The AEO Industry Index measures how AI answer engines recommend the players in a category. This August 2026 edition tracks commercial debt collection agencies across five AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot), scoring how often and how prominently each school is named when someone asks AI for guidance.
AEO Index · August 2026 · Updated Aug 8, 2026
The complete AI-visibility index for commercial debt collection agencies.
Two layers of AI visibility, durable memory and the live citation contest, the organic reality beneath them, and where the opportunity sits, in one view.
The signature view
The Delta Quadrant
Every agency placed by what AI remembers (model memory) against what AI finds when it searches (live retrieval). Bubble size is mention volume. Tap any agency to focus it; switch Layer or Platform to move the category.
Adjust this view
Layer
Platform
Dual leader
Citation-strong · reputation-weak
Reputation-strong · citation-weak
Low / low
What AI remembers → (model memory)
What AI cites now → (live retrieval)
AI has already decided which commercial collection agencies it recommends. Here is who, and why.
Two layers of AI visibility: durable memory, and the live citation contest.
Touch to explore
9 views · scroll down · tap any agency to focus it · ask the index anything
Primary cohort
Extended cohort
Bubble size = mention volume · tap to focus
Where they stand
Blended leaderboard
Memory and retrieval for every entity; blended is the weighted headline (w_p 0.3 / w_g 0.7). Tap a row to focus it across the whole index. The chip shows recommendation quality: how AI frames the agency when it names it, a top pick (green) versus hedged with caveats (red). Hover for the recommended / neutral / cautioned split.
1Southwest Recovery Services0.474
2IACC0.426
3Atradius Collections0.418
4IC System0.416
5ACA International0.409
6The Kaplan Group0.404
7International Association of Commercial Collectors0.391
8Altus Receivables Management0.372
9Commercial Law League of America0.369
10Transworld Systems0.358
11CLLA0.358
12Better Business Bureau0.346
13Caine & Weiner0.342
14Stevens & Ricci0.340
15Summit A-R0.305
16MRG Partners0.304
17STA International0.269
18debexpert.com0.262
19Fair Capital0.259
20wikipedia.org0.258
21NCS Credit0.244
22C2C Financial Strategies0.242
23Coface0.240
24Empire Credit & Collection0.239
25Nexa Collect0.232
26Mesa Revenue Partners0.221
27Commercial Collection Corp. of NY0.205
28forbes.com0.203
29uschamber.com0.200
30AFM Collects0.195
31ABC-Amega0.194
32Allianz Trade0.189
33Brennan & Clark0.182
34Cedar Financial0.180
35reddit.com0.180
36Prestige Services Inc.0.175
37Burt and Associates0.150
38Greenberg, Grant & Richards0.142
39Investopedia0.136
40Leib Solutions0.133
41Tucker, Albin & Associates0.133
42Commercial Collectors Inc.0.132
43businessnewsdaily.com0.132
44Business News Daily0.120
45Rocket Receivables0.118
46American Profit Recovery0.118
47Reddit0.101
48BARR Credit Services0.077
49Hunter Warfield0.063
50clla.org0.041
Rigor you can see
Head-to-head, honestly measured
When AI compares two agencies, the naive answer is mostly an artifact of which is named first. We ask every matchup both ways; the number to trust is order-balanced. Toggle to watch the correction.
← now switch to the honest, order-balanced number
Matchups (first agency's balanced win rate)
Citation battleground
How AI frames them
Attribute association
Which factors the models associate with each agency. Darker cell = stronger association.
