How AI assistants choose which businesses to name
We asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok the questions buyers ask, three times each, about 35 kinds of business in 92 places, and counted every name. These are the patterns across all of them.
- Calls made
- 24,624
- Pages
- 922
- Pages ranked
- 841
- Assistants
- 4
Across the 841 ranked pages of the September 2026 Index, 36% of the names an assistant gave came back when it was asked the same question again, and any two assistants shared 31% of their names. The average page gathered 36 different businesses, 58% of them named once, and its leader appeared in 63% of answers.
Findings
Averages over the ranked pages of the edition.
Asked the same question again, an assistant repeats 36% of its names.
For each assistant and question, the names that came back in at least two of three runs, as a share of every name those runs gave. The rest appeared once and did not return, which is why a single answer is a poor guide to what an assistant says about a business.
Any two assistants share 31% of the names they give.
For each pair of assistants that both named someone on a page, the names both gave as a share of the names either gave, averaged over pairs and pages. Being named by one assistant says little about the others.
Asked for a local business, Grok named no one in 77% of its answers.
An empty answer is not a failed call: the model replied and named nobody. Asked about software, Grok named no one in 9% of its answers. Asked for a local business, ChatGPT named no one in 0%, Claude named no one in 0% and Gemini named no one in 0%.
24% of the businesses in a ranking were named by only one assistant.
Of the businesses a page lists, those that a single assistant named in two or more answers and no other assistant named at all.
A page gathers 36 different names, and 58% of them are named only once.
Distinct businesses named across every answer on a page, and the share of them that a single answer named. Those one-off names are counted but never listed.
The most-named business appears in 63% of answers.
The leader's share on the average ranked page. On 794 of 841 ranked pages at least one business was named by every assistant asked there.
By assistant
Every call, including the ones that failed. The last two columns are the answers that replied but named no business, about a local trade and about software.
| Assistant | Calls | Failed | Names per answer | Named no one, local | Named no one, software |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 11,064 | 283 | 3.8 | 0% | 0% |
| Claude | 11,064 | 366 | 3.6 | 0% | 0% |
| Gemini | 1,248 | 0 | 5.3 | 0% | 0% |
| Grok | 1,248 | 0 | 1.2 | 77% | 9% |
By country
Questions were asked in the language of each country. Pages that were not ranked count here too.
| Country | Pages | Ranked | Names per page | Named again on a rerun |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | 40 | 34 | 41 | 34% |
| United States | 260 | 260 | 37 | 36% |
| United Kingdom | 185 | 184 | 35 | 35% |
| Ireland | 60 | 60 | 31 | 38% |
| Canada | 89 | 87 | 34 | 38% |
| Australia | 110 | 110 | 36 | 34% |
| Spain | 28 | 22 | 31 | 44% |
| Mexico | 10 | 5 | 25 | 23% |
| Germany | 36 | 22 | 41 | 27% |
| Austria | 9 | 4 | 42 | 21% |
| Switzerland | 15 | 7 | 35 | 24% |
| France | 21 | 12 | 30 | 28% |
| Belgium | 12 | 8 | 32 | 25% |
| the Netherlands | 12 | 6 | 32 | 27% |
| Portugal | 6 | 4 | 35 | 18% |
| Brazil | 6 | 5 | 31 | 32% |
| Sweden | 6 | 4 | 24 | 44% |
| Denmark | 4 | 3 | 25 | 44% |
| Norway | 4 | 2 | 17 | 57% |
| Poland | 9 | 2 | 32 | 13% |
Citing this report
AIGROW, AI Visibility Report 2026, September 2026, aigrow.gg/research/ai-visibility-report-2026. The figures and the data are published under CC BY 4.0: reuse them with a link to this page.
Where do you stand in these numbers?
The free scan asks the same assistants your own customers' questions and shows who they name instead of you.
Edition September 2026 · data under CC BY 4.0