Small Business Loans: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which small business lender leads the benchmark, and how wide is the gap to the next brand?
• Which brands saw the largest coverage increase and decline since July 2026?
• How did the September 2026 tracking change affect Bank of America and Chase?

Bluevine led the Small Business Loans benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 65.1%, compared with 69.8% in July 2026; the change was within normal month-to-month variation and Bluevine remains the stable category leader. The gap to the next brand, onDeck, was 7.4 points, as onDeck recorded 57.7% in October 2026, up from 46.0% in July 2026.

No brand recorded a significant coverage increase or decline from September 2026 to October 2026. Among brands tracked continuously since July 2026, the largest increase was Fundbox, which rose from 39.8% in July 2026 to 56.6% in October 2026. The largest decline was Bank of America, which fell from 56.5% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026.

Coverage measurement underwent notable restructuring in September 2026: Bank of America and Chase ceased to be tracked as such, and Bank of America Corp. and Chase Credit Journey entered the tracked-brand set. Fundbox rose 5.1 points from September 2026 to October 2026, within normal month-to-month variation.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 378 qualified observations in October 2026 and 437 in July 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode) with at least one qualified observation. The benchmark held breadth at six families in October 2026.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The table below shows how the raw prompt pool narrows to the qualified benchmark observations that form the public denominator.

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 lenders lead the small business loan standings on valid recommendation coverage?
• How do presence rate and rank-one rate separate the leading lenders?

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: the share of qualified observations in which the brand is mentioned, regardless of recommendation.
• Valid recommendation coverage: the share of qualified observations in which the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: the share of qualified observations in which the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: the share of qualified observations in which the brand is the first recommended option.
• Net sentiment: the balance of positive over negative mentions, from 0 to 1.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which small business lenders moved most since the July 2026 baseline?
• What explains Bank of America's drop to zero coverage and the separate rise of Bank of America Corp.?
• How did Fundbox build its coverage advantage across all three months?

In the prior month transition, Fundbox rose 5.1 points from 51.5% in September 2026 to 56.6% in October 2026, onDeck rose 5.4 points from 52.3% to 57.7% over the same period, and Bank of America Corp. rose 5.6 points from 18.5% to 24.1%. Bluevine rose 5.2 points from 59.9% to 65.1% over the same period. All of these month-over-month moves were within normal variation.

Largest Increase: Fundbox

Fundbox recorded the largest coverage increase among continuously tracked brands, moving from 39.8% in July 2026 to 56.6% in October 2026, and increased in each of the three months since July 2026. The rise was accompanied by presence growth from 47.6% in July 2026 to 59.5% in October 2026, a top-three rate increase from 21.1% to 42.9% over the same period, and a rank-one rate increase from 6.6% to 15.3%.

Largest Decline: Bank of America

Bank of America recorded the largest coverage decline, falling from 56.5% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, with the drop continuing from 43.2% in August 2026. The brand declined in each of the two months after July 2026. This movement coincided with the emergence of Bank of America Corp. as a separately tracked brand, which registered 24.1% coverage in October 2026, up from 18.5% in September 2026.

Chase also declined to 0.0% coverage by October 2026, down from 49.0% in July 2026 and 36.2% in August 2026. Chase Credit Journey, tracked separately, registered 0.3% coverage in October 2026.

Category Leader: Bluevine

Bluevine remained the category leader in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 65.1%, down from 69.8% in July 2026. The series included declines to 63.5% in August 2026 and 59.9% in September 2026 before the October 2026 recovery of 5.2 points, which was within normal month-to-month variation. Bluevine's presence rate stood at 71.2% in October 2026, down from 77.4% in July 2026, while its top-three rate rose to 56.6% and its rank-one rate rose to 27.8%, both above the July 2026 baseline levels of 39.4% and 14.4% respectively.

Stable Brands and a Watch Item

Lendio, National Funding, QuickBridge, Funding Circle, and Chase Credit Journey showed no significant baseline-to-current movement. Bank of America Corp. registered a significant baseline-to-current increase, from 0.0% in July 2026 to 24.1% in October 2026, and increased in each of the last two months. Biz2Credit is a watch item: coverage rose in each of the three months since July 2026, though its cumulative movement remains within normal variation.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• How does rank-one rate differ among Bluevine, onDeck, and Fundbox despite similar coverage?
• Which lender converts its coverage into first-position recommendations most often?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The table below adds placement detail for the leading brands.

Similar coverage can still hide different first-position rates. Bluevine, onDeck, and Fundbox cluster closely on coverage, yet Bluevine converts its coverage into first position at 27.8%, well above onDeck at 15.3% and Fundbox at 15.3% in October 2026.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified observations?
• What does the lack of Pricing & Value and Multi-Brand Comparison observations mean for the benchmark?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class, where the AI response names or recommends specific lenders.

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

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which review and comparison sites dominate the citations behind AI recommendations?
• How many tracked brands have their own domains among the top 10 cited sources?

The benchmark recorded 6,436 citations across 790 unique domains in the AI platform responses analyzed for this measurement period.

Review and comparison sites dominate the top of the list, with nerdwallet.com, bankrate.com, and lendingtree.com collectively drawing 1,090 citations, ahead of official brand sites. Four tracked brands' own domains appear in the top ten: bluevine.com (rank 4), lendio.com (rank 7), biz2credit.com (rank 8), and ondeck.com (rank 9).

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What types of evidence does the benchmark capture for each prompt observation?
• Does source presence prove that a cited source caused the 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 public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response to a given query
• Organic-search ranking performance
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored AI 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 discover, mention, and recommend brands within a vertical. Each brand is measured on presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment across six canonical AI surface families.

• 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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