Sarwa is cited in 14 of the 18 sampled answers and is the outright first pick, the “best overall for beginners”, on the category question in all three engines. The gap that pulls the score down is one query: for expats asking how to start investing in index funds, Sarwa goes completely invisible in ChatGPT and Perplexity, which hand that high-intent question to Interactive Brokers, Saxo Bank and eToro instead.
Three real buyer queries, run across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity in two trials each. Sarwa wins the beginner question outright, but the picture changes completely once the question shifts to expats and index funds.
| Query | ChatGPT | Gemini | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is the best investment app in the UAE for beginners? | Top pick | Top pick | Top pick |
| Sarwa vs StashAway vs baraka, which should I use? | Split verdict | Split verdict | Split verdict |
| How can an expat in Dubai start investing in index funds? | Invisible | Recommended | Invisible |
The pattern worth noticing: Sarwa owns the beginner question, but the expat index-fund question is where it disappears. ChatGPT and Perplexity left Sarwa out of that answer in both trials, so this is a consistent gap rather than one unlucky run, and both engines named foreign brokers (Interactive Brokers, Saxo Bank, Swissquote, eToro) in its place. Only Gemini cited Sarwa there, and its second trial went further and made Sarwa the sole robo-advisor pick. On the head-to-head, Gemini also shows how fragile a balanced verdict is: its second trial handed the passive-investing default to StashAway and demoted Sarwa to the “all-in-one” option. No misrepresentations appeared in any of the 18 answers.
Share of voice across all 18 answers: how often each brand is named when buyers ask about investing in the UAE. Sarwa leads, but baraka is closer than the beginner-question win suggests.
Others: Interactive Brokers (8.4%), eToro (4.2%), Wahed (1.2%) and Wio (0%). Sarwa leads on total mentions, but baraka stays close because the engines keep naming it as the do-it-yourself counterpart in almost every answer, even the ones that ultimately recommend Sarwa for beginners.
“Commonly mentioned options for UAE residents include Interactive Brokers, Saxo, Swissquote, and eToro.”
Perplexity in response to “How can an expat in Dubai start investing in index funds?”, a UAE-specific answer that named four foreign brokers and left the local category leader out entirely.
Close the expat index-fund gap. This is the single query that costs Sarwa the most in AI answers, and it is a question Sarwa should own. Ask “How can an expat in Dubai start investing in index funds?” and ChatGPT and Perplexity do not name Sarwa at all, across both trials. Instead they route the reader to Interactive Brokers, Saxo Bank, Swissquote and eToro, or to a generic “use a robo-advisor” step with no brand attached. Only Gemini cites Sarwa on this question.
The highest-impact fix is to publish authoritative, structured content that answers this exact query: an expat's guide to index-fund investing in the UAE, a UCITS and Irish-domiciled ETF explainer, and an AED-funding walkthrough. Give the engines a current Sarwa source to cite for the expat and index-fund intent, and Sarwa can convert a question it is losing outright into one it wins, the same way it already wins the beginner question. The lesson generalizes: AI engines cite you where you have published clearly for the question being asked, and they hand the answer to rivals everywhere you have not.
This free mini samples 3 queries. The full audit is the complete, defensible picture: