How does ChatGPT decide which local businesses to recommend?
Updated October 15, 2026
OpenAI doesn't publish the method, so nobody outside it knows exactly. What you can see is that with web search on, ChatGPT reads pages about your trade and city and names the businesses those pages agree on, usually only a few per answer. Listings, reviews, roundup articles and pages that answer the exact question all feed that.
Training data or a live search?
An assistant can answer from what it learned in training, or search the web first and answer from what it finds. Training data is a snapshot taken months before you ask, so it can name businesses that have moved or closed and miss new ones entirely.
When ChatGPT searches, it shows the sources it used, and so does Perplexity. Those sources are the most useful thing you can study, because they show you which pages the answer leaned on. ChatGPT's search has been reported to draw on Bing's index, which is why we suggest claiming Bing Places alongside your Google profile.
What kinds of pages does it lean on?
Read the citations for a few questions about your trade in your city and a pattern shows up quickly. Directory and review sites like Yelp, the Better Business Bureau and trade-specific ones. Best-in-city roundup articles. Forum threads where someone asked for a recommendation. And the businesses' own pages, when a page answers the question asked.
The common thread is corroboration. A business mentioned by several independent pages is an easier name to give than one that only describes itself.
How many businesses make the cut?
Very few per answer. In our Richardson, TX accountant study (September 7, 2026), the four assistants made 628 recommendations across 192 answers, about 3.2 businesses per answer on average.
Recommendations also bunch up. Across our 23 published city studies, the five most-named firms in each city took between 13% and 41% of all recommendations. The rest were spread thinly across everyone else.
Why does the same question get a different answer?
AI answers are generated fresh each time, so two runs of the same question can name different businesses. Small wording changes move the list too: "best", "cheapest" and "who handles X" each pull back different names.
That's why one check tells you little. A count across many questions and several runs, compared over time, is what carries information.
Do Claude, Gemini and Perplexity decide the same way?
No, and their answers show it. Each has its own search setup and its own training data. Gemini can draw on Google's own data, including Search and Maps.
In our studies, 83% of the firms named in a city were named by only one of the four assistants. Being recommended by ChatGPT says little about the other three, in either direction.
What can you influence?
Everything the assistants read about you, which is most of it:
- Whether AI crawlers may read your site (robots.txt).
- Your Google Business Profile, Bing Places listing and reviews.
- Your listings on the directories your trade uses, kept consistent.
- A page on your site for each question buyers ask, answered plainly near the top.
- Mentions on roundups, forums and local press that the assistants cite.
Check your business for free
Enter your website. We ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers ask and email you who they recommend.
Common questions
Does ChatGPT use Google reviews?
Not directly as far as anyone can see, but reviews show up on many of the pages it reads, and Google profiles appear across the web. Gemini is the assistant most closely tied to Google's own data. A well-reviewed profile helps across all four.
Does ChatGPT recommend businesses that pay for ads?
There's no published way to pay for a place in the recommendation itself. The businesses it names are the ones the pages it reads agree on.
Does my website's SEO affect ChatGPT?
Partly. A page that ranks well and answers a question clearly is easier for an assistant to find and quote. But assistants also lean heavily on what other sites say about you, which a ranking report won't show.
Why does ChatGPT give my competitor's old phone number?
It's repeating a source, usually an outdated listing or an answer from training data. Keeping your own details identical across every listing is the best defence against that happening to you.