Who AI assistants recommend for local services

In every industry, at least 91 in 100 answers to a who-to-hire question named a specific business. Family law was lowest, at 209 of 229; the rest of its answers gave general advice or pointed to a directory. On average, an answer named between 5.0 and 6.1 businesses, depending on the industry, and that is the shortlist a customer reads.

Every question was asked three times. Of all the businesses named in two answers to the same question, 34% to 52% appeared in both. In-home senior care changed most, at 34%, and roofing least, at 52%.

So one answer on its own can mislead. Being named across repeated answers is the reading worth acting on, and every figure on this page is counted that way.

In each city we counted every time a business was named, with a franchise’s location names counted as its brand, and the share that went to the three named most. In landscaping and accounting, the top three took 11% to 14% in every city, spread across 137 to 204 businesses. In roofing they took 31% to 32% in every city, across 75 to 114.

In-home senior care changes most with the counting. The answers name one franchise in many ways, with and without its city. Counted as written, its top three took 13.0% in the middle of the three cities; counted by brand, 25.8%.

Who leads changes from city to city. In pest control, the two most-named companies in Dallas were national chains. In Nashville the same chains came third and fourth, and in Boise neither was in the top four. For in-home senior care, the most-named business in every city was a franchise brand.

Each share is the middle of the three cities’ figures.

Counted by brand, a franchise named with its city, as in "… of Boise", is added to the same brand named alone, wherever the brand is also named on its own in that city. Counted as written, each spelling is a separate business.

The answers cite their sources. Across the ten industries, 18.2% to 42.9% of citations went to places a business can be listed, reviewed or mentioned (directories, review sites, forums, roundups, news and reference sites), and 44.4% to 57.9% to businesses’ own websites.

So there are two kinds of work. One is being listed where AI assistants look. The other is a page of your own that answers the question, because in many of these answers a competitor’s page already does. Family law leans most on listings, at 42.9%, and chiropractic least, at 18.2%.

Measured on Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, in Dallas, Nashville and Boise.

We ask each AI assistant the same questions a customer would, through an API, so the same question asked next week is comparable to this week's. That repeatability is what makes a trend line mean something. An API answer is usually more concise than the one someone sees in the app, and cites fewer sources, so read a count here as the pattern across many answers rather than a record of one person's screen.

Each industry was measured once, on the date beside it: 19 Sep 2026 and 12 Oct 2026. How each answer becomes a number is on the methodology page.