The Cost of Fintech’s Communication Gap
Fintech brands spent the last decade out-innovating traditional banks. Now they’re being out-positioned by their own invisibility.
As large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini become the go-to tools for financial search and decision-making, fintech leaders need a reality check. If your brand isn’t showing up in these AI-generated responses, you lose web traffic, trust, relevance, and market share.
Avenue Z has spent the past year analyzing how fintech brands are or aren’t surfacing in AI-powered environments. Recent research, the AI Visibility Index, tracked over 1,000 companies across payments, neobanking, crypto, and blockchain sectors to understand how often they appear in AI-generated answers and why. The results show that AI is fundamentally changing the rules of brand growth, and most fintechs are playing by the wrong ones.
AI Search Has Replaced Google as the Front Door
The shift in consumer behavior is already here. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 5.6% of all U.S. desktop search traffic in July 2025 went to AI-powered large language models, a dramatic increase from just 2.48% a year prior. Additionally, SEER Interactive found that more than 55% of finance-related searches on Google now return an AI-generated result above the traditional organic links.
What does that mean for fintechs? Consumers are skipping the brand websites, the blog content, and even the top-ranking Google links. They’re asking AI tools specific, natural-language questions like “What’s the best payment processor for small businesses?” or “Which digital bank offers early direct deposit?” If your brand isn’t cited in the answers, you’re invisible at the moment trust is being formed.
Did Stripe and PayPal Get Lucky?
In the 2025 Fintech Payments AI Visibility Index, research shows that just 10 fintech brands control over 75% of the share of voice across major AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Stripe led the pack, with a visibility score of 77%, followed by PayPal at 64% and Square at 50%. These brands showed up repeatedly across a wide range of prompts, topics, and platforms, from developer documentation and support pages to product explainers and press coverage.
This dominance is engineered. Stripe, for example, had more unique content types cited by AI models than any of its competitors, like blogs, product pages, comparison articles, API docs, and more. In contrast, roughly two-thirds of the 60 payment processors we analyzed had zero presence in AI-generated answers. Not because they’re lesser brands, but because AI had no content to pull from — no mentions, no structure, no citations.
AI Rewards Authority
What separates the visible from the invisible in AI search comes down to three strategic levers: high-impact PR, technically sound infrastructure, and content built for real-world queries.
1. PR has become a technical asset.
AI platforms rely on credible citations to generate responses, and not all media sources carry equal weight. Outlets like NerdWallet, Reuters, and Investopedia are cited far more often than traditional business press. Brands that consistently show up in these publications gain a significant advantage in algorithmic authority. However, the outlets that LLMs cite the most are constantly changing, so it’s vital to monitor and analyze how these platforms respond to a wide variety of prompts.
2. Technical optimization is no longer optional.
Brands that perform best in AI visibility tend to have fast, mobile-first websites that are structurally aligned with how LLMs crawl and categorize data. Schema markup, internal linking, entity tagging, and crawlability are visibility drivers. AI can’t recommend what it can’t read.
3. Content has to be purpose-built for how people ask questions.
Today’s users ask questions in full sentences rather than searching for keywords. That means content must be mapped to intent: plain-English explainers, product comparisons, FAQs, and conversational formats that mirror how users think.
When a user asks ChatGPT:
“Should I consolidate my debt?”
“What’s a safe way to invest $10k?”
“Why did my APR just spike?”
You want your company to show up in the answers with credible, understandable insights.
Together, these three pillars make up a modern AI Optimization (AIO) strategy: clear, discoverable, and citable. AIO goes beyond traditional PR and SEO. It’s an integrated discipline for brands that want to be found, trusted, and chosen by humans and machines.
Smaller Brands Can Still Win
The good news is that size isn’t a requirement for AI visibility. Growth-stage companies like Helcim and Stax scored higher in our visibility rankings than many enterprise competitors because they consistently appeared in niche queries: “lowest credit card processing fees,” “transparent payment platforms,” “customer service for SMBs.” Their sites were well-optimized, their messaging clear, and their content aligned with the specific pain points users were asking about.
In digital banking, Chime is another standout. It shows up repeatedly in responses related to “no-fee banking” and “fast direct deposit” because of message consistency across its owned and earned content. This kind of clarity and repetition matters. AI references what’s already out there, and it pulls from the sources it trusts most.
The Press Only Matters If AI Sees It
One of the biggest blind spots for fintech CMOs is misunderstanding the role of media in AI visibility. Reference value matters more than reach or headline prestige. Our data shows that Reuters is cited nearly twice as often as The Wall Street Journal across major AI platforms. NerdWallet, despite publishing fewer articles, was the most cited source in Perplexity. The lesson? Not all PR drives visibility. Only the kind that LLMs can understand, structure, and reuse.
This has profound implications for how fintechs should pitch, write, and amplify their media coverage. AI platforms prioritize evergreen insights over news volume, structured content over splashy storytelling. Your media strategy needs to adapt accordingly.
What Fintech Leaders Should Do Now
This isn’t a problem for next year. It’s already costing brands traffic, trust, and growth today. Fintech executives, especially CMOs and Heads of Comms, need to act quickly. Start by auditing your AI visibility. Ask the platforms the questions your customers are asking. Are you in the answer set? If not, examine your content. Are you writing for users, or for algorithms? Are you getting cited in the publications AI models prioritize? Is your technical infrastructure optimized for crawlability and speed?
Then, take control. AI visibility is still up for grabs. The brands investing in it now are building a durable advantage that compounds.
About the author: Bristol Jones is VP of PR and Managing Director of Avenue Z Miami. She leads fintech communications strategy for brands including april, Better.com, Extend, and Fundbox. Named one of NYC Fintech Women’s Inspiring Fintech Females, she helps high-growth companies translate complexity into clarity and trust.