| Agency | Recovery | Fees | Attorney | B2B Focus | Verticals | Speed | Reputation | International | Technology | Claim Size | Experience | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Recovery Services | 100% | 29% | 74% | 59% | 44% | |||||||
| Atradius Collections | 96% | 19% | 15% | 81% | 35% | 77% | 50% | |||||
| IC System | 88% | 19% | 71% | 21% | ||||||||
| The Kaplan Group | 98% | 33% | 90% | 16% | 37% | |||||||
| Altus Receivables Management | 100% | 97% | 31% | 28% | ||||||||
| Transworld Systems | 87% | 82% | 20% | 28% | ||||||||
| Caine & Weiner | 87% | 90% | 29% | |||||||||
| Stevens & Ricci | 100% | 86% | 100% | 43% | ||||||||
| Summit A-R | 87% | 27% | 47% | 20% | 20% | |||||||
| MRG Partners | 91% | 26% | 22% | 72% | 37% | 48% | ||||||
| STA International | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |||||||
| Fair Capital | 85% | 42% | 33% | 64% | 39% | 15% | ||||||
| NCS Credit | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 100% | |||||
| C2C Financial Strategies | 100% | 75% | 50% | 25% | ||||||||
| Coface | 100% | 20% | 60% | 80% | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | ||||
| Empire Credit & Collection | 100% | 50% | 30% | 60% | 30% | 20% | 20% | 60% | ||||
| Nexa Collect | 100% | 75% | 25% | 100% | 25% | 25% | 25% | |||||
| Mesa Revenue Partners | 92% | 28% | 58% | 36% | 17% | 36% | 17% | |||||
| Commercial Collection Corp. of NY | 100% | 17% | 100% | 17% | 17% | 17% | 33% | 100% | ||||
| AFM Collects | 100% | 25% | 25% | 100% | 25% | |||||||
| ABC-Amega | 100% | 67% | ||||||||||
| Brennan & Clark | 100% | 50% | 50% | 50% | ||||||||
| Cedar Financial | 100% | 40% | 67% | 33% | 27% | 40% | 67% | |||||
| Prestige Services Inc. | 87% | 40% | 93% | 20% | 27% | 20% | 20% | |||||
| Burt and Associates | 100% | 20% | 20% | 80% | 40% | 20% | 20% | 20% | ||||
| Greenberg, Grant & Richards | 88% | 25% | 50% | 25% | ||||||||
| Leib Solutions | 100% | 50% | 100% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | |||||
| Tucker, Albin & Associates | 100% | 33% | 100% | 33% | ||||||||
| Commercial Collectors Inc. | 100% | 20% | 100% | 20% | 20% | 20% | ||||||
| Rocket Receivables | 50% | 67% | 100% | 50% | 33% | 17% | ||||||
| American Profit Recovery | 100% | 50% | 50% | 25% | 50% | 50% | 25% | 50% | 75% | 25% | ||
| BARR Credit Services | 50% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
What the machines look for
Search fan-out
One question quietly becomes many. These are the hidden sub-searches the models run to answer a category question, the content brief they wrote themselves: recovery and agency discovery dominate.
16×ic system commercial b2b debt collection reviews
11×the kaplan group commercial b2b debt collection review
9×ic system commercial b2b debt collection review
9×ic system commercial b2b debt collection review 2025
9×transworld systems commercial b2b debt collection reviews
9×caine & weiner commercial b2b debt collection review
8×what should a distributor look for in a commercial collection agency
8×altus receivables management commercial b2b debt collection reviews
7×altus receivables management commercial b2b debt collection review
6×b2b pharmaceutical medical distribution collections agencies
Where citations go
Citation flow
Read left to right: the kind of question on the left, the source AI cited on the right. Aggregators and a broad long tail dominate; agency sites are a thin slice.
Agency sites
Aggregators
Other
The content pattern
Citation sources & page types
Across all citations, only 9% point to agency sites and 29% to aggregators. Of the agency pages that are cited, the mix skews to programs and homepages over rankings and outcomes.
Citation sources by side
agencies 9% aggregators 29% other 62%
Cited agency page types
Google's AI layer
Google AI Overviews
An AI Overview appears on 69% of the 120 category keywords, the highest-volume AI surface. Even Google's own AI leans on third parties over the agencys: agencys are cited mostly on their own names, and on non-branded discovery queries citations concentrate on a few. Tap to focus.
