The Rise of AI in Brand Discovery: How Fintechs Can Optimise for AI Tools
A prospective customer opens ChatGPT at 2am and asks, “What’s the best expense management app for small businesses?” The platform delivers a detailed response, yet the company in question is nowhere to be found. Instead, a competitor that launched only six months earlier is presented as the top recommendation. This is the new reality of brand discovery.
AI is no longer just running quietly in the background, such as automating workflows or powering chatbots to handle customer enquiries. It is reshaping how people find and trust financial brands. As tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude AI and Google's AI-powered search summaries become mainstream, fintechs face an entirely new visibility battleground. Customers aren't just Googling "payment apps UK" anymore. They're having conversations with AI assistants, asking nuanced questions like "How do mobile restaurant apps receive payment?" These have graduated from keyword searches to consultations.
Sample question and response from ChatGPT
The YourStory PR team recently attended the Fintech Marketing SummerCon event in London, where data from Mint Studios showed that AI tools now account for 20 percent of brand discovery compared to 59.5 percent from traditional search and 10 percent from referrals. That is a significant change in two years since AI became widely adopted. Between February and June 2025 alone, ChatGPT conversations on various platforms grew by 150 percent. The audience is there but the question is whether fintech companies are ready to be found and trusted by them.
A year ago, fintech companies might have wondered if their customers would trust AI. Now AI acts like a personal banking assistant that can influence where people choose to put their money. In financial services, trust and visibility go hand in hand. When someone asks an AI for advice on managing money, investing savings or picking a payment provider, they are looking for trustworthy answers. If a brand is not part of that conversation, it is missing out on a growing chunk of its potential customers.
How AI Tools Are Changing Brand Discovery
Traditional SEO focused on gaming search algorithms with keyword density and backlink strategies. AI tools work differently. They're trained on large amounts of text data and use that knowledge to provide contextual answers. They understand concepts, relationships, and authority and don't just look for keywords.
When someone asks an AI tool about "best budgeting apps," it's not scraping only Google results in real-time. It's drawing from its training data, recent information it has access to, and its understanding of what makes a good financial app. The brands that appear in AI responses are there because they've built genuine authority and visibility across the web.
Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) is doing something similar but with real-time web data. When people search for fintech solutions, they're increasingly seeing AI-generated summaries at the top of results rather than traditional blue links. Microsoft's Copilot is integrating similar functionality across its ecosystem. The common thread is that all these tools prioritise well-sourced information over keyword optimisation.
For fintechs, this means visibility depends less on SEO tricks and more on thought leadership, consistent messaging, and appearing in the right places. Geographic relevance plays a crucial role in this process because AI tools often prioritise information that is locally applicable and trusted within specific regions. Fintechs must therefore tailor their content to meet the needs and expectations of different markets to be discovered and recommended by AI systems.
Why PR Becomes Essential for AI Visibility
Where most fintechs get AI optimisation wrong is thinking about it as a technical problem when it is a communications challenge. AI tools consider their entire digital footprint and not the company websites alone. Media mentions, expert commentary, third-party validation, and consistent messaging across platforms all feed into how AI systems understand and present brands.
The fintechs that are winning this game are creating citable content. They're getting executives quoted in major publications, contributing expert commentary to industry discussions, and building relationships with journalists who cover fintech. When AI tools look for authoritative voices in financial technology, these brands consistently appear.
Leveraging strategic communications and advisory work is important to achieving relevant citable content. This is because the effort required is not just about getting mentioned but being mentioned in the right context, with the right keywords, in sources that AI tools trust.
The Content Strategy That Works
If companies want AI tools to surface their brand, they need to think like an AI tool. These systems look for comprehensive answers to specific questions. They favour well-structured content, properly cited, and demonstrate expertise.
Start by focusing on the questions prospects are asking. These are not the polished marketing questions companies hope to hear, but the concerns that keep potential customers awake at night. Examples include “Mistakes to avoid when choosing a payment processor?”, “What are neobanks and how do they work?” and “Which fintech offers the best business banking for LLCs?”
Create content that answers these questions thoroughly and authoritatively. However, don't just publish it on the company blog and hope for the best. Use it as the foundation for the entire communications strategy. Turn that comprehensive payment processor comparison into a media pitch about industry trends. Transform that neobank analysis into expert commentary for relevant news stories. Break down that business banking guide into quotable insights for journalist interviews.
The goal is to get this content and the expertise into the publications and platforms that AI tools trust. This means building relationships with journalists who cover fintech, contributing to industry publications, and positioning executives as go-to experts for media commentary.
Most companies are leaving money on the table by treating SEO and PR as separate functions. In the AI era, this is counterproductive. SEO strategy should inform PR pitches, and PR wins should feed back into SEO efforts.
When planning a digital PR campaign, think about the keywords and concepts the company wants to be associated with. If it's a payments company, the goal is to be mentioned in the context of "secure payments," "small business solutions," or "e-commerce integration."
Practical Steps to Get Started
AI Overview of YourStory PR via Google Search
The companies that are winning understand that AI discoverability is a long-term game that requires consistent communication. Here are a few steps to get started on the journey:
First, audit current AI visibility. Go to ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity and ask questions prospects would ask. Check whether the company is mentioned and how competitors appear. This will provide a baseline understanding of current positioning.
Second, map company expertise to media opportunities. What does the team know that journalists need to know? What trends can executives comment on? What questions can they answer better than anyone else?
Third, start building relationships with journalists who cover the space. Engage your PR partners to build relationships with journalists focused on fintech, business, technology, and anyone who might write about topics related to the company's expertise. These relationships take time to build, but they're invaluable when news breaks or trends emerge.
Fourth, create a content calendar that serves both SEO and PR goals. Plan content that can be repurposed for media pitches, expert commentary, and thought leadership positioning. Think about seasonal trends, regulatory changes, and industry events that provide commentary opportunities.
Finally, measure what matters. Track media mentions, monitor AI visibility, and connect these metrics to business outcomes. Check whether mentions appear in the right context and whether they're driving traffic, leads, or brand awareness.
The Bottom Line
AI tools are becoming the primary way people discover and evaluate financial services. Fintechs should look to build authority, create valuable content, and consistently appear in the conversations that matter to their audience.
To be picked up by AI tools, companies should integrate PR, SEO, and content strategies around the goal of becoming the go-to source for information in the space.
The window for early advantage is still open, but it's closing fast. While competitors are still figuring out their AI strategy, forward-thinking companies could be building the authority and visibility that will make them the default recommendation for the future.