New American Funding AI Market Strategy Report - Mortgage Refinance Lenders

Answer Capsule

New American Funding holds a stable mid-tier position in AI-generated mortgage refinance recommendations, with valid recommendation coverage of 16.0% in September 2026. The brand shows a meaningful gap between presence and recommendation conversion: it appears in 19.5% of qualified observations but converts only a portion of that presence into shortlist inclusion. Its clearest strength is strong positive framing, with a net sentiment score of 0.83 and no negative mentions recorded. The clearest opportunity lies in converting its high-quality mention profile into stronger top-three placement, where it currently holds only a 3.16% rate.

Who This Report Is For

This report is for mortgage lending executives, digital strategy leaders, and growth teams at New American Funding who need to understand how AI systems currently recommend the brand in mortgage refinance discovery prompts.

Report Card

Executive Summary

New American Funding holds a stable but modest position in AI-generated mortgage refinance recommendations. The benchmark shows valid recommendation coverage of 16.0% in September 2026, down from 19.9% in July 2026, a decline of 3.9 points that did not exceed normal month-to-month variation. The brand recorded 111 mentions across 570 qualified observations, with 92 positive mentions, 19 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions.

The strongest signal for New American Funding is framing quality. Its net sentiment score of 0.83 ranks among the highest in the tracked set, behind only Better.com at 0.93. The brand has no negative mentions in the September 2026 measurement, which indicates that when AI systems reference New American Funding, they do so in a positive or neutral context.

The clearest weakness is recommendation conversion. New American Funding appears in 19.5% of qualified observations but achieves only a 3.16% top-three rate and a 0.35% rank-one rate. This means the brand is frequently mentioned but rarely surfaced as a leading option. Its average recommended rank of 4.33 places it outside the top-three window that carries the strongest buyer attention.

The strongest platform signal comes from Google AI Mode, where New American Funding achieves its highest positive visibility rate at 24.8% and its only rank-one finishes. The clearest platform gap is on Copilot, where the brand appears in 11.5% of observations but records no top-three placements.

What New American Funding Is Winning

New American Funding's clearest evidence-backed win is its sentiment profile. The brand recorded 92 positive mentions, 19 neutral mentions, and zero negative mentions in September 2026, producing a net sentiment score of 0.83. This indicates that AI systems frame the brand favorably when they reference it.

The brand also shows a narrow but meaningful recommendation pocket on Google AI Mode. New American Funding achieves a 24.8% positive visibility rate on that platform, its strongest platform-level performance, and records its only rank-one finishes there with a 1.42% rank-one rate.

New American Funding's stability is itself a modest win. The brand moved within normal month-to-month variation across the full July-to-September series, with September's recovery of 3.9 points from August bringing it back within normal range of the July baseline.

Where New American Funding Has the Clearest AI Visibility Gaps

Questions This Section Answers

• Why does New American Funding appear in AI responses but rarely earn top-three placement?
• Which platform shows the widest gap between presence and recommendation strength?

New American Funding's primary gap is the conversion of presence into recommendation placement. The brand appears in 111 of 570 qualified observations but is recommended in the top three only 18 times. This creates a pattern of visibility without recommendation strength, where AI systems acknowledge the brand but do not surface it as a leading option.

The gap is most visible when compared with the category leader. Rocket Mortgage holds a 98.2% presence rate and converts that into a 44.2% top-three rate. New American Funding holds a 19.5% presence rate but converts only a small share into top-three placement. The brand is present in roughly one of every five responses but recommended in the top three in roughly one of every 30.

Platform-level gaps reinforce this pattern. On Copilot, New American Funding appears in 11.5% of observations but records zero top-three placements and an average recommended rank of 8. On ChatGPT, the brand appears in 15.1% of observations with a 4.1% top-three rate. The brand's strongest platform, Google AI Mode, still leaves it outside the top three in the majority of its appearances.

Biggest Opportunity

New American Funding's clearest opportunity is converting its strong positive framing into top-three recommendation placement on Google AI Mode. The brand already achieves its highest positive visibility rate on that platform at 24.8%, and it records its only rank-one finishes there. Google AI Mode also represents the largest observation base in the tracked set at 141 observations, giving the brand the most room to grow.

The path forward is to strengthen the attributes that move the brand from a positively framed mention into a recommended option. The benchmark shows the brand is trusted when referenced but not prioritized when AI systems build shortlists. Closing that gap on the platform where the brand already performs best is the most direct route to improving its overall recommendation position.

Competitive Landscape

Questions This Section Answers

• Where does New American Funding rank against competitors on recommendation placement metrics?
• What does the comparison of its sentiment score to its top-three rate reveal about its position?

Rocket Mortgage holds dominant recommendation-stage strength in the mortgage refinance category, with loanDepot and Bank of America Corp. forming the next tier. New American Funding sits in the middle of the tracked set, ahead of United Wholesale Mortgage, Wells Fargo & Co., Rate, and Chase Credit Journey but behind the leading brands on every placement metric.