Citations by agency (total / non-branded)
Southwest Recovery Services44 / 44 nb
The Kaplan Group25 / 25 nb
IC System14 / 14 nb
Cedar Financial7 / 7 nb
American Profit Recovery7 / 7 nb
Atradius Collections6 / 6 nb
NCS Credit6 / 6 nb
Empire Credit & Collection6 / 6 nb
Altus Receivables Management5 / 5 nb
Fair Capital5 / 5 nb
Stevens & Ricci5 / 5 nb
Mesa Revenue Partners4 / 4 nb
Leib Solutions3 / 3 nb
Commercial Collectors Inc.3 / 3 nb
Top cited domains
What to do
Recommendations
1
Win the live-retrieval layer, not just memory
EvidenceSouthwest Recovery leads on grounded retrieval (0.663) while sitting mid-pack in model memory, and a dozen legitimate agencies (Brennan & Clark, Cedar Financial, Prestige, Tucker Albin, American Profit Recovery) score 0.000 in memory but surface only when AI searches. The retrieval layer is where this category is actually won.
Do thisPublish current, citable commercial-collections content (recovery-rate methodology, fee-structure explainers, vertical guides) so AI retrieves you even when it does not remember you. Freshness and citability beat brand recall here.
2
Claim the highest-value query space: attorney-backed and large-claim recovery
EvidenceThe buyers worth the most run high-value B2B claims and want attorney-backed, litigation-capable recovery. No single agency owns these queries in the AI answer, and the top blended score in the whole category is only ~0.47 competitive.
Do thisBuild a canonical, fact-rich page on attorney-backed commercial collection and large-claim ($50k+) recovery, with a clear process, jurisdictions, and outcomes. This is the most defensible wedge for a premium agency.
3
Own a debtor-industry vertical
EvidenceVisibility slices sharply by demand vertical (construction, healthcare, manufacturing/wholesale, staffing, transportation). Most verticals have no clear AI-cited leader, so vertical authority is open territory.
Do thisPick one or two high-receivable verticals and become the most extractable source for that niche: lien/retainage collection for construction, net-terms recovery for manufacturers, freight-bill recovery for transportation. Depth in one vertical outperforms shallow coverage of all.
4
Close the citation gap on your own site
EvidenceAcross grounded citations, agency homepages take 29% of competitor citations and news/blog another 20%, while most agencies are cited 0% on their own outcome, rankings, and program pages. AI cites aggregators and legal-content sites, not agency proof pages.
Do thisTurn thin service pages into citable assets: recovery-rate data, case results, fee tables, and FAQ blocks. Give AI a reason to cite your domain instead of a directory.
5
Get into the sources AI already trusts
EvidenceThe citation economy for this category runs through business press (Business News Daily, U.S. Chamber, Allianz Trade), industry bodies (CLLA, ACA International, IACC), review/directory sites, and Reddit, plus legal-content publishers. These aggregators, not agency sites, dominate the answer.
Do thisEarn presence in the citation intermediaries: association membership and directory listings (CLLA/IACC/ACA), contributed expert content to business/legal press, and a credible review footprint (BBB, Trustpilot, Google).
6
Neutralize order bias in head-to-head comparisons
EvidenceWhen AI compares two agencies, the naive winner is largely an artifact of which is named first; the order-balanced result is the number that matters, and the citation battleground on comparison queries is dominated by third-party sources (412 of 602 cited URLs).
Do thisPublish first-party comparison and selection-criteria content (how to evaluate a commercial collection agency, what recovery rates and fee structures really mean) so the model has your framing to cite in matchups.
7
Compete on recovery rate and fee transparency as named attributes
EvidenceThe attributes AI frames agencies on are recovery rate, contingency/fee structure, attorney backing, and industry specialization. Most agencies are under-framed on these versus the category leader.
Do thisState your recovery rate, contingency terms, and specializations explicitly and consistently across your site and third-party profiles, so the models associate those attributes with your name.
These are directional, ordered by leverage: which layers to close, not which pages to edit. The page-level plan for one agency (the specific URLs, entities, schema, and crawler fixes, sequenced with owners) is a GEO Audit.
