Does AI keep recommending the same local businesses?
We asked ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity to recommend a local business 540 times — 6 trades, 5 cities, 6 questions each, every answer saved. In some markets the same companies came back repeatedly. In others the names were spread across dozens of businesses. The pattern differed more by trade than by city.
- 540 web-grounded answers saved and analyzed
- 30 trade-and-city markets measured
- 5045 source citations captured from the answers
The trade mattered more than the city.
We call the number below AI recommendation openness: a 0–100 summary of how spread out the business names were in our sampled answers. A higher score means the assistants repeated fewer of the same names and agreed less often. A lower score means a smaller group of businesses appeared repeatedly. It is not market saturation, customer demand, SEO difficulty, or a grade for any business.
Each line shows the average score for one trade and the low-to-high range across its five measured cities. The 24.4-point gap between dental practices and plumbing companies is wider than the city spread inside any one trade.
Higher scores mean recommendations were more dispersed in this sample. Source: Routeless AI Recommendation Study, collected July 26, 2026.
“Dental practices had the most dispersed recommendations, averaging 84.6/100.”
Finding 01 · category gap
“The three assistants shared no business on 106 of 179 comparable questions.”
Finding 02 · assistant disagreement
“Directories supplied 20.6% of all 5045 captured citations, but dependence varied sharply by trade and city.”
Finding 03 · source mix
Dental practices had the most dispersed recommendations in every city we measured.
Openness describes the pattern in the answers, not how crowded the real-world market is. The score rises when the leading business appears less often, the assistants share fewer names, and more businesses appear only once. The full formula is published, and the ranking below is per trade, averaged across all 5 cities.
- Dental practices 84.6 average · 80–90 across 5 cities · full study
- Law firms 68.4 average · 63–74 across 5 cities · full study
- HVAC companies 66.4 average · 61–72 across 5 cities · full study
- Med spas 63.2 average · 54–75 across 5 cities · full study
- Roofing companies 62.0 average · 59–67 across 5 cities · full study
- Plumbing companies 60.2 average · 52–69 across 5 cities · full study
The gap between dental practices at 84.6 and plumbing companies at 60.2 is wider than the gap between the highest and lowest city inside any single trade. For dental practices, names were spread across more businesses. For plumbing companies, a smaller set of businesses repeated more often.
Highest openness score first.
Each row links to the full result for that market: every business named, how many answers named them, which questions they won, and the sources the assistants cited to justify it.
- Dental practices in Tampa, FL
- Dental practices in Austin, TX
- Dental practices in Phoenix, AZ
- Dental practices in Denver, CO
- Dental practices in Las Vegas, NV
- Med spas in Tampa, FL
- Law firms in Austin, TX
- Law firms in Tampa, FL
- HVAC companies in Phoenix, AZ
- HVAC companies in Denver, CO
- Plumbing companies in Austin, TX
- Law firms in Denver, CO
- Roofing companies in Austin, TX
- HVAC companies in Tampa, FL
- HVAC companies in Austin, TX
- Law firms in Phoenix, AZ
- Law firms in Las Vegas, NV
- Med spas in Denver, CO
- Plumbing companies in Tampa, FL
- Roofing companies in Tampa, FL
- Med spas in Las Vegas, NV
- Med spas in Phoenix, AZ
- HVAC companies in Las Vegas, NV
- Roofing companies in Phoenix, AZ
- Roofing companies in Denver, CO
- Plumbing companies in Las Vegas, NV
- Roofing companies in Las Vegas, NV
- Plumbing companies in Denver, CO
- Med spas in Austin, TX
- Plumbing companies in Phoenix, AZ
Every trade we measured, city by city.
Las Vegas, NV
- Dental practices openness 80 · 60 named · 15.5% directories
- Law firms openness 63 · 45 named · 30.1% directories
- Med spas openness 62 · 36 named · 15.1% directories
- HVAC companies openness 61 · 45 named · 20.3% directories
- Plumbing companies openness 59 · 42 named · 21.2% directories
- Roofing companies openness 59 · 37 named · 25.8% directories
Tampa, FL
- Dental practices openness 90 · 57 named · 11.8% directories
- Med spas openness 75 · 49 named · 7.8% directories
- Law firms openness 74 · 48 named · 43.2% directories
- HVAC companies openness 65 · 50 named · 26.9% directories
- Plumbing companies openness 63 · 48 named · 24.3% directories
- Roofing companies openness 63 · 55 named · 16.5% directories
Denver, CO
- Dental practices openness 81 · 43 named · 15.4% directories
- HVAC companies openness 70 · 49 named · 23.4% directories
- Law firms openness 67 · 43 named · 40.1% directories
- Med spas openness 63 · 41 named · 8.7% directories
- Roofing companies openness 60 · 56 named · 9.6% directories
- Plumbing companies openness 58 · 42 named · 19.3% directories
Phoenix, AZ
- Dental practices openness 85 · 55 named · 12.7% directories
- HVAC companies openness 72 · 54 named · 16.6% directories
- Law firms openness 64 · 40 named · 36.9% directories
- Med spas openness 62 · 40 named · 12.8% directories
- Roofing companies openness 61 · 43 named · 26.9% directories
- Plumbing companies openness 52 · 37 named · 21.1% directories
Austin, TX
- Dental practices openness 87 · 59 named · 21.0% directories
- Law firms openness 74 · 50 named · 33.1% directories
- Plumbing companies openness 69 · 52 named · 24.4% directories
- Roofing companies openness 67 · 47 named · 21.1% directories
- HVAC companies openness 64 · 40 named · 20.0% directories
- Med spas openness 54 · 36 named · 9.7% directories
Use the findings. Check the work.
The market-level dataset is free to download and reuse under CC BY 4.0. It includes the score and its components, answer and citation counts, leading business, assistant-level breadth, model names, collection date, and the source page for every market.
Use CSV for spreadsheets or chart-ready JSON for code. No signup or email gate.
AI Recommendation Study: 30 Local Markets Measured. Collected July 26, 2026. https://www.routeless.io/research
The complete instrument and score definition are public, including what the sample cannot support.
Read the methodologyWhat this is not.
It is a dated snapshot, not a ranking. These models re-read the web constantly and do not answer identically twice, so the lists will move. Eighteen answers per market is enough to see who the assistants reach for repeatedly; it is not enough to separate two businesses one position apart, and we do not try.
Being named is not an endorsement. The assistants named the companies whose evidence was easiest to find and safest to repeat, which correlates with being well documented rather than with doing the best work. None of the businesses in this study are our clients and nobody paid to appear. The findings are fully documented and published under CC BY 4.0, so please reuse them with attribution — including to disagree.
Want this run against your own business?
The free report puts the same questions to the same three assistants about your name and your competitors, and shows you the answers.
No charge and no call required — the report arrives by email.