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Big buzzwords like ‘AI search’, ‘AI visibility’, ‘GEO’, ‘AEO’ and ‘LLMO’ are causing asset managers to completely revamp their marketing strategies and priorities.

It means marketers are all facing the same predicament: If AI platforms are where discovery is heading, how can we stay visible?

At first glance, it's easy to assume that is a complicated question with multiple answers.

But, when we take a closer look at how these platforms generate answers, there’s only one voice that stands out…

Reddit.

Over the last two years, Reddit has become the most frequently cited source across AI systems.

Between August 2024 and June 2025, it was the most cited domain in Google AI overviews and Perplexity, and was the second most cited source (just behind Wikipedia) in Chat GPT.1

For pretty much all product related queries, Reddit appears in the AI results.

What is it?

A quick Google search asking 'what is Reddit?' produced the following AI overview:

"Reddit is a massive collection of online forums, often called the "front page of the internet", where users submit content, links, images, and text to niche communities known as subreddits. It focuses on community discussion rather than personal networking, utilising an upvote/downvote system to elevate quality content and promote engaging conversations."

In an entirely predictable twist - the primary source for this information was... Reddit.

But why is it cited?

Given it is a forum for community discussion, it's fair to ask why responses from Reddit are given such prominence by so many different AI systems.

Well, in 2024, Google signed a licensing deal with Reddit, giving it access to Reddit’s posts and comments for model training for AI overviews.

This means:

  • Heavily upvoted posts (the 'most liked' posts for all the boomers and gen x reading) are treated as a high trust signal, which indicates it is content most people seem to agree on.
  • AI platforms pull content in real time because it often contains real user experiences, shifting opinions and faster updates than traditional corporate content.

What does this look like in practice?

I decided to channel my inner retail investor and see what answers would be generated if I asked a few of the simple questions a new/naïve investor may ask:

  • ‘Should I buy a mutual fund or ETF?’
  • ‘Are mutual funds more risky than ETFs’?
  • ‘How do I start investing’

While the AI platform provided me with easy to digest, non-biased information, I checked the sources that it was using to provide me this information.

Reddit.

Of the 15 other sources that were shared, only one was an asset manager (Vanguard, by the way).

This is a perfect example of the problem - institutions are no longer the dominant voices when it comes to financial topics.

To put it in the words of my gen z colleague: ‘We’re being cooked by subreddits’.

What does this mean for asset managers?

Data taken from our benchmarking service, Beacon, found that less than 1% of traffic is coming from AI platforms like Chat GPT and Gemini.

So, surely, it’s fair for asset managers to assume that there’s no point prioritising restructuring their websites or developing an AI discoverability strategy, when AI is not sending any meaningful data and their content is just going to be trumped by Reddit anyway?

Wrong.

And this is what people get wrong about the current use of AI.

Asset managers, even large global players, are unlikely to ever be the default answer for broad, generic financial questions like ‘What is an ETF?’ – these responses are dominated by Reddit, Wikipedia and other "unbiased" global publishers.

Where asset managers can add value (and be cited by AI platforms) is in more specific, niche, high-intent areas, or for differentiated views where there is still a clear gap in consensus. The aim is to own specific ideas, thoughts and opinions that AI can confidently associate with your brand.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is that the world of AI is constantly changing and platforms are bringing out updates daily and changes to algorithms and how content is summarised and surfaced is ever evolving.

So, while AI might not be a meaningful acquisition channel for asset managers right now, it is already becoming a major influence layer and is only going to become more powerful in the months/years to come.

For more information about how you can position your brand for AI-driven discovery, contact Ben here.

1https://www.cjr.org/analysis/reddit-winning-ai-licensing-deals-openai-google-gemini-answers-rsl.php).