Next step
Turn this into a plan.
This index shows where each agency stands and which layer, model memory or live retrieval, is holding it back. A GEO Audit turns that into a prioritized action plan for one agency: the pages, entity infrastructure, schema, and AI crawler access to fix, in order, with the measurement re-run afterward to prove the lift.
Act 4Organic reality and opportunity
AI vs organic
AEO vs SEO
How AI visibility diverges from organic standing.
Cross-instrument · August 2026| Agency | AI rank | Organic SoV | Divergence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Recovery Services | #1 | 0.5% | AI-ahead |
| Atradius Collections | #2 | 4.1% | Aligned |
| IC System | #3 | 21.9% | Aligned |
| The Kaplan Group | #4 | 9.3% | Aligned |
| Altus Receivables Management | #5 | 1.6% | AI-ahead |
| Transworld Systems | #6 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Caine & Weiner | #7 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Stevens & Ricci | #8 | 0.7% | AI-ahead |
| Summit A-R | #9 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| MRG Partners | #10 | 1.5% | Aligned |
| STA International | #11 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Fair Capital | #12 | 0.7% | Aligned |
| NCS Credit | #13 | 0.8% | Organic-ahead |
| C2C Financial Strategies | #14 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Coface | #15 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Empire Credit & Collection | #16 | 3.2% | Organic-ahead |
| Nexa Collect | #17 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Mesa Revenue Partners | #18 | 1.6% | Organic-ahead |
| Commercial Collection Corp. of NY | #19 | 0.6% | Organic-ahead |
| AFM Collects | #20 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| ABC-Amega | #21 | 0.0% | Organic-ahead |
| Brennan & Clark | #22 | 0.0% | Organic-ahead |
| Cedar Financial | #23 | 2.0% | Organic-ahead |
| Prestige Services Inc. | #24 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Burt and Associates | #25 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Greenberg, Grant & Richards | #26 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| Leib Solutions | #27 | 0.2% | Organic-ahead |
| Tucker, Albin & Associates | #28 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| Commercial Collectors Inc. | #29 | 0.6% | Organic-ahead |
| Rocket Receivables | #30 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| American Profit Recovery | #31 | 5.9% | Organic-ahead |
| BARR Credit Services | #32 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| Hunter Warfield | #33 | 0.0% | Aligned |
The citation economy
AI citations
Citation rate and the domains AI leans on.
Grounded layer · August 202690.5%
responses with citations
8,926
total citations
30%
to a tracked agency
swrecovery.com
707
trustaltus.com
310
kaplancollectionagency.com
306
icsystem.com
201
mrgpartners.com
171
mrpcollects.com
154
agentcollect.com
153
retrievables.com
135
thefaircapital.com
127
caine-weiner.com
124
bbb.org
121
consumeraffairs.com
120
Demand beneath visibility
Branded search footprint
Branded-search presence per agency.
DataForSEO · August 2026Caine & Weiner
73
Fair Capital
71
STA International
69
Coface
69
Summit A-R
69
Cedar Financial
68
The Kaplan Group
66
Hunter Warfield
66
Altus Receivables Management
65
Atradius Collections
65
NCS Credit
64
A.R.M. Solutions
64
Commercial Collectors Inc.
