VA Loans Lenders: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Rocket Mortgage led the VA Loans Lenders benchmark in September 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 70.0%, up from 67.3% in August 2026. The gap to the next brand widened to 9.8 points, as Navy Federal Credit Union held second place at 60.2% in September 2026, up from 58.7% in August 2026.

The largest coverage decline came from New American Funding, which fell from 18.5% in August 2026 to 12.6% in September 2026, a drop beyond normal month-to-month variation. No brand recorded a significant coverage increase this month; the largest upward move came from loanDepot, up 2.9 points, followed closely by CrossCountry Mortgage and Rocket Mortgage, each up 2.7 points, though all remained within normal variation.

This month showed one significant mover, with market leadership stable at the top. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 639 qualified observations in August 2026 and 676 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.

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

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.

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

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned by an AI assistant, 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 appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is the first or primary recommendation.
• Net sentiment: Proportion of positive mentions minus negative mentions, divided by total mentions.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Largest Decline: New American Funding

New American Funding recorded the only significant movement this month. Valid recommendation coverage fell from 18.5% in August 2026 to 12.6% in September 2026, a drop of 5.9 points. Presence rate declined in parallel from 21.0% to 16.7%, and the top-three rate fell from 5.2% to 2.7%. This decline exceeds the threshold for normal month-to-month variation, marking New American Funding as the benchmark's only significant decliner this period.

Category Leader: Rocket Mortgage

Rocket Mortgage remains the coverage leader, rising from 67.3% in August 2026 to 70.0% in September 2026. The brand's presence rate held steady near saturation at 94.4% in September 2026, up from 94.1% in August 2026. The gap over second-place Navy Federal Credit Union widened from 8.6 points in August 2026 to 9.8 points in September 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the two leading brands, placement patterns differ noticeably. Rocket Mortgage converted 45.7% of observations into top-three recommendations and 24.0% into rank-one recommendations. Navy Federal Credit Union reached the top three in 30.6% of observations but placed first only 6.2% of the time. Veterans United Home Loans showed a tighter relationship between its 45.6% coverage and placement patterns: 27.7% top-three and 16.0% rank-one rates in September 2026.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates, as seen with Navy Federal Credit Union's high coverage but lower rank-one placement.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

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

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery only 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 or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response, only qualified observations across the six canonical surface families
• Organic-search ranking of brand websites
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index is a neutral, industry-level benchmark tracking how AI assistants discover, mention, and recommend brands across six canonical AI/search surface families. Each month, the benchmark collects a fresh set of prompt-surface observations, qualifies them against explicit relevance criteria, and reports brand-level presence, recommendation coverage, placement, sentiment, and standing movement over time.

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

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