The AI Authority Index: Banking

The AI Authority Index: Banking

How the AI engines Australian businesses and households ask describe, recommend, and source the country's banks, measured on one instrument across five engines.

The edition in figures

  • 830 AI answers read for the edition
  • 166 buyer questions asked
  • 288 brands the engines named
  • 15 providers named in fewer than 30 of those answers each

Read the published findings, free to quote without signing in.

How it was measured

CRISP is Third Hemisphere's proprietary technology and methodology, built upon the most cutting edge global standards and research.

  • Consensus. Do the engines agree about you? Your buyers do not all use the same engine. If only some of them name you, being found comes down to which one a buyer opens.
  • Reputation. Do they speak in your favour? Being named is not being chosen. This is whether the engines put you forward when a buyer is deciding.
  • Influence. Do trusted third parties back what is said about you? Engines repeat what credible third parties publish. When others carry your story, the engines tell it your way.
  • Source. Can AI read and trust your own site? Engines check what they say against what they can read. A thin record, a contradicted one, or a site they cannot read counts against you.
  • Presence. Do they mention you when buyers don't name you? Most buyers describe a need before they know a name. If the engines do not bring you up then, nothing else can happen.

Read the CRISP methodology. The full edition opens once a reader enters their details on this page.

Your company

See where your company sits with the free AI Authority Check.

Questions about this index

What is the AI Authority Index?

A published measure of how the AI engines Australians use describe, recommend, and source the companies in one market. This page is The AI Authority Index: Banking. Each edition reads one market on one instrument, so every company in it is measured the same way.

How is the index made?

We ask Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT the questions an Australian buyer asks about business banking, without naming any company, and read every answer: which companies it names, which it recommends or cautions against, and which sources it cites. The page's opening says how many questions and answers this edition rests on, and the Method section describes the five factors.

Why do the questions never name a company?

A question that names a company tells you what an engine says once a buyer already knows the name. The index asks how a buyer starts, so it can show which companies the engines reach on their own.

What do the questions cover?

Both sides of a decision: what to choose, and what to avoid. They ask about the market's products, the kinds of buyer it serves, the features buyers weigh, and the problems buyers want to steer clear of, at each stage from first research to choosing.

Which AI engines does the index ask?

Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT. Every market in an edition is asked on the same engines, so one market reads against another.

How do I read the Star Chart?

Across, how often the engines name a company, with lines at 15 and 30 percent of answers. Up, whether they recommend it for its benefits more often than they caution against it. Each cell is named and explained in the index above, and the chart's own guide says where the lines fall.

Is the order a ranking?

No. This edition places each company in a cell and prints no position number. The order inside a cell follows the CRISP score, and two companies a few points apart in the same cell may not differ in any way the sample can show.

Who is on the Leaderboard, and who is not?

The Leaderboard holds every company the engines named often enough to be scored on all five factors, and the index says where that line falls. The companies named less often are listed Under the Radar, with how often each was named. Being rarely named is itself a finding about how the engines see a company.

How precise are the figures?

Every figure comes from a sample of answers, so the index prints the range each one could reasonably take. A company near the line or near the edge has a range that crosses a line of the chart, so its cell could change on a fresh collection. In our same-day repeat tests on two markets, the smallest change in a company's CRISP score that two collections could tell apart was about 3 points, so treat a smaller difference as noise.

Can a company pay to be included or to move?

No. No company can pay to be included, left out, or placed. Third Hemisphere's own clients are measured on the same answers, by the same rules, as every other company in the market.

Why does my company not appear, or have no score?

A company the engines did not name does not appear, because the index reports only what the engines said. A company they named too rarely to score is listed Under the Radar, and the index says why above the list.

How can my company's standing improve?

The engines repeat what credible third parties say, and what a company's own site lets them read. Run the free AI Authority Check (/ai-authority-check) to see where your company sits today, or ask Third Hemisphere about the AI Authority Blueprint, which measures your company on its own questions and sets out what you can be doing better.

How is AI authority different from AI SEO?

AI SEO usually means the search half: a site the engines can find, read, and quote. What decides who the engines recommend is AI authority, which adds what trusted independent sources say about a company. The index reads the answers the engines write, so it shows the result of both.

How often is the index updated?

Each edition is a snapshot of answers collected over a short window, and its page gives the dates. The next edition asks again and publishes only when it passes the same publication gate. If an edition is corrected, it is republished through that gate, and the page shows the date of the publication you are reading.

What is the publication gate?

A set of checks every edition must pass before it is published: every company scored on all five factors, one company to a row, one instrument for every row, and enough answers behind every figure. The gate's result for this edition is printed near the foot of the page.

Can I cite the index?

Yes. Please cite it as: Third Hemisphere, The AI Authority Index: Banking, Edition 1, 3 November 2026, thirdhemisphere.agency/ai-authority-index/banking.

Who makes the index?

Third Hemisphere, an Australian PR, marketing, and communications agency, using CRISP, its proprietary technology for measuring AI answers. The Method section describes what each factor measures.

Can my company get a briefing on its result?

Yes. Contact Third Hemisphere and we will take you through what the engines said about your company, and why.

Glossary

Every term this page uses, in short definitions.