63
Transworld Systems
63
IC System
62
Mesa Revenue Partners
61
The organic baseline
Organic share of voice
Share of estimated addressable organic clicks.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Entity | Organic SoV | Keywords ranking | Est. clicks/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| IC System | 21.9% | 37 | 2603 |
| The Kaplan Group | 9.3% | 48 | 1100 |
| American Profit Recovery | 5.9% | 14 | 696 |
| Atradius Collections | 4.1% | 7 | 490 |
| Empire Credit & Collection | 3.2% | 14 | 385 |
| Cedar Financial | 2.0% | 15 | 241 |
| Mesa Revenue Partners | 1.6% | 26 | 191 |
| Altus Receivables Management | 1.6% | 13 | 188 |
| MRG Partners | 1.5% | 10 | 172 |
| NCS Credit | 0.8% | 9 | 100 |
| Stevens & Ricci | 0.7% | 7 | 85 |
| Fair Capital | 0.7% | 14 | 78 |
| Commercial Collection Corp. of NY | 0.6% | 5 | 70 |
| Commercial Collectors Inc. | 0.6% | 4 | 67 |
| Southwest Recovery Services | 0.5% | 29 | 58 |
| Leib Solutions | 0.2% | 3 | 26 |
Keyword reality
SERP and keyword coverage
Keyword-universe SERP appearances per agency.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Agency | SERP appearances | KW coverage | Top-3 rate | SEO composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IC System | 37 | 30% | 10% | 0.302 |
| The Kaplan Group | 48 | 40% | 6% | 0.302 |
| reddit.com | 33 | 28% | 4% | 0.242 |
| Southwest Recovery Services | 29 | 24% | 5% | 0.226 |
| Atradius Collections | 12 | 9% | 4% | 0.219 |
| legalshield.com | 15 | 12% | 5% | 0.210 |
| marcadislaw.com | 5 | 4% | 3% | 0.209 |
| NCS Credit | 9 | 7% | 2% | 0.207 |
| Fair Capital | 14 | 12% | 4% | 0.193 |
| Brennan & Clark | 2 | 2% | 1% | 0.184 |
| uschamber.com | 26 | 21% | 3% | 0.183 |
| clla.org | 10 | 7% | 3% | 0.183 |
| Summit A-R | 1 | 1% | 0% | 0.179 |
| Mesa Revenue Partners | 26 | 21% | 3% | 0.178 |
| tellerlevit.com | 5 | 4% | 1% | 0.177 |
| American Profit Recovery | 14 | 12% | 1% | 0.156 |
Open vs owned
Category concentration and saturation
Where the field is open versus owned.
Grounded layer · August 2026| Category | Concentration (HHI) | State |
|---|---|---|
| Educational | 0.19 | Open |
| Geographic | 0.15 | Open |
| Comparison | 0.14 | Open |
| Community | 0.12 | Open |
| Decision | 0.10 | Open |
| Solution | 0.08 | Open |
| Discovery | 0.07 | Open |
| Other | 0.05 | Open |
Unclaimed territory
White space
High-volume query clusters where no cohort agency has built a strong position.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Cluster | Volume/mo | Keywords | Avg coverage | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agency Discovery | 41,670 | 50 | 140% | Owned |
| Solution Fit | 450 | 11 | 30% | Owned |
| Educational | 440 | 11 | 130% | Owned |
| Legal Escalation | 350 | 7 | 0% | Open |
| Vertical Specific | 50 | 7 | 70% | Owned |
| Config Seed | 0 | 34 | 0% | Open |
Drill down
Entity explorer
Per-agency two-layer and organic detail.
