard converted a smaller share of their coverage into the top spot. Fidelity and Charles Schwab are separated by 0.9 points in coverage but 34.5 points in rank-one rate, so near-identical coverage hides very different first-choice strength.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All 518 qualified observations in October 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery only; price, value, and head-to-head comparison have no signal in this data.

Historical Measurement Record

Fidelity has held the coverage lead in every month of the series.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often in AI responses about Roth IRAs?
• How concentrated are citations across the top 10 domains?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, 6,112 citations were observed across 785 unique domains.

The top 10 domains account for 47.9% of all citations observed, and only one tracked brand domain — fidelity.com — makes the list. The remaining 775 domains account for the other 52.1%. Review and comparison sites (nerdwallet.com, investopedia.com, fool.com) and general news outlets (forbes.com, cnbc.com, finance.yahoo.com) dominate the top 10, alongside platform infrastructure domains (google.com, youtube.com) and community discussion (reddit.com).

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, not proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or attributable sales
• Every possible AI response
• Organic-search ranking
• Social mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI and search surfaces present brands across canonical categories, measuring presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment from qualified prompt observations. New measurements are added to the same evergreen report.

• 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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The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper. The public percentage cannot identify the prompts, competitors, or sources causing the result.

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