Picture of IFM accepting the award for Most Transformative Agency Partnership

Luminary takes out Most Transformative Agency Partnership Award

Luminary's award-winning partnership with IFM Investors establishes outsized global visibility and double-digit authority across major AI answer engines.

Tami Iseli

20 September 2026

3 minute read

Luminary has won the Most Transformative Agency Partnership award at the Financial Services Forum in London, in recognition of its collaboration with global investment manager, IFM Investors.

Presented at the Financial Services Forum awards night in London, the award recognises agency-client partnerships that go beyond the transactional to reshape business outcomes through innovation and strategic adaptation. Luminary and IFM Investors were selected for co-creating a generative engine optimisation (GEO) strategy that has given IFM a structural advantage in AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity – competing directly with asset managers many times its size.

Luminary CEO Marty Drill said, “We love working with the IFM team! This award reflects what happens when a client trusts you to think beyond the brief. IFM came to us to maintain a platform, but our partnership has grown to be one of trust, experimentation and due diligence.”

IFM Investors (IFM) is a global institutional investment manager owned by 15 Australian superannuation funds and one UK fund, managing capital on behalf of more than 160 million working people worldwide. Over the past two years, IFM has gone through a major expansion outside of Australia, focusing on new markets and opportunities. The Global Marketing, Brand & Communications team was created in May 2024 with clear ambitions to drive the IFM brand forward across the globe. 

Picture of the Financial Forum Services Award with IFM presented the award

Historically, Luminary served as a platform delivery partner, maintaining IFM’s digital presence. However, over the past 18 months the relationship between Luminary and IFM has shifted from implementation partner to strategic partner, as IFM continued to expand across the globe and the financial services sector became increasingly impacted by Generative AI and ‘answer engines’ like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

With a clear digital first approach, the existing relationship between IFM and Luminary has rapidly evolved from a ‘transactional’ relationship to one of delivering strategic value.

Luminary’s work with IFM over this period has focused on two main objectives: increasing IFM’s brand awareness and credibility (especially within IFM’s global expansion markets), while navigating an increasingly complex search environment. Through a consistent program of testing, learning and iterating, IFM’s partnership with Luminary has evolved from a standard agency-client relationship to one of true strategic partnership and transformation. 

Across Australian and US markets, IFM Investors now demonstrates outsized visibility in AI-generated search relative to its scale. 

Based on 168 non-branded prompts and 4895 responses across seven large language models, IFM consistently appears alongside – or ahead of – firms managing many times its assets under management. In Australia, IFM now achieves 36 percent share of AI visibility, competing directly with peers between 2.8 and 6.2 times its size, and is cited twice as often as competitors – indicating recognised authority, not incidental mentions.

In the more competitive US market, where AI responses favour domestic incumbents, IFM still secures double-digit visibility (14%) despite operating at roughly one-eighth the average scale of competitors. While citation rates are lower overall in the US, IFM maintains long-tail visibility and establishes a consistent presence in AI-mediated investment discovery.

Additionally, IFM’s annual PM700 campaign, optimised for AI-readiness in 2025, saw a 40 percent increase in sessions compared to the previous year and a 58 percent increase in visits from the financial services industry.

Together, these results show that IFM has built a structural advantage in AI search across markets, converting relevance and expertise into visibility without relying on scale, legacy brand dominance, or media saturation.

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