AI Brand Visibility Audit · Clearwater Financial Planning
This audit measures how accurately and prominently Clearwater Financial Planning, an independent fee-only advisory firm serving high-net-worth individuals and families in the Denver metropolitan area, surfaces across leading AI answer engines for queries spanning personal finance, retirement planning, wealth management, and local financial advisory services.
Industry benchmark: top brands score 72–85
Section 01
Four leading AI platforms were independently evaluated on their knowledge of Clearwater Financial Planning across five key brand dimensions, each scored out of 100. The spread in results reveals where brand indexing is strong and where gaps remain.
Section 02
Each AI platform reached a distinct conclusion based on the breadth and accuracy of brand data available across its training sources and live retrieval. These verdicts matter because AI systems don't just retrieve information, they synthesize it into a judgment. When a model has seen consistent, credible mentions of a brand across multiple sources, it responds with confidence. When the signal is thin, contradictory, or absent, the model either hedges, omits the brand entirely, or fills in gaps with inference. The verdict each platform delivers is effectively a proxy for how well the brand is represented across the web content that model was built on, and how confidently it would recommend the brand to someone asking.
Extensive, accurate information across AI sources. Appears consistently in relevant searches with strong factual grounding.
Partial AI visibility with some indexed presence. May appear in certain searches but lacks depth or breadth across all platforms.
Minimal presence in AI sources. Rarely surfaces in relevant searches, a significant AEO opportunity.
Section 03
Each platform was scored across five dimensions (each out of 20) that together make up the overall visibility score. This breakdown shows not just how well each AI knows the brand, but what it knows, and what it doesn't.
| Platform | Brand Recognition | Category Presence | Sentiment | Factual Accuracy | Topical Authority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini | 16 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 13 |
| ChatGPT | 15 | 14 | 13 | 15 | 11 |
| Perplexity | 13 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 10 |
| Claude | 12 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 8 |
| Avg /20 | 14 | 13 | 13.3 | 13.8 | 10.5 |
| Does the AI know who Clearwater Financial Planning is, name, location, history, and services? | Does the AI surface Clearwater Financial Planning unprompted when a user searches for companies in this category? | When the AI discusses Clearwater Financial Planning, is the tone positive, neutral, or negative? | Are specific details about Clearwater Financial Planning, founding year, leadership, and service model, accurate and consistent? | Does Clearwater Financial Planning's content signal enough expertise that the AI surfaces them for category-level questions, independent of direct name recognition? |
Branded Presence vs. Unbranded Presence
Not all AI queries are equal. Some include the brand name directly: a user who already knows Clearwater Financial Planning exists and is asking about it. Others never mention the brand at all: a potential customer describing a problem or searching for a category, where AI decides who to surface on its own. Branded presence measures the first type. Unbranded presence measures the second. A brand can score well on branded queries simply because it exists and has some web presence. Unbranded presence is harder to earn, requiring that AI platforms independently associate your brand with the right topics, services, and locations without any cue from the user. The gap between the two scores reveals how dependent your AI visibility is on people already knowing your name.
Branded Presence
Queries that include “Clearwater Financial Planning” by name, simulating a user who already knows the brand and is asking AI about it directly. Clearwater Financial Planning appeared accurately in 71% of these results. A low branded presence score means AI is returning incomplete or inaccurate information even to people who already know you exist.
Unbranded Presence
Queries that never mention Clearwater Financial Planning, simulating a potential customer describing a need or searching a category where AI must choose who to recommend from scratch. Clearwater Financial Planning appeared in 52% of these results. This is where most real discovery happens, and where the biggest growth opportunity lies.
Section 04
The “shape” of each AI's radar profile reveals something a single score can't, which dimensions of the brand are well understood and which ones are blank spots. A wide, even shape means the AI has a complete and balanced picture of the brand across all five dimensions. A narrow or lopsided shape means certain dimensions (like services, authority, or local presence) are barely indexed at all. The gap between platforms is equally telling: when one AI has a full shape and another has almost nothing, it usually points to where the brand's information is published and what sources each model draws from. The goal is a wide, even profile across all four platforms.
Section 05
Three strengths and three gaps appeared consistently across all four AI systems, independent of which model was doing the evaluating. These are the most reliable signals in the audit. Individual platform scores can vary based on training data cutoffs, source weighting, or retrieval quirks. But when all four models independently agree on something, a strength or a gap, it reflects something real about how the brand is (or isn't) represented across the broader web. The strengths here are worth protecting and reinforcing. The gaps are the highest-priority items to address, because fixing them will likely improve visibility across every platform at once rather than just one.
Consistent Strengths
Consistent Gaps
Section 06
Local AI visibility breaks into two distinct buying signals. Location queries include a city or geographic area and represent high-intent demand: buyers who already know what they want and where they want it, actively evaluating options. Discovery queries carry no location context and represent an awareness opportunity: buyers still exploring a category, where appearing means AI surfaces your brand unprompted to an audience you would not otherwise reach.
AI Local Capture Score
43
AI mentions you in about 2 in 5 local searches
Location queries
Includes your geographical location
Discovery queries
Without any geographical location
Location queries
High intentClearwater Financial Planning earns local placement on two of four platforms for fee-only financial advisor queries in the Denver metro area, capturing buyers who are already in decision mode. Local AI signals are strongest where directory and Google Business Profile data is consistent, but the firm is absent from platforms that rely on editorial citations and third-party coverage to surface local results.
Discovery queries
Awareness reachClearwater surfaces on only one of four platforms when queries carry no location or brand context, representing a significant untapped reach opportunity. Buyers searching by category alone are at an earlier stage of the funnel and represent a broad awareness channel the firm has yet to unlock.
Section 07
High-Intent Discovery Prompts
The six most common prompts users enter when searching for brands like Clearwater Financial Planning. AI users tend to ask in full sentences, conversational, intent-driven questions that function as long-tail queries. Brands that appear in response to these prompts are capturing high-intent discovery moments that would never show up in a standard keyword rank report.