We Tested 100 Local Businesses: How Many Show Up in AI Search?
Original research on AI visibility across restaurants, law firms, healthcare providers, and more.
May Chen
Strategist, Geonauts
We wanted to know: when people ask AI for local business recommendations, who actually shows up?
So we tested it. 100 local businesses. 500 queries. Three AI platforms.
Methodology
📊 Businesses Tested: 100
- • 20 Restaurants
- • 20 Law firms
- • 20 Healthcare providers
- • 20 Real estate agents
- • 20 Home services
🔍 What We Measured
- • Did the business appear?
- • Primary or one of several?
- • Was information accurate?
- • Did AI cite a source?
Platforms: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude | Queries: 5 per category
The Big Finding
12%
of businesses appeared in AI recommendations
That means 88% of local businesses are completely invisible when potential customers ask AI for suggestions.
Visibility by Industry
| Industry | AI Visibility Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🍽️ Restaurants | 18% | Best performance (abundant review data) |
| ⚖️ Law Firms | 14% | Directory presence helps |
| 🏥 Healthcare | 10% | Healthgrades matters |
| 🏠 Real Estate | 8% | Hyper-personal, hard to differentiate |
| 🔧 Home Services | 6% | Huge opportunity (least competition) |
What Separated Visible from Invisible
⭐ Review Presence
📰 Press Mentions
📋 NAP Consistency
🌐 Website Quality
Visible businesses had: clear service descriptions, location pages, FAQ content, and schema markup.
The Accuracy Problem
⚠️ Even when businesses appeared, accuracy was an issue:
23%
had outdated info
31%
had incomplete info
15%
recommended closed businesses
What This Means for Your Business
If you're in the 88%, you're invisible. The good news: so is most of your competition.
Recommendations
Build review volume
Get to 100+ reviews on Google and relevant platforms
Get mentioned
Pursue local press, industry publications, "best of" lists
Fix information consistency
Audit and correct all directory listings
Create citable content
Publish guides, resources, and FAQ content on your site
Get Your Free AI Visibility Report
We'll check how you show up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude for 10 queries in your space.
Usually delivered within 24 hours.