When clients ask AI for an independent wealth manager, who gets named?
We put 100 real buyer questions to Gemini and Perplexity and checked which of 18 boutique and independent wealth managers each answer named. The finding is stark: 76 of the 100 questions got no named firm at all. The category is almost entirely unclaimed in AI answers. Run the check for your firm →
Why we ran this
Wealth owners increasingly start the “bank or independent manager?” question with an AI assistant. The assistant assembles its answer from a handful of sources — firm sites, comparison platforms, forums, LinkedIn — and either names specific firms or it doesn’t. This benchmark reads how visible boutique and independent wealth managers currently are, engine by engine, and where the openings are.
How we measured it
We wrote 100 questions in the language a prospective client, adviser or journalist actually uses, across six topic clusters (all 100 are explorable in full below). Each question was sampled once per engine, and every answer was checked for a mention of any of 18 identifiable Swiss and European boutique or independent wealth managers — from EAMs like Marcuard Heritage, 1875 Finance and Bruellan to VZ VermögensZentrum and boutique private banks such as Berenberg and Bank Gutmann — using the same name matcher a live Inserviss scan uses.
A single pass per engine establishes direction and priority; it is not a trend line. Citations are reported as measured; query volumes are labelled estimates, shown as ranges. Engines are never blended. This run covers Gemini and Perplexity— the ChatGPT connector was rate-limited during the run and rejoins on the next pass; the framework is identical when it does.
What we found, at a glance
- The category is nearly invisible. Gemini named a tracked firm in 21 of 100 answers and Perplexity named a tracked firm in 7 of 100 answers.
- 76 of 100 questionsgot no tracked firm on any engine — whole clusters (fees, family office, custody) sit near zero.
- Even the leader barely registers. Alpen Partners, the most-named firm, appears in just 10 of 200 answers. Only 11 of the 18 tracked firms were named even once.
- AI answers these questions with LinkedIn, Reddit and directories — and with the big banks’ own content. There is almost no boutique-firm content in the mix.
How often does AI name a firm at all?
Rarely. Below is the share of the 100answers that named at least one tracked firm, per engine — then the full table, every firm against every engine, sortable by any column.
Share of 100 answers naming at least one of the 18 tracked firms. Per engine, never blended.
| Firm | Gemini | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|
| Alpen Partners | 7 | 3 |
| Marcuard Heritage | 8 | 1 |
| 1875 Finance | 5 | 0 |
| VZ VermögensZentrum | 4 | 1 |
| Aquila | 3 | 0 |
| Kaiser Partner | 0 | 2 |
| Forum Finance | 2 | 0 |
| Zugerberg Finanz | 2 | 0 |
| Prime Partners | 1 | 0 |
| PLEION | 0 | 1 |
| Bellevue | 1 | 0 |
| Bruellan | 0 | 0 |
| Salm-Salm & Partner | 0 | 0 |
| Tresono Family Office | 0 | 0 |
| Berenbergbank | 0 | 0 |
| Bank Gutmannbank | 0 | 0 |
| Merck Finckbank | 0 | 0 |
| Fürst Fugger Privatbankbank | 0 | 0 |
Mentions across 100 answers per engine. Select a column heading to re-sort. Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen.
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A category nobody owns
Coverage barely varies by question type — it is thin everywhere. Below is the best engine’s coverage for each cluster, out of ~17 questions. Not one cluster is well covered. Fees, family office and custody questions get almost no named firm at all.
Answers naming a firm on the strongest engine, per cluster (out of ~17). Every cluster is under-owned.
How this is estimated
Estimate — a range, not a keyword-tool export. Illustrative estimate, not a keyword-tool export. Each cluster has ~17 seed buyer questions; long-tail intent phrases run ~15–90 monthly searches each across Switzerland plus cross-border DE / UK / expat demand, one or two head terms add ~150–600/month, and an AI-assistant reformulation multiplier of ×2–4 accounts for the wider phrasing people use with an assistant. Ranges are rounded and widened. For a specific firm, the real number comes from the check, not this table.
| Cluster | Best-engine coverage | Est. questions / mo |
|---|---|---|
| ●Choosing an Independent Manager | 9/17 | 900–3,200 |
| ●Fees, Transparency & Independence | 2/17 | 700–2,600 |
| ●Investment Approach & Performance | 5/17 | 800–2,900 |
| ●Cross-Border, Relocation & Tax | 4/16 | 650–2,500 |
| ●Family Office, Succession & Governance | 1/17 | 750–2,800 |
| ●Custody, Platforms & Bank Relationships | 1/16 | 500–2,000 |
Volumes are an estimate, shown as a range. Illustrative estimate, not a keyword-tool export. Each cluster has ~17 seed buyer questions; long-tail intent phrases run ~15–90 monthly searches each across Switzerland plus cross-border DE / UK / expat demand, one or two head terms add ~150–600/month, and an AI-assistant reformulation multiplier of ×2–4 accounts for the wider phrasing people use with an assistant. Ranges are rounded and widened. For a specific firm, the real number comes from the check, not this table.
The check runs this same 100-question universe against your firm’s name, per engine, and returns your AI Visibility Score plus the exact questions where a competitor — or no one — is being named.
Check your firm’s AI visibility →Explore the 100 questions
Every question, and exactly what each engine did with it — which firms it named, and which sources it pulled from. Filter by cluster, search for your own name, or show only the questions no firm has claimed.
The 76questions no tracked firm owns on any engine, with the sources AI cites instead — a ready-made content brief.
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Where each engine gets its answers
The domains each engine actually pulled from. Perplexity leans heavily on LinkedIn and Reddit; Gemini on moneyland.ch and a long tail of Swiss adviser and directory sites. Almost none of it is boutique-firm content.
Times a domain was cited across the 100 answers. Blue= a tracked firm’s own site.
About this study
- Single pass per engine. One sample per question per engine establishes direction; it does not average out run-to-run answer variance.
- Snapshot in time. Collected September 4, 2026. AI engines change their answers week to week; this is not a trend line.
- Conservative name matching.Short one-token names (VZ, Aquila, Bellevue, Bruellan…) require an exact whole-word match, so a slight undercount is possible — but it cannot explain a 76-of-100 gap.
- Gemini and Perplexity this run. ChatGPT (which draws on Bing) and Microsoft Copilot join on the next pass; the measurement is identical when they do.
How to cite this study
To request the underlying data or discuss a firm-specific analysis, contact igor@inserviss.app.
The same measurement, run against your name — per engine, question by question — with your score and the questions to claim first.
Go to the Private Banking page →