When people ask AI assistants about banking, traditional banks are the only type of player that gets a heavy dose of criticism. One in four statements about them is negative, more than twice the rate of any other category.
More and more people ask ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini which bank, broker or savings account to choose before they ever visit a website. The answer doesn't just list names. It describes each player, praises some and warns against others.
To see what that description looks like at industry level, we used the VizibAI platform to analyze how five AI assistants talk about French banking and finance. We ran 488 real customer questions through ChatGPT, ChatGPT via API, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews in November 2026. We then classified 9,331 statements about 51 financial players by topic and tone, and grouped the players into 11 categories, from traditional banks to crypto platforms.
Key takeaways
Traditional banks are the outlier. 26% of AI statements about them are negative. Every other category of player stays at 11% or below.
Online savings platforms and robo-advisors are the favorites. 90% of statements about them are positive and only 1% are negative.
Fees dominate the conversation. 36% of everything AI says about financial players is about fees and pricing, twice as much as any other topic.
Two topics produce most of the criticism. Fees and "online vs. traditional" comparisons account for 71% of all negative statements.
Security barely comes up. It accounts for only 3% of statements, even though it's central to choosing a bank.
Every category has a signature topic. AI talks about advice for private banks, about security for crypto platforms and about travel for neobanks.
1. AI is much harder on traditional banks than on anyone else
Traditional banks are the only category where more than one statement in five is negative. At 26% negative and 53% positive, they sit far below every other type of player in the market.
Neobanks and payment apps come second, at 11% negative. Online brokers and private banks follow at 9%. At the other end, online savings platforms and robo-advisors get almost no criticism, with 1% negative and 90% positive statements.
The pattern holds across every AI assistant we tested. Weighting each assistant equally, traditional banks still receive 25% negative statements, against 10% for neobanks.
2. Traditional banks lose on price and win on advice
The criticism of traditional banks comes almost entirely from two topics. When AI talks about their fees, 52% of statements are negative. When it compares them with online banks, 65% are negative.
On other topics, the picture flips. Advice and support is the subject AI raises most often about traditional banks, at 31% of their statements, and it's 78% positive with no negative statements at all. Rates and returns are 69% positive.
Neobanks show the mirror image. AI praises them for their apps (93% positive), fast account opening (91%) and use abroad (86%). The few times it brings up their security or the advice they offer, the tone turns critical.
In other words, AI has settled on a simple story: traditional banks are expensive but reassuring, and neobanks are cheap and convenient but thin on support. Each side is judged on its strengths and weaknesses, and AI repeats that framing consistently.
3. When AI talks about banks, it talks about fees
Fees and pricing make up 36% of everything AI says about financial players. That's twice the share of the next topic, apps and features, at 18%. Advice and support follows at 12%.
Fees aren't only the biggest topic. They're also where most of the criticism lands, with 45% of all negative statements. Add comparisons between online and traditional banks, which make up 9% of statements but 26% of negative ones, and these two topics produce 71% of the criticism.
The ranking is the same on every assistant we tested. Fees come first everywhere, at between 31% and 39% of statements.
Security is the surprise. It's one of the first things people check before trusting a bank with their money, yet it accounts for only 3% of what AI says. Unless a question asks about it directly, AI rarely brings it up.
4. Every type of player has its own signature topic
Fees lead overall, but AI doesn't judge every category on the same criteria. Each type of player has one topic that dominates what AI says about it:
Private banks: advice and support, at 77% of statements.
Online brokers: fees, at 55%.
Online savings platforms and robo-advisors: fees (47%), followed by rates and returns (20%).
Business-account neobanks: apps and features, at 39%.
Consumer credit specialists: rates (38%) and how fast you can get approved (35%).
Crypto platforms: security, at 31%. That's the only category where security is the main topic.
Traditional banks: advice and support, at 31%.
Neobanks and payment apps: use abroad, at 27%.
This matters because it tells each type of player which topic it's competing on in AI answers. A crypto platform is judged on whether people's money is safe. A private bank is judged on the quality of its advice. A broker is judged almost entirely on what it costs.
What this means for finance marketers
Make your pricing easy for AI to read and quote. Fees are the main lens AI uses on financial players. Clear, up-to-date fee pages with concrete numbers give AI something accurate to work with. Without them, it falls back on generic assumptions about your category.
Know which stereotype AI applies to you. AI places each player in a category and repeats that category's story. If you're a traditional bank with competitive pricing, or a neobank with real human support, AI won't say so unless your content and third-party sources say it clearly and often.
Compete on your category's signature topic. Find the topic AI uses to judge your type of player, and make sure you have the strongest, most quotable content on it.
Don't assume AI covers your strengths. Security is a good example. It's a real reason people choose a bank, but AI rarely mentions it unprompted. If a strength is part of your positioning, check whether it shows up in AI answers at all.
This study looks at sentiment: not just whether AI mentions financial players, but how it talks about them. Sentiment is one of six metrics that together show a brand’s real AI visibility, alongside visibility rate, share of voice, recommendation, cited sources and AI market share. To see how each one is calculated and tracked, read our guide to measuring AI visibility: the 6 key metrics.
Methodology
The data comes from the VizibAI platform. We ran 488 questions in French, written the way customers in France ask about banking, savings, investing, credit, business accounts and crypto. Each question went to five AI configurations on November 9, 2026: ChatGPT, ChatGPT via API, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
VizibAI extracted 9,331 statements about 51 financial players from the answers. Each statement was classified by topic (8 topics) and tone (positive, neutral or negative). We grouped the players into categories by business model. Categories with a single player are left out of the charts. Some categories include only a few players, so their figures should be read as indicative.
How does AI talk about your brand?
Interested in knowing how you rank in the finance industry, or in your own? Book a demo or try our free visibility audit. You'll find both at vizibai.com.
