- Visibility18
- Citations1
- Sentiment83
- Site quality93
- AI readiness36
AI assistants name Houlihan Lokey in 15% of answers, much more often than the typical company in the finance sector. Its overall score is 41 out of 100, ranking 330th of 2,047 companies. The Houlihan Lokey website passes 4 of 14 technical checks of how ready it is for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the finance market: none named Houlihan Lokey. AI assistants named it in 9 of 60 answers (15.0%). The typical finance company is named in 3.3% of answers. By how often it is named, Houlihan Lokey ranks 40 of 205 in its sector.
Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.
This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named
Five parts, each scored out of 100.
How often AI assistants name the company
How often AI uses the company's own website as a source
How positively AI describes the company
How well built the website's own pages are
How easily AI tools can read and use the website
Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.
205 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“What are the non-bank options for businesses seeking M&A advisory in the US?”
I'll search for information about non-bank M&A advisory options for businesses in the US.Based on the search results, here are the main non-bank options for businesses seeking M&A advisory in the US:
Big 4 Consulting Firms
Big 4 advisors such as Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG handle complex, high-value transactions with deep financial and strategic expertise. KPMG is a highly rated Big 4 firm with robust US M&A rankings in deal count, focusing on due diligence and risk management.
Strategy Consulting Firms
Among strategy firms, McKinsey, BCG, and Bain remain the standard for enterprise-level …
The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.
How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals
Answers naming it, out of answers received
What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.
This website turned most of our scan away, so it has no level. Only 47% of the checks could run. That reflects the website’s rules for automated visitors, and an AI agent arriving by itself meets the same rules.
Show every check, for your technical teamHide the checks
- study: 92.0%robots.txtPassed
A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.
- study: 86.8%SitemapPassed
An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersCould not check
Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.
- study: 5.5%DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present
Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.
- study: 1.9%Markdown negotiationCould not check
Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.
- study: 25.1%llms.txtNot met
Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.
- study: 93.4%AI bot rulesPassed
Explicit robots.txt rules for AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsNot met
Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.
- study: 0.2%Web Bot AuthCould not check
Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.
- study: 0.3%API CatalogCould not check
List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.
- study: 11.8%OAuth discoveryCould not check
Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.
- study: 10.3%OAuth Protected ResourceCould not check
Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
- study: 0.0%auth.mdCould not check
Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.
- study: 0.2%MCP Server CardCould not check
Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.
- study: 0.1%A2A Agent CardCould not check
Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.
- study: 0.2%Agent SkillsCould not check
Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.
- study: 33.7%WebMCPCould not check
Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.
- study: 0.1%ARD manifestCould not check
Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.
Score 63 of 100 · 47% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · hl.com · 2,047 companies scanned
4 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.
These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.
Show the 14 checksHide them
- Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- PassedXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- PassedToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
- PassedExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
- Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
- Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
- Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
- Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
- Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
This website sets rules for 3 AI crawlers by name. All others follow its general rules.
- GPTBotpartly
- ClaudeBotpartly
- Anthropic-AIpartly
- Google-Extendedpartly
- Applebot-Extendedpartly
- Meta-ExternalAgentpartly
- FacebookBotpartly
- Bytespider*blocked
- CCBot*blocked
- Diffbot*blocked
- Omgilibotpartly
- OAI-SearchBotpartly
- Claude-SearchBotpartly
- PerplexityBotpartly
- Applebotpartly
- Amazonbotpartly
- YouBotpartly
- ChatGPT-Userpartly
- Claude-Userpartly
- Perplexity-Userpartly
- DuckAssistBotpartly
- MistralAI-Userpartly
Read from the website’s own rules file (robots.txt). An asterisk marks a crawler the file names. The rest follow its general rules. “Partly” means only some pages are blocked.
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as US-listed.
- How do retainer fees for financial advisory services usually work in the United States?
- How do M&A advisory services differ from restructuring advisory services?
- When should a company consider strategic advisory services during a merger?
- How do I know if my company needs both M&A advisory and capital markets services?
- What types of businesses benefit most from sell-side M&A advisory in the US market?
- What are the non-bank options for businesses seeking M&A advisory in the US?
- How do I address confidentiality concerns when working with investment banking advisors?
- Investment banking vs. consulting: Which is better for mergers and acquisitions strategy?
- Leading US-based firms for international cross-border M&A support
- What can go wrong during the M&A due diligence process and how can it be prevented?
- What are the best investment banking firms for complex M&A transactions in the US?
- Top financial advisory services for middle-market businesses looking to grow through acquisition
- Alternatives to traditional investment banking for raising capital as a private company
- Typical fee structures for investment banking services in middle-market M&A deals
- Is hiring a boutique investment bank for a business sale worth the cost?
Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.
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<a href="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/hl.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/hl.com.svg" alt="Overall score 41 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>