Average recommended rank covers rank-eligible recommendations only.

New American Funding's position in the table shows a brand with strong sentiment but weak placement. Its 0.83 sentiment score is the second-highest in the tracked set, yet its top-three rate of 3.16% places it below brands with weaker sentiment profiles. The numbers indicate that AI systems speak favorably about New American Funding but do not prioritize it in recommendation shortlists.

Prompt Evidence

Google AI Mode / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "Which bank loan is best for a home loan?" Result: New American Funding appeared in the response with positive framing but was not placed in the top three recommended options.

ChatGPT / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "Who is the best lender for mortgages?" Result: New American Funding was mentioned in a positive context but ranked outside the top three, consistent with its overall pattern of presence without strong placement.

Google AI Mode / Brand Recommendation Prompt: "mortgage refinancing" Result: New American Funding achieved one of its rank-one finishes on this platform, showing that specific refinance prompts can surface the brand as a primary recommendation.

What CiteWorks Studio Would Do Next

Questions This Section Answers

• What phase-by-phase strategy would strengthen New American Funding's conversion from mention to recommendation?

Phase 1: AI Market Discovery Audit Map which high-intent mortgage refinance prompts surface New American Funding and which competitors take the recommendation when the brand is mentioned but not chosen.

Phase 2: Recommendation Readiness Plan Identify the attributes AI systems associate with New American Funding and compare them against the attributes attached to brands that win top-three placement.

Phase 3: Owned Answer Layer Buildout Strengthen owned content around refinance-specific topics where the brand already earns rank-one finishes, particularly on Google AI Mode.

Phase 4: Citation / Authority Layer Development Build the public evidence layer that gives AI systems more retrievable sources supporting New American Funding as a recommended option rather than a referenced one.

Phase 5: Monthly AI Visibility and Recommendation Tracking Track whether improvements in the citation and answer layers convert the brand's strong sentiment into higher top-three and rank-one rates.

Why This Matters

AI-generated recommendations are becoming a primary input into mortgage refinance decisions. When a borrower asks an AI system which lender to use, the brands named first and most often gain an advantage that traditional search visibility cannot replicate. New American Funding is present in these conversations and is framed positively, but it is not being chosen.

The next move is not broader visibility. The brand already appears in roughly one of every five AI responses with a strong sentiment profile. The targeted correction is in the prompt, page, and citation layers that determine whether a positive mention becomes a recommendation. Until that conversion improves, New American Funding will remain a brand that AI systems like but do not choose.

Core Metrics

Sentiment Score

Sentiment Score = (positive mentions × 1 + neutral mentions × 0 + negative mentions × -1) / total mentions

For New American Funding, the calculation is (92 × 1 + 19 × 0 + 0 × -1) / 111, producing a score of 0.83.

This score matters because unclassified mention counts are misleading. A brand with high raw mention volume but negative framing is in a different competitive position than a brand with moderate mention volume and positive framing. Share of voice is a diagnostic metric, not a business KPI. A positive recommendation, neutral reference, cautionary mention, and competitor-displaced mention are not equal. Counting all mentions as wins is bad measurement. Classified sentiment is required before interpreting AI visibility.

Sentiment by Platform

Methodology

1. This report is a benchmark-based analysis of New American Funding's AI visibility and recommendation position in the Mortgage Refinance Lenders category, not a client implementation case study.
2. The reporting window is September 2026, with July 2026 and August 2026 referenced for movement context.
3. Six AI surface families were tracked: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.
4. The September 2026 measurement began with 800 prompt-surface observations, of which 570 qualified after relevance and reservation stages.
5. The competitor universe includes 10 tracked brands: Bank of America Corp., Better.com, Chase Credit Journey, loanDepot, New American Funding, PennyMac, Rate, Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage, and Wells Fargo & Co.
6. All qualified observations in September 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation cluster. No observations were captured for pricing, value, or multi-brand comparison questions.
7. Stage 0 extraction captured prompt-level data including query, surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and citations where exposed.
8. A mention is defined as any appearance of the brand in an AI response, regardless of whether the brand is recommended.
9. A valid recommendation is defined as an appearance in a recommendation shortlist where the brand is positively recommended, not merely referenced or listed.
10. The public benchmark does not measure market share, sales attribution, organic-search ranking performance, social media volume, or private AI channels.
11. Source presence is evidence about the information environment and is not automatically proof that a source caused a recommendation.
12. Limitations: the public series measures brand recommendation discovery only, and percentage movements for brands with small counts carry less stability than category leaders.

See How AI Is Recommending Your Brand

The public benchmark shows where New American Funding stands in AI-generated mortgage refinance recommendations. A company-level AI visibility audit can map the specific prompts, competitors, and evidence sources that determine whether the brand is mentioned or recommended, and build a prioritized strategy for closing that gap.