How AI Search Is Recommending Robo-Advisors: Monthly Trends

Executive Summary

August 2026 brought a category-wide pullback in AI recommendation coverage for robo-advisors. Fidelity remains the category leader at 76.1% valid recommendation coverage, a decline from 83.4% in July. This is the first month of significant movement across the category in this two-month series, and the movement is broad rather than isolated to one brand.

The sharpest decline belongs to Wealthfront, whose coverage fell 10.7 points from 62.5% in July to 51.8% in August, a decline that also came with a 5.0-point fall in raw presence to 71.9%. Betterment, Charles Schwab, and Fidelity also registered coverage declines, making this a four-brand significant-decliner month — the first such pattern in the series.

Charles Schwab's coverage fell 8.6 points from 79.6% to 71.0%, while its rank-one recommendation rate climbed 3.2 points to 10.2%. This divergence suggests the coverage decline is concentrated in breadth rather than top placement. Vanguard was the steadiest of the large players, declining only 4.4 points to 62.0%, a movement within normal variation.

The only upward mover was Wealthsimple, rising from 0.4% to 0.7% coverage, from a small base of 5 valid recommendations. Acorns, Ellevest, M1 Finance, and SoFi were classified as stable, with no brand showing a significant rise.

This report is based on 800 prompt-surface observations collected in each month (515 unique questions in July, 563 in August). Of these, 800 mentioned a tracked brand or competitor in both months; 786 were relevant and 14 irrelevant in July, versus 784 relevant and 16 irrelevant in August. The public benchmark uses the 705 qualified observations from July and 687 qualified observations from August that survived both qualification stages.

Key Findings

Benchmark Context

The report separates the raw collection universe from the qualified analysis set. Brand-level recommendation percentages are calculated within the qualified benchmark set.

Benchmark-Level Metrics

The recommendation-shaped answer share and valid recommendation shortlist share both declined from July to August, indicating that AI systems produced fewer recommendation-oriented responses overall in the current month. This broader answer-pattern shift accompanied the brand-level coverage declines.

AI Recommendation Trend

Category-Wide Movement: Four Significant Decliners Reshape the Leaderboard

The category moved this month, with four brands showing significant coverage declines and no brand showing a significant rise. Fidelity retained leadership but at a reduced level, and the trailing pack of larger brands clustered more tightly behind it.

The category-level change came from the combination of several significant declines rather than a single brand's movement. Four brands exceeded normal month-to-month variation, all in the downward direction, and together they tightened the spread between the leader and the rest of the field.

What Changed This Month

Fidelity

Fidelity's coverage fell from 83.4% in July to 76.1% in August, a decline of 7.3 points, while its rank-one recommendation rate slipped from 41.3% to 39.5%.

Raw presence remained essentially flat, rising slightly from 98.3% to 98.8%, so Fidelity is still mentioned in nearly every qualified observation. The loss came in how often it was recommended, not whether it appeared.

Fidelity remains the category leader on coverage, and its top-three rate rose slightly from 56.9% to 57.4%. The decline is in valid recommendation coverage — fewer observations where Fidelity appears on any recommendation shortlist — a distinction between being visible and being recommended.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which prompt classes shifted from recommending Fidelity to recommending another brand, and which competitor captured those recommendations.

Wealthfront

Wealthfront was the largest decliner in August, with coverage falling from 62.5% in July to 51.8%, a drop of 10.7 points. Its raw presence also declined, from 76.9% to 71.9%, a 5.0-point fall.

Top-three rate edged up from 12.6% to 13.5%, so Wealthfront was not losing its position in top slots where it did appear. The decline was in breadth, with rank-one recommendations falling from 6.4% to 4.2%.

Wealthfront's lead over Wealthsimple narrowed from 62.1 points to 51.1 points, and its lead over Ellevest narrowed from 61.2 points to 50.5 points. These are category-level shifts in competitive spacing across the field, not isolated to one brand.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Whether the decline is concentrated in specific surfaces or specific prompt types, and which brands are appearing instead of Wealthfront in those answers.

Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab's coverage fell from 79.6% in July to 71.0% in August, a decline of 8.6 points. Raw presence declined from 93.8% to 91.9%, about 2.0 points.

Top-three rate rose from 42.8% to 44.7%, and rank-one rate climbed 3.2 points, from 7.0% to 10.2%. Charles Schwab is appearing more often in the top slot while being recommended less often overall.

This divergence between rising top placement and falling coverage is the key commercial signal. The brand strengthened where it appears at the head of the list but lost ground in the broader set of recommendations.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which long-tail or lower-ranked recommendation contexts dropped out, and what changed in the prompts where Charles Schwab is no longer shortlisted.

Betterment

Betterment's coverage declined from 75.6% in July to 67.7% in August, a drop of 7.9 points, moving it into third place behind Fidelity and Charles Schwab.

Top-three rate rose from 16.6% to 20.4%, while rank-one rate fell from 7.5% to 6.1%. Like Charles Schwab, Betterment shows a mixed picture of improved top-slot presence against reduced overall coverage.

Betterment remains above the 50% threshold and holds the third position by coverage, with the gap to fourth-place Vanguard at 5.7 points. The decline places Betterment in the category's significant-decliner group.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Whether the coverage loss traces to specific surfaces or question types, and whether the top-three improvement signals a shift toward higher-intent prompts.

Buyer-Intent Interpretation

In both July and August, all qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation cluster, capturing discovery and consideration intent. There were no qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison clusters in either month.

The public benchmark therefore shows how AI systems recommend robo-advisors when buyers ask for a recommendation outright, but it cannot yet answer commercial questions about price positioning, fees, or direct brand-to-brand comparison. Those questions require company-level analysis with a broader prompt set that specifically targets pricing and comparison intents.

Brand Opportunity Summary

The benchmark identifies where attention is warranted; a company-level analysis is needed to explain why.

Evidence Behind the Benchmark

The aggregate metrics are built from prompt-level observations (query, surface, recommendation outcome, rank, sentiment, and citations where exposed). Company-level analysis can go deeper into prompt, competitor, surface, and evidence patterns. Source presence is not automatically treated as proof of causation.

Methodology references:

• AI Industry Market Discovery
• AI Industry Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Industry Market Discovery Metrics
• AI Industry Market Discovery Standards

Interpretation Notes

• Small-count caveats apply to Ellevest (9 valid recommendations), Wealthsimple (5 valid recommendations), and M1 Finance (88 valid recommendations); their movements should be read with the absolute counts in mind.
• The qualified denominator (705 in July, 687 in August) differs from the raw collection (800 both months); percentages use the qualified set.
• This two-month series shows measured movement, and the four significant decliners are changes worth investigating, not established causes of those changes.

Next Step

The Public Benchmark Shows Where a Brand Is Winning or Losing. A Company-Level Audit Shows Why.

The aggregate percentage answers which brands AI systems recommend and how that shifted from July to August. It does not yet answer the questions beneath the numbers: which high-intent prompts are won and lost, which competitor takes the recommendation when a brand loses, what attributes AI associates with each option, and which external sources shape those answers across ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

A company-specific AI visibility audit maps those prompt, surface, competitor, ranking, sentiment, and evidence-source patterns into a prioritized visibility strategy.

Request an AI visibility audit