AI Has No Single Answer About Your Brand: Why 43% of AI Answers Swap Leading Banks and Single Visibility Scores Fail Banking Leaders

PRecious Communications’ Banking AI Authority Index 2026 shows how visibility changes by question, service and language across six markets and 11 AI services / LLMs.

• 43%: Same question. Different banks first. Across AI-route comparisons, the first-mentioned bank changed.
• 34%: Business questions bring more banks into the answer. Business-banking responses named 34% more banks on average than consumer-banking answers.
• Six ASEAN markets: Being mentioned isn’t the same as being named first. The study maps both across Southeast Asian banking.
• Across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the study tracks 13 priority banks – and shows why appearing in an AI answer is not the same as being named first.

PRecious Communications, an award-winning multi-market integrated communications consultancy, today released the regional findings of its flagship research study, the PRecious AI Authority Index: Southeast Asia Banking 2026. The research reveals that a bank prominent in one AI service may be far less visible or entirely absent in another. Across 1,628 eligible matched service comparisons, 706 pairsor 43%, produced a different first-mentioned bank when the tested AI service changed.

The research establishes why corporate communications, and marketing leaders cannot rely on a single AI platform, dashboard score, or generic brand search to assess digital reputation. Powered by PRecious Pulse, the agency’s proprietary measurement and research platform, the study evaluated 2,740 response records spanning six Southeast Asian markets (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), eight languages, and 11 AI and search service proxies. The index also revealed that decision context significantly impacts competitive density: business-banking answers named 4.73 banks on average, compared with 3.52 for consumer-banking answers, a 34% wider competitive field.

“AI has made comparisons instant, but not consistent. Any brand – like banks in our study – can lead one answer and disappear from the next,” said Lars Voedisch, Founder and Group CEO of PRecious Communications. “The job for communicators and marketers is not to chase one specific AI engine or manipulate a single metric. It is to build a clear, evidence-backed story across owned content, customer proof, and earned media that holds up regardless of the service, market, or language a buyer uses.”

Six Markets, Six Distinct AI Competitive Landscapes

The study demonstrates that Southeast Asia cannot be treated as a single information environment. While DBS and Maybank demonstrated consistent dominance across tested answers in Singapore and Malaysia respectively, and Vietcombank led across all question groups in Vietnam, markets like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand showed divided or highly question-dependent results:

• Indonesia: BCA achieved the highest overall answer presence (86%), but BCA and Bank Mandiri tied on overall first mentions (34%), with leadership shifting based on whether the query addressed personal banking (BCA 63% first) or business banking (Bank Mandiri 56% first).
• Philippines: BPI led total answer reach across consumer (73%), business (96%), and trust questions (92%), yet BDO dominated first-mention prominence across all four tested question categories (up to 75% in business banking).
• Thailand: Kasikornbank led consumer banking first mentions (65%), while Bangkok Bank led business banking first mentions (60%). Language testing revealed that English and Thai prompts generated different first-mentioned banks in 60% of eligible matched comparisons (15 of 25 pairs).

“In the ‘Artificial Intelligence Economy,’ executive teams must distinguish between answer presence and first-mention prominence,” added Lars. “Being included in an AI response is a baseline requirement; leading the answer requires checkable public proof, consistent corporate reporting, and third-party media validation.”

Public Proof and Media Verification

The Index emphasizes that AI models heavily rely on verifiable public evidence. For brand leaders, priority claims regarding security, digital transformation, or cross-border trade must be explicitly documented and consistent across corporate websites, leadership communications, regulatory filings, and independent earned media.

Southeast Asia Is Not One Information Environment

The regional study covers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It found consistent leaders in some markets and divided or question-dependent patterns in others. Different languages, banking structures and customer needs already make Southeast Asia diverse. AI can amplify that diversity by changing the brands, evidence, and answer order shown to different audiences.

The study is diagnostic. It does not rank bank quality, trust, safety, customer preference or financial performance. First mention records answer order only. Results are a point-in-time August 2026 snapshot and can change as services, search, and public evidence change.

The report is available online: https://pulse.preciouscomms.com/ai-authority-index

About the PRecious AI Authority Index – Note to Editors

The PRecious AI Authority Index examines what AI says about a brand, which public evidence supports the answer, where the gaps are and what communications teams can change. PRecious Pulse is the measurement, research and insights platform behind the work.

Banks tracked (16): 13 priority banks, grouped by home market – Indonesia: BCA and Bank Mandiri; Malaysia: Maybank and CIMB; Philippines: BPI and BDO; Singapore: DBS, OCBC and UOB; Thailand: Kasikornbank and Bangkok Bank; Vietnam: Vietcombank and Techcombank. Plus, three global-bank examples: HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citibank as additional examples from the business-banking analysis.

Languages (8): English, Indonesian, Malay, Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese, Tamil and Chinese across the full study. Not every language was tested in every market or on every route.

AI test routes (11): ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Search, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi.

Study timeframe: A point-in-time snapshot of tested AI answers from August to September 2026. Results may change as services, search and public evidence change.

About PRecious Communications

PRecious Communications is an award-winning multi-market integrated communications consultancy specialising in go-to-market strategies and data-driven storytelling across Southeast Asia. Operating an AI-first strategic advisory model, the agency has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, alongside partners across the wider Asia-Pacific region.

Consistently recognized for setting new digital benchmarks, PRecious Communications secured major AI Transformation and Digital & Social Media honors at the PRCA APAC Awards 2026, alongside global distinction as a Silver Winner at the WCFA Davos Communications Awards 2026. These milestones build upon a highly decorated legacy, which includes being named the Medium-Sized Consultancy of the Year in Southeast Asia at the 2025 International Business Awards and the Most Innovative Public Relations Agency of the Year (APAC) 2025 at the NEXT Awards.

Media contact: marketing@preciouscomms.com