Due diligence providers: AI search visibility ranking (2026)
How AI search engines rank due diligence providers by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Due diligence providers helping investors and acquirers evaluate financial, commercial, legal, and operational risk before major transactions. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
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When buyers ask AI engines which due diligence providers to consider, EY comes up most often, appearing in 50% of AI-generated responses across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI. KPMG and Deloitte round out the top three, making the Big Four (minus PwC) the dominant names AI engines recommend by a wide margin over specialist or boutique providers.
The rankings reflect which sources AI engines trust most. The top cited domains include gartner.com, superbcompanies.com, idealsvdr.com, neotas.com, and avenga.com. Several of these are aggregator and review-style sites that publish ranked lists of providers. When a brand appears consistently across those lists, AI engines pick up the signal and repeat it, which means visibility here is partly a function of third-party directory presence, not just market share or client outcomes.
For a buyer using this page, the concrete takeaway is that AI engines heavily weight third-party validation and topical coverage across review aggregators. A firm ranked lower here may still outperform on your specific deal type, sector focus, or geography. Check whether the providers you shortlist have recent, substantive coverage on specialist sources relevant to your context, not just broad name recognition on general finance directories.
At a glance
What we observed in this categoryauto-generated
EY leads the due diligence providers category with a visibility score of 50.0%, more than four times the 12.5% shared by KPMG, Deloitte, and PwC. The category average visibility is just 4.4%, making EY's position a significant outlier rather than a marginal lead. Despite this dominance, EY holds a 0.0% citation rate, meaning Google AI Mode names EY frequently in responses but does not link back to ey.com as a source. This gap between being named and being trusted as a reference is a defining feature of the current landscape.
Kroll presents the sharpest divergence between visibility and citation in this dataset. Kroll holds 0.0% visibility but a 25.0% citation rate, the highest citation figure among all ranked brands. This means Google AI Mode is actively drawing on kroll.com as a reference source while rarely naming Kroll in response text. KPMG is the only brand in the top five that holds matching visibility and citation scores, both at 12.5%, making it the most balanced performer. Deloitte and PwC, despite 12.5% visibility each, record 0.0% citations.
The top cited sources in this category are dominated by third-party and review-style domains, including gartner.com, superbcompanies.com, idealsvdr.com, and reddit.com, rather than the websites of the major professional services firms themselves. Google AI Mode appears to anchor its due diligence responses on aggregator and analyst content rather than primary firm content. All ten brands in the extended ranking list Google AI Mode as their top engine, confirming this single engine is the primary arena for AI visibility competition in this category.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility risers
-
KPMG 0% → 12% · rank #0 → #2+12pp
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Deloitte 0% → 12% · rank #0 → #3+12pp
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PwC 0% → 12% · rank #0 → #4+12pp
Biggest visibility fallers
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Bain & Company 25% → 0% · rank #0 → #11-25pp
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EY 62% → 50% · rank #0 → #1-12pp
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Boston Consulting Group 12% → 0% · rank #0 → #13-12pp
The ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
ey.com
|
50% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
EY leads all brands at 50.0% visibility, more than eleven times the 4.4% category average, yet records 0.0% citations, meaning it is named but never sourced. |
||||
| 2 |
kpmg.com
|
12% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
KPMG is the only top-five brand where visibility and citation are equal at 12.5%, making it the most balanced performer against peers with citation rates of 0.0%. |
||||
| 3 |
deloitte.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Deloitte matches KPMG and PwC at 12.5% visibility but holds 0.0% citation, leaving it named in AI responses without its domain being used as a reference. |
||||
| 4 |
pwc.com
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
PwC sits level with Deloitte at 12.5% visibility and 0.0% citation, placing it in a cluster of Big Four firms that are visible in AI text but absent from sourced content. |
||||
| 5 |
kroll.com
|
0% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
Kroll holds the highest citation rate in the dataset at 25.0% despite 0.0% visibility, showing kroll.com is used as a reference source even when the brand is not named. |
||||
| 6 |
controlrisks.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
alvarezandmarsal.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
fticonsulting.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
bdo.global
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
rsm.global
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
bain.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
mckinsey.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
bcg.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
westmonroe.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
stout.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
lincolninternational.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
aon.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
marsh.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
cohnreznick.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
grantthornton.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on due diligence providers, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.
How to read this ranking
Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.
Visibility = being named
A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →
Citation rate = being trusted
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →
Top engine differs by brand
The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →
Rankings move month to month
AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →
Get your own due diligence providers brand audited
The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.
Frequently asked about due diligence providers AI visibility
Who leads AI visibility in the due diligence providers category?
EY leads with 50.0% visibility in Google AI Mode, more than four times higher than KPMG, Deloitte, and PwC, which each sit at 12.5%. The category average is just 4.4%.
Which due diligence brand has the highest citation rate in Google AI Mode?
Kroll holds the highest citation rate at 25.0%, despite recording 0.0% visibility, meaning its domain is sourced frequently but the brand is rarely named in AI responses.
What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on for due diligence category queries?
The top cited sources are third-party domains including gartner.com, superbcompanies.com, idealsvdr.com, and reddit.com, rather than the primary websites of major due diligence firms.
Which brands saw the biggest visibility gains in this category recently?
KPMG, Deloitte, and PwC each gained 12.5 percentage points in visibility, rising from 0.0% to 12.5%, making them the three biggest risers in the current data period.
Which brands lost the most AI visibility in due diligence recently?
Bain and Company dropped 25.0 percentage points to 0.0% visibility, while EY fell 12.5 points from 62.5% to 50.0% and Boston Consulting Group dropped 12.5 points to 0.0%.
Is there a brand in due diligence where AI visibility and citation rates are balanced?
KPMG is the only top-five brand with equal visibility and citation scores, both at 12.5%, while EY, Deloitte, and PwC all hold 0.0% citation despite positive visibility figures.