It depends on the question. On broad questions, AI assistants lean toward firms with national footprints: a UK trade magazine and a 2026 industry study both found that. On the specific questions clients ask about fee-only advice, they mostly name small firms. When we asked ChatGPT and Perplexity for fee-only advisors in 100 cities, the 600 answers named 2,622 different firms, and 83% of them came up only once or twice. What big firms have is coverage, not a preference for their size. A boutique can match that coverage where it works.
Where the “big firms win” idea comes from
Two reports started most of this worry, and both are worth reading fairly.
In July 2025, Professional Adviser asked ChatGPT which UK wealth managers it would recommend for a client in their 30s with £100,000 to invest. The magazine wrote that “the chatbot surfaced firms with national footprints, hybrid servicing models, and strong digital presences.” Ian McKenna, founder of the Financial Technology Research Centre, summed it up: “ChatGPT is recommending large firms over boutique.”
In May 2026, InvestmentNews reported on a study by 5W and Haute Wealth. It put questions about ultra-wealthy planning topics, such as premium financing, private placement life insurance and succession planning, to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot. The report found that the answers often favored large, recognizable institutions and overlooked boutique RIAs, multi-family offices and specialist firms.
Both are real findings. Look at the questions, though. One was a generic “who should I invest with”. The other covered topics where a few large institutions dominate the published material. Neither looked like a person asking for a fee-only planner in their own city.
What 600 fee-only answers showed instead
Our study of 600 AI answers asked three questions in 85 US and 15 Canadian cities: a fee-only advisor, a fee-only planner for retirement, and a flat-fee advisor who doesn’t charge a percentage of assets. The answers named 7.9 firms on average.
Source: Wellspent AI recommendations study, October 31, 2026 (600 answers)
Reading the answers, most firms named were small independent practices: solo planners, flat-fee firms, a few advisors under one roof. No firm came close to appearing in most answers. ChatGPT often said outright where it was starting. A typical opening, from a Columbus answer: “I’d start with a shortlist of independent, fiduciary firms rather than a large bank or brokerage.”
Part of that is the question. “Fee-only” rules out most banks, brokerages and insurance-owned firms, so they rarely qualify. But that is the question your prospects ask. A person who types “fee-only” is already looking past the big brands.
The real advantage is coverage
Some larger firms did come up again and again, in city after city. They had one thing in common, and it wasn’t size. They had a page for that city.
The clearest case was a multi-office firm whose own location pages (“financial advisors in Tampa”, “in Birmingham”, “in Stamford”) were cited city after city. When Perplexity answered for New York, the first firm it named was that firm, cited from its New York location page, along with its office address and its typical asset minimum. National virtual firms, which serve every city by design, came up across many cities too.
Large firms also appear on more of the lists assistants read. Perplexity cited SmartAsset in 62% of its answers and U.S. News in 59%. ChatGPT cited NAPFA in 61% and Fee-Only Network in 57%. A firm with profiles on all of them turns up in more searches. That is volume, and it’s the same advantage the big firms have in Google.
So the honest version of “AI favors big firms” is this: AI favors firms with a matching page wherever the question is asked. Big firms pay for that coverage across the country. A boutique only needs it in the places and situations it serves.
Broad questions favor brands. Specific ones favor fit.
The more general the question, the more the answer leans on names that appear everywhere. The more specific it gets, the more it depends on whose pages answer it.
Our study showed how fast the list changes. Asking the same assistant in the same city for a “fee-only financial advisor” and then for “the best fee-only financial planners for retirement planning” produced lists that overlapped by only 28%. Clients rarely stop at the general version. They add the RSUs, the divorce, the inherited IRA, the pension decision. Each detail removes firms that don’t mention it, and a national firm’s location page rarely mentions any of them.
That’s the opening for a small firm. A firm that writes “we plan equity compensation for tech employees in Austin” has a page that matches a question a national brand’s Austin page doesn’t.
How a small firm closes the gap
You don’t need fifty location pages. You need the coverage a big firm has, in the narrow area where you compete.
A page for the place you serve
Big firms win on “advisor in [city]” because they have a page that says it. Write yours: the city and nearby towns you serve, whether you meet in person or virtually, and who you work with there. If you serve clients nationally, say so in plain words and name the states you’re registered in. Don’t make a page for a town you don’t serve; assistants check what they read against other sources.
A page for each situation you handle
This is where boutiques win outright. One clear page per real client situation, with the answer in the first paragraph, gives an assistant something to match that a multi-office firm’s generic page doesn’t. In our website study, about 4 in 10 fee-only firm websites named no specialty beyond retirement, tax or estate planning, so naming one already sets you apart.
Your price and your minimum, in plain text
Assistants quote minimums and screen on them. That New York answer named the large firm’s asset minimum in the same sentence as its name. Among fee-only firms that state a minimum, 50% have none. If you’re one of them, saying “no minimum” in plain text makes you the answer for every client the big firm’s minimum turns away. See Publish your fees: why price pages get cited.
Presence on the lists your market’s assistants read
ChatGPT and Perplexity read different parts of the web. ChatGPT leaned on fee-only directories and the SEC’s adviser database, Perplexity on consumer finance sites and review sites. Pick the few that matter where you work, make sure you’re on them with identical facts, and remove old profiles that disagree.
Mentions by someone other than you
A quote in the press on your niche tells an assistant what you’re known for, and it’s the kind of independent mention large firms collect by default. A few well-placed ones go further for a boutique than a hundred blog posts.
Where big firms will keep winning
Be realistic about the questions you won’t win. “Best wealth management firm” with no place or situation will keep surfacing national names. Ultra-wealthy specialty topics, where a few institutions publish most of the material, will too. So will any question where the client already names a brand. Don’t spend effort there. Most people who ask about fee-only advice ask something narrower, and that’s where a small firm with clear facts gets named.
Where Wellspent fits
A Wellspent record gives a boutique some of the coverage big firms buy: a verified page in the public graph at find.wellspent.co that states your fees, specialties, service area and the clients you serve, checked against SEC data. ChatGPT cited the public graph in 37% of its answers in our study. Membership is $89 a month and includes the monthly AI visibility report, introductions from prospects with no lead fees, and quarterly press placement with media partners.
For the full picture of how assistants choose, see How AI assistants choose which financial advisors to recommend.