AI has already picked its favourite roofing companies.
We asked ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity to recommend roofing companies 90 times — six questions, five metros, every answer saved with its sources. They named 238 businesses. In most of these markets one company already comes back again and again: openness runs just 59–67 of 100, the most settled of the six trades we measure.
Most open first.
Austin is this trade's most open market at 67; Las Vegas its most settled at 59. Each city link carries the full record — every business named, for which of the six questions, and the sources cited to justify it.
The names that came back most, anywhere.
Across all 90 answers, these roofing companies were named most often in their own market. Not a quality ranking and none are our clients — this is a record of who the assistants kept reaching for on July 26, 2026.
- Elite Roofing & Solar Denver · named in 12 of 18 answers
- Phoenix Roofing & Repair Phoenix · named in 10 of 18 answers
- Steadfast Roofing Tampa · named in 10 of 18 answers
- Westfall Roofing Tampa · named in 10 of 18 answers
- Disalvo Roofing LLC Las Vegas · named in 8 of 18 answers
- Driftwood Builders Roofing Austin · named in 8 of 18 answers
- LOA Construction and Austin Roofing Austin · named in 8 of 18 answers
- Scott Roofing Company Phoenix · named in 8 of 18 answers
No brand crossed three city lines. This answer is entirely local.
Of 238 named businesses, 98% appeared in exactly one metro, and no name was matched in three or more cities — in this trade the assistants recommend local operators, not national brands. (4 names matched across two metros; at two, similarly named but unrelated businesses are plausible, so we count without naming.) For an owner this is the friendliest possible market structure: the business you are losing the AI answer to is across town, not a national marketing department.
Where the assistants got their answers.
Every recommendation carries citations, and the citations are the actionable part: they are the pages deciding who gets named. Across all five metros, the sources cited most for roofing companies:
- bbb.org cited 50 times
- reddit.com cited 25 times
- angi.com cited 16 times
- serviceagent.ai cited 16 times
- elite-roofs.com cited 16 times
- gaf.com cited 15 times
- steadfastroofingfl.com cited 12 times
- roofpitch.net cited 12 times
- ecowatch.com cited 12 times
- dandlroofing.com cited 10 times
- phoenixroofingandrepair.com cited 10 times
- premier-roofing.com cited 9 times
Directories supplied 9.6–26.9% of citations depending on the city — present, but not decisive. The rest went to businesses' own sites, local press, and forums, which is where the answer is actually won.
238 named, out of 756 businesses.
County Business Patterns counts 756 roofing contractors with paid employees across these five counties (Clark County, Hillsborough County, Denver County, Maricopa County, Travis County). The assistants named 238 — and named only 87 of those more than once. That ratio is the whole argument for caring about AI visibility: the funnel from existing to recommended is brutally narrow, and almost nobody is competing for it deliberately.
Checkable, and meant to be argued with.
The exact six questions, asked per city with the city's name in place of the bracket:
- Who is the best roofing company in [city]? commercial
- My roof started leaking after a storm in [city] and I need someone out this week. Which local roofing company should I call? situational
- Who is the best company for a full roof replacement in [city]? commercial
- A hailstorm damaged my roof in [city] and I am filing an insurance claim. Which local roofer should I hire to handle it? situational
- Which roofing company in [city] has the best customer reviews? commercial
- Which roofing company in [city] offers financing for a new roof? commercial
Each went once to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity with web search enabled — 90 recorded answers for this trade, in which ChatGPT named 116 businesses, Google Gemini named 106 businesses, Perplexity named 104 businesses. Names are resolved across spelling variants within each metro; cross-metro brand matching is deliberately conservative and only names a company seen in three or more cities. Assistants are non-deterministic, so this is a dated snapshot, not a standing ranking, and being named is not an endorsement — none of the businesses above are our clients. The full methodology covers the prompts, the openness formula, and what these numbers cannot support. Findings are CC BY 4.0 with attribution.
Working in this trade? What we build for roofing companies covers the commercial side, and the free AI visibility report runs these questions against your own market.
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