Industry breakout · Original research
AI visibility for accountants in 2026: the best-prepared websites in the study still go unnamed.
We scanned 50 of Australia's most search-visible accounting firms on 30 July 2026 as part of our 300-business national study. They average 34 out of 100 for AI visibility against a national mean of 38.3, and 47% of the 19 firms with complete records from both engines were never named once by ChatGPT or Gemini.
Key numbers
Six numbers from the accounting sample
Every figure comes straight from the accountants rows of the national dataset, scanned 30 July 2026. Never-named percentages are counted over the 19 firms with complete records from both engines, because blank Gemini rows cannot be counted either way. Site checks are counted over all 50 firms.
The average accounting firm in our sample scores 34 out of 100 for AI visibility. The median is 29. The national mean across all six industries is 38.3.
47% of the 19 firms with complete records from both engines, 9 firms, were never named once by ChatGPT or Gemini in any question we asked. Nationally the figure is 41%.
Accounting websites average 80.8 out of 100 for on-site AI readiness, the highest of the six industries we scanned, against a national mean of 74.9.
12% of the 50 firms block AI crawlers outright in robots.txt, so the engines cannot read their websites at all.
14% of the 50 have no structured data (JSON-LD) on their site, the lowest missing rate of the six industries.
62% of the 50 have no llms.txt file. We report it as a legibility signal only: Google has said it does not use llms.txt.
The readiness gap is the story of this industry. Accountants have the best-prepared websites in the whole study, 80.8 out of 100 on average, yet their mean AI visibility score of 34 is the second lowest of the six industries. Tidy sites are clearly not what the engines are rewarding. Who gets named is decided elsewhere: reviews, directories, press and other people's pages.
Who leads
The five most AI-visible accounting firms we scanned
AI visibility score out of 100, from the 50-firm accounting sample scanned 30 July 2026. National tax-focused brands dominate the top of the table.
| Rank | Firm | City | AI visibility score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Etax Accountants | National | 90 |
| 2 | RSM Australia | National | 87 |
| 3 | Grant Thornton Australia | National | 75 |
| 4 | H&R Block Australia | National | 66 |
| 5 | ATB Chartered Accountants | Sydney | 50 |
The national names
How often the anchor brands were actually named
The accounting cohorts included recognisable national brands as anchors. The counts below are factual tallies of how many times each engine named the brand across our test questions on 30 July 2026. They describe our questions on one day, not the quality of anyone's work.
| Brand | AI visibility score | Times named by ChatGPT | Times named by Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etax Accountants | 90 | 5 | 5 |
| Grant Thornton Australia | 75 | 4 | 3 |
| H&R Block Australia | 66 | 5 | 5 |
| Findex | 48 | 0 | 2 |
| ITP Accounting Professionals | 39 | 0 | 2 |
By city
National brands pull away from every city cohort
Mean AI visibility score by cohort. Seven locally focused firms were scanned in each of five capital cities, alongside fifteen national brands.
| Cohort | Firms scanned | Mean score |
|---|---|---|
| National | 15 | 45.9 |
| Sydney | 7 | 34.1 |
| Brisbane | 7 | 29.6 |
| Adelaide | 7 | 28.9 |
| Perth | 7 | 28 |
| Melbourne | 7 | 23.7 |
What it means
What this means for an accounting firm
If you run an accounting practice, this data says your website is probably not the thing holding you back, and that the thing holding you back is fixable.
Accounting sites were the most AI-ready in the study: 80.8 out of 100 on average, with only 14% missing structured data. Yet 47% of the firms with complete two-engine records were never named at all, and the mean visibility score of 34 sits below the national 38.3. The engines can read accounting websites just fine. They simply are not being given reasons to mention most firms: the reviews, directory listings, press and industry pages that the top of the table has and the rest does not.
The city table points the same way. The national cohort averages 45.9 while the five city cohorts sit between 23.7 and 34.1. Firms with a country-wide footprint of mentions get named; suburb-level firms mostly do not, however good their sites are.
Start with the basics anyway, because 12% of firms block AI crawlers in robots.txt, which is a self-inflicted zero. Then work on the footprint. Our AI visibility service for accountants and advisers covers exactly that, the full method and caveats are in the national report with the raw data free to download under CC BY 4.0, and the glossary explains any term on this page. For contrast, see how e-commerce brands did with the same questions.
Keep reading
Where to go from here
The full study
State of AI Visibility in Australia 2026
All 300 businesses across six industries, the full methodology, and the raw data free to download.
Read the report →For your firm
AI visibility for accountants & advisers
What we check, what we fix and what it costs to get an accounting firm named by the engines.
See the service →Industry breakout
E-commerce & retail in the same study
The best-performing industry of the six: a mean score of 55, with 9% of complete records never named.
See the data →Questions
Common questions about the accounting data
How visible are Australian accounting firms to AI?
How many accounting firms were never named by ChatGPT or Gemini?
Which accounting firms does AI name most often?
Are accountants' websites ready for AI?
Find out whether AI names your firm at all.
The same scan we ran on these 50 accounting firms is free for yours. See whether ChatGPT and Gemini name you, who they name instead, and you keep the report.