Two-layer · August 2026| Agency | Memory | Retrieval | Blended | AI mentions | Organic SoV | SEO composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Recovery Services | 0.000 | 0.677 | 0.474 | 70 | 0.5% | 0.226 |
| Atradius Collections | 0.482 | 0.391 | 0.418 | 53 | 4.1% | 0.219 |
| IC System | 0.338 | 0.450 | 0.416 | 49 | 21.9% | 0.302 |
| The Kaplan Group | 0.283 | 0.455 | 0.404 | 46 | 9.3% | 0.302 |
| Altus Receivables Management | 0.330 | 0.390 | 0.372 | 43 | 1.6% | 0.146 |
| Transworld Systems | 0.432 | 0.327 | 0.358 | 40 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Caine & Weiner | 0.298 | 0.361 | 0.342 | 29 | 0.0% | 0.104 |
| Stevens & Ricci | 0.000 | 0.486 | 0.340 | 7 | 0.7% | 0.135 |
| Summit A-R | 0.222 | 0.340 | 0.305 | 19 | 0.0% | 0.179 |
| MRG Partners | 0.000 | 0.434 | 0.304 | 21 | 1.5% | 0.104 |
| STA International | 0.000 | 0.385 | 0.269 | 1 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Fair Capital | 0.000 | 0.369 | 0.259 | 33 | 0.7% | 0.193 |
| NCS Credit | 0.205 | 0.261 | 0.244 | 4 | 0.8% | 0.207 |
| C2C Financial Strategies | 0.385 | 0.181 | 0.242 | 5 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Coface | 0.393 | 0.174 | 0.240 | 25 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Empire Credit & Collection | 0.000 | 0.342 | 0.239 | 6 | 3.2% | 0.103 |
| Nexa Collect | 0.000 | 0.331 | 0.232 | 4 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Mesa Revenue Partners | 0.000 | 0.315 | 0.221 | 21 | 1.6% | 0.178 |
| Commercial Collection Corp. of NY | 0.343 | 0.146 | 0.205 | 28 | 0.6% | 0.123 |
| AFM Collects | 0.000 | 0.279 | 0.195 | 2 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| ABC-Amega | 0.206 | 0.189 | 0.194 | 8 | 0.0% | 0.147 |
| Brennan & Clark | 0.000 | 0.261 | 0.182 | 2 | 0.0% | 0.184 |
| Cedar Financial | 0.000 | 0.258 | 0.180 | 10 | 2.0% | 0.151 |
| Prestige Services Inc. | 0.000 | 0.250 | 0.175 | 14 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Burt and Associates | 0.000 | 0.214 | 0.150 | 1 | 0.0% | 0.071 |
| Greenberg, Grant & Richards | 0.000 | 0.203 | 0.142 | 3 | 0.0% | 0.083 |
| Leib Solutions | 0.000 | 0.191 | 0.133 | 2 | 0.2% | 0.029 |
| Tucker, Albin & Associates | 0.000 | 0.190 | 0.133 | 3 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Commercial Collectors Inc. | 0.000 | 0.189 | 0.132 | 2 | 0.6% | 0.110 |
| Rocket Receivables | 0.000 | 0.169 | 0.118 | 6 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| American Profit Recovery | 0.000 | 0.168 | 0.118 | 4 | 5.9% | 0.156 |
| BARR Credit Services | 0.000 | 0.111 | 0.077 | 2 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
| Hunter Warfield | 0.210 | 0.000 | 0.063 | 2 | 0.0% | 0.000 |
Arcalea AEO Index · neutral two-layer baseline August 2026 · 33 agencies · a Galileo-family measurement surface
FAQ
Common questions about the AEO Index
What is the AEO Industry Index?
What is the difference between the memory and live-retrieval layers?
The index measures two instruments and never blends them. The parametric (memory) layer queries each model with web search off, capturing what the model has internalized about the category. The grounded (live-retrieval) layer lets the models search the live web before answering. Memory is the slow-moving reputation moat; retrieval is the fast, content-driven citation contest. The gap between the two layers is itself the finding.
Why does a agency rank differently on memory versus live retrieval?
A agency can hold a strong place in a model's memory yet lose the live-retrieval layer when competitors publish more citable, current content, or the reverse. The Delta Quadrant plots both layers at once, so you can see which lever a agency must pull: build durable reputation, or win the live citation contest.
How is AI visibility different from an SEO ranking?
SEO measures where a page ranks on a results page. AEO measures whether a brand is named and cited inside the AI-generated answer, where most people never click through to a link. A agency can rank well organically and still be absent from the AI answer, or lead the AI answer while trailing in organic search. This index reports both and shows where they diverge.
Which platforms and prompts does the index use?
Five platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot. Each runs the same frozen, entity-neutral prompt set, meaning no agency is named in any prompt, so the model chooses who to recommend on its own. Scores aggregate across platforms and prompt categories, with per-platform detail in each section.
Can Arcalea build this index for my category?
Yes. The methodology is category-agnostic. Give us your market and competitive set and we build the same two-layer index for your industry and your brand's position within it. Use the Get Your Index button to start.