AEO Rankings · Financial Services

AEO for wealth advisors: AI search visibility ranking

By monitoraeo Last updated August 03, 2026 Refreshed every 90 days

How AI search engines rank wealth advisors by visibility and citations. 15 brands measured quarterly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Wealth management firms serving individuals and families with investing, retirement planning, estate strategy, and holistic financial advice. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Avg visibility across category

Avg citation rate

15/15

Brands successfully audited

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When buyers inquire about Wealth advisors, AI engines most frequently mention Mariner as the leader, followed closely by Fidelity Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Mariner holds a notable visibility percentage of 25.0, reflecting its strong position in the market.

The rankings highlighted here are influenced significantly by top cited sources such as wsj.com, nerdwallet.com, and barrons.com. These sources often feature reviews and expert opinions, which AI engines rely on to rank brands. Sites like smartasset.com and unbiased.com offer broad market perspectives, contributing to the visibility of these brands.

For buyers evaluating this list, it's important to consider the factors AI engines value, like recent reviews and third-party validation. Brands that frequently appear in authoritative sources indicate they maintain topical authority and receive positive assessments, which can be key indicators of reliability and performance in wealth management.

At a glance

Category leader Mariner 25% visibility · named in 2 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Morgan Stanley Wealth Management 25% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in wealth advisors

Top cited domain wsj.com Referenced by AI across the wealth advisors query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 25pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 13 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this category

Mariner leads the wealth advisors category with 25% visibility, exactly double the second-ranked Fidelity Wealth Management at 12.5%, and ten times the category average of 2.5%. That gap is material because the remaining 13 brands either score zero visibility or rely entirely on citations. Mariner also rose from rank 5 to rank 1 this period, adding 12.5 percentage points. Fidelity made the same jump in visibility delta, moving from rank 9 to rank 2, suggesting Google AI Mode is actively reshuffling which brands it surfaces in narrative responses.

The sharpest divergence between visibility and citation sits at ranks 3 and 4. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and J.P. Morgan Wealth Management each hold 0% visibility but 25% citation rates, giving them identical composite scores of 7.5. This means Google AI Mode references their domains as source material without naming them as recommended brands in responses. Merrill and UBS show the same pattern at 12.5% citation with zero visibility, and both lost visibility this period while gaining citations, suggesting AI is shifting their role from named brand to background source.

Every brand in the dataset lists Google AI Mode as its top engine, confirming the audit reflects a single-engine landscape. The cited sources anchoring AI responses are third-party editorial and comparison sites: wsj.com, nerdwallet.com, barrons.com, smartasset.com, and forbes.com appear alongside community sources like reddit.com and specialist directories like selectadvisorsinstitute.com. No brand domain appears in the top cited sources list, which means AI is building its wealth advisor answers from intermediary content rather than from the firms own published material.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Mariner 12% → 25% · rank #5 → #1
+12pp
Fidelity Wealth Management 0% → 12% · rank #9 → #2
+12pp

Biggest visibility fallers

Facet 25% → 0% · rank #1 → #10
-25pp
Merrill 12% → 0% · rank #3 → #5
-12pp
UBS Wealth Management 12% → 0% · rank #4 → #6
-12pp

The AEO ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Mariner mariner.com	25%	0%	Google AI Mode
Mariner holds 25% visibility, ten times the 2.5% category average, with zero citation share, meaning AI names it directly without linking to its domain.
2	Fidelity Wealth Management fidelity.com	12%	0%	Google AI Mode
Fidelity rose from rank 9 to rank 2 this period, gaining 12.5 visibility points, but like Mariner it records zero citation share against a category average of 6.7%.
3	Morgan Stanley Wealth Management morganstanley.com	0%	25%	Google AI Mode
Morgan Stanley has zero visibility but 25% citation rate, the joint-highest in the category, placing it as a sourced reference rather than a named recommendation.
4	J.P. Morgan Wealth Management jpmorgan.com	0%	25%	Google AI Mode
J.P. Morgan mirrors Morgan Stanley exactly, with 0% visibility and 25% citation rate, producing an identical composite score of 7.5 and the same cited-not-named pattern.
5	Merrill ml.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
Merrill lost 12.5 visibility points this period to reach zero, while gaining 12.5 citation points, indicating a direct shift from named brand to background source in AI responses.
6	UBS Wealth Management ubs.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
7	Creative Planning creativeplanning.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
8	Edward Jones edwardjones.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
9	Charles Schwab schwab.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
10	Facet facet.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
11	Raymond James raymondjames.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
12	Ameriprise Financial ameriprise.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
13	Fisher Investments fisherinvestments.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
14	Stifel stifel.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	RBC Wealth Management rbcwealthmanagement.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on wealth advisors, 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.

wsj.comnerdwallet.combarrons.comsmartasset.comunbiased.comselectadvisorsinstitute.comreddit.comforbes.com

How to read this AEO 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 →

AEO 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 90 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →

Run an AEO audit on your own wealth advisors brand

The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same answer engine optimisation 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.

Audit your wealth advisors brand → Browse all AEO rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about AEO for wealth advisors

Who leads AI visibility in the wealth advisors category?

Mariner leads with 25% visibility, double the second-ranked Fidelity Wealth Management at 12.5%, and ten times the category average of 2.5%. Mariner also recorded the largest rank improvement, rising from rank 5 to rank 1 this period.

Which wealth advisor brands are cited by AI but not named in responses?

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and J.P. Morgan Wealth Management each hold 0% visibility but 25% citation rates, meaning AI uses their content as source material without surfacing them as named brands. Merrill and UBS show the same pattern at 12.5% citation with zero visibility.

What sources does Google AI Mode anchor on for wealth advisor queries?

The top cited sources are wsj.com, nerdwallet.com, barrons.com, smartasset.com, unbiased.com, selectadvisorsinstitute.com, reddit.com, and forbes.com. No brand domain from the audited firms appears in this cited sources list.

Which brand fell the most in AI visibility this period?

Facet dropped from rank 1 to rank 10, losing all 25 visibility points and recording both 0% visibility and 0% citation in the current period. That is the largest single-period decline in the dataset.

Is there a brand that gained both visibility and citations this period?

No brand in the top 10 gained both metrics simultaneously. The two visibility risers, Mariner and Fidelity, recorded zero citation delta, while the brands gaining citations, Merrill and UBS, lost visibility points.

How concentrated is AI visibility across the 15 brands in this category?

The top two brands hold all 37.5 percentage points of visibility share, while 13 of 15 brands record zero visibility. The category average visibility is just 2.5%, reflecting extreme concentration at the top.