AI Authority Blueprint
CRISP's full report on one company. It measures all five factors on questions that name the company as well as its market's buyer questions, checks what the engines say against a locked base of verified facts, and ends in a plan to improve the company's standing.
AI Authority Check
CRISP's free report on any one company. It reads the company's market's answers and the company's own site, scores all five factors, and places the company on the Star Chart.
AI Authority Index
CRISP's public measure of which companies AI engines name, recommend, and caution against when Australian buyers ask them for help. It is published one market at a time.
AI engine
An AI assistant a buyer can ask for advice. Every edition of the Index asks the same five: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity.
AI Famous
Named in 30 percent of answers or more, and recommended for its benefits more often than cautioned against.
AI Infamous
Named in 30 percent of answers or more, and cautioned against more often than recommended.
Answer
One engine's reply to one buyer question. An edition reads every answer and counts the companies each one names.
Bad Press
Named in 15 to 29 percent of answers, and cautioned against more often than recommended.
Band
A group of companies the sample cannot tell apart. The Index groups companies by the six cells of the Star Chart in place of bands, and no row carries a rank number.
Buyer question
A question in the words a buyer in the market uses, such as which lender to choose for a car loan. No buyer question names a company, so every company in an answer was put forward by the engine.
Cited source
A page an engine names or links to as the basis for its answer, such as a regulator, a comparison site, or a news outlet. Influence reads the sources the answers cite.
Composite
Another name for the CRISP score. A company off the Leaderboard is marked No composite, because the market's answers measure only some of its factors.
Confidence interval
The range a score could fall in, given the size of its sample. The page draws it as a bracket over a factor's bar, labelled the range the sample supports.
Consensus
Whether the engines agree about a company. When one engine names the company on a question, Consensus asks whether the other engines that answered name it too.
Constituent
A company on the Leaderboard.
CRISP
The Group's AI Authority and Visibility product. It measures how up to 17 AI engines treat a brand on Consensus, Reputation, Influence, Source, and Presence, publishes each market's results in the AI Authority Index, and prescribes the fix in a Blueprint.
CRISP score
A company's overall score out of 100, built from its five factor scores at the weights the Method shows. On the Index, only a company with all five factors measured carries one.
Cult Favourite
Named in under 15 percent of answers, and recommended for its benefits in the answers that reach it.
Cut
The number of answers a company must be named in to join the Leaderboard: 30. Below it, the sample is too small to read Reputation and Influence reliably.
Edition
One publication of the Index, covering one market or a few related markets, each scored on its own answers. An edition passes the publication gate before it publishes, and it stands until the next edition replaces it.
Floor
The lowest score a factor can carry: 1. A company whose site crawl reached nothing it could read carries Source at the floor, and its row says so.
Full read
The explanation a Leaderboard company's row opens. It says what caused each of the company's scores and what could move them.
Indicative
An estimate drawn from the evidence at hand, short of a full measurement, which no Index edition prints. When a factor in the free AI Authority Check is indicative, the check says what produced it and calls its total an Initial CRISP score.
Influence
Whether trusted third parties stand behind what the engines say about a company, and how many different sources do.
Leaderboard
Every company the engines named in 30 or more answers. Each company on it carries all five factors and a CRISP score.
Market
One category of product that buyers shop for, such as personal loans. The Index scores each market on its own answers and combines no figure across markets.
N (sample size)
The number of answers a reading is drawn from. The larger the N, the narrower the reading's confidence interval.
Narrow base
A figure measured on too few answers to meet the Index's standard. From Edition 2, a row whose Influence rests on too few answers says it has a narrow base, and its figure and range still print.
Off the Guest List
Named in under 15 percent of answers, and cautioned against more often than recommended when it is.
Presence
How often the engines name a company when a buyer describes the need without naming it. Presence is the share of answers that name the company, and it places the company across the Star Chart.
Publication gate
The conditions an edition must pass before it publishes, such as one row per company and all five factors on every company on the Leaderboard. Nothing publishes until every condition passes.
Reputation
Whether the engines recommend a company more often than they caution against it, across the answers on what to choose and what to avoid. At 50, the line up the Star Chart, recommendation and caution are equal.
Rising Star
Named in 15 to 29 percent of answers, and recommended for its benefits more often than cautioned against when it is.
Sample
The set of answers an edition collected. Every reading describes what the engines said in that sample.
Site crawl
A read of a company's own website, page by page, as an AI engine would reach it. It shows how readily an engine can reach, read, and quote the site.
Source
Whether a company's own site stands up as the record of what is true about it, and whether an engine can reach, read, and quote it.
Star Chart
A chart that places each company by two factors: Presence across and Reputation up. Lines at 15 and 30 percent of answers across, and at 50 up, divide it into six cells.
Statistically significant
Said of a difference too large to come from chance in which answers the sample happened to collect. The Index claims an order between companies only where their difference is significant.
Under the Radar
Every company the engines named in fewer than 30 answers. Each is listed with the number of answers that named it, and none carries a CRISP score.
Wave
One round of collection: every buyer question in a market put to every engine, with every answer kept. An edition is scored on the answers its wave collected.

About the author

Jeremy Liddle is the Executive Chair of Third Hemisphere and the author of the AI Authority Index. He designed CRISP, the proprietary technology and methodology behind the Index, and leads its development. About Jeremy Liddle

About Third Hemisphere

Third Hemisphere is the integrated PR, marketing, AI Authority & Visibility, and investor relations agency helping ambitious companies grow, from Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore. Founded in Sydney in 2014, it has worked with over 150 clients and secured over 20,000 media placements. It became a Certified B Corporation in April 2026 and publishes the AI Authority Index. The agency won Boutique/Small PR Agency of the Year at the 2023 Mumbrella CommsCon Awards and Best in Financial Services (Consumer Services) at the 2023 Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards. Founder and CEO Hannah Moreno is the 2024 B&T Technology Woman of the Year and the 2023 Mumbrella PR Professional of the Year.