ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity named businesses in all 120 answers we collected on October 17, 2026 for Palm Beach County questions, from Boynton Beach to Jupiter, but mostly different ones. For 31% of the business names listed for a question, a second engine named the same business, and each engine cited a different mix of sources.
By Donnie Strompf. Updated October 2026.
Key takeaways
- No engine declined. All 120 answers named at least one business: 4.1 on average in ChatGPT, 5.6 in the text of Google AI Mode’s answers (a floor) and 2.7 in Perplexity.
- After merging duplicates within each question, 361 business mentions remained (328 distinct businesses across all questions). Of the 361, 31% were named by two or more engines for the same question, and 6% by all three.
- ChatGPT’s citations were 96% third-party sites, led by Expertise.com (22 of 40 answers). Perplexity cited business websites in 48% of its citations and Yelp in 31 of 40 answers.
- Google AI Mode showed Google Business Profile cards in 39 of 40 answers and linked few other sites.
- Med spa, roofer and air conditioning repair were the most consistent categories. Dentist and real estate agent were the least.
- The data is one day, one phrasing and signed-in accounts. Read it as a snapshot, then test your own category.
What did we ask, and when?
We asked every engine the same question, worded “Who is the best [category] in [city], Florida?”, and recorded each answer on October 17, 2026, between 15:45 and 17:27 UTC (about 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Eastern). That is 8 categories times 5 cities, which makes 40 questions, times 3 engines, which makes 120 answers.
- Categories: personal injury lawyer, dentist, roofer, plumber, air conditioning repair company, real estate agent, med spa and CPA.
- Cities: Boynton Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, West Palm Beach and Jupiter.
- ChatGPT: chatgpt.com, a new chat for every question, the default model with web search on. The saved record of each chat lists the model as gpt-6-thinking.
- Google AI Mode: the AI Mode tab of Google Search (the udm=50 address), a fresh search address for each of the 40 questions. No fallback to AI Overviews was needed, and Google shows no model name.
- Perplexity: perplexity.ai in default search mode, a fresh search address for each question, with no model name shown. Each answer carries a “Researched” label with a number of seconds.
All three were signed in: ChatGPT and Google to accounts of ours, and Perplexity to an account with search history. We asked one question at a time, waited for each answer to finish, never clicked an ad, and excluded sponsored blocks under Google’s answers.
We also checked every answer against our own client list. None of the 120 answers named a business on that list.
How did we count businesses and citations?
A business counted when the answer’s text named it. In Google AI Mode, a Business Profile card counted only when the text also named the business. Cards shown beside the answer and not named in the text were not always included, in about a dozen of the 40 answers, so Google’s business counts are a floor. A map widget in some Perplexity answers listed ten places, and we counted only businesses named in the text.
A citation is a domain, counted once per answer. For ChatGPT we combined the links inside the answer with its Sources panel. For Perplexity we used the full sources list, and for Google the sources panel after “Show all”.
Google labels its Business Profile cards “Google”, so we recorded them as google.com, once per answer even when five to ten cards appeared.
We sorted every cited domain into one of five groups by a fixed list, then checked the largest group by hand:
- Own site: the website of a business, whether or not it was the one recommended.
- Directories: listing and ranking sites such as Expertise.com or Justia.
- Review platforms: sites built around ratings and reviews, such as Yelp or BBB, plus Google’s Business Profile cards.
- News: newspapers and press-release sites.
- Other: social and government pages.
The line between a directory and a review platform is a judgment call.
How do the three engines answer the same question?
They differ most in how many businesses they name and how many sites they link. The table counts answers out of 40.
| Measure | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Named at least one business | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Businesses named in the text, mean per answer | 4.1 | 5.6 (floor) | 2.7 |
| Businesses named in the text, total | 163 | 224 (floor) | 108 |
| Mentioned reviews or a rating | 40 | 40 | 36 |
| Quoted a star rating or review count | 35 | 40 | 24 |
| Mentioned years in business | 10 | 19 | 23 |
| Mentioned awards or badges | 17 | 20 | 15 |
| Declined or gave only generic advice | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Answer length, mean words | 285 | 521 | 257 |
| Domains cited, mean per answer | 9.4 | 1.8 | 11.1 |
Google AI Mode’s text named more businesses and ran longer than the others, and every answer carried star ratings or review counts. Its counts are a floor, so the gap is at least this large. Perplexity named the fewest, usually one first pick with one to three alternatives.
Perplexity’s means are pulled down by its last four answers, the CPA questions for Boca Raton, Delray Beach, West Palm Beach and Jupiter. They ran 34 to 61 words and named one to three businesses each, and the “free preview of advanced search” banner had gone by then. We did not confirm why. Without those four, Perplexity’s means are 2.8 businesses and 280 words.
Which websites do the engines cite?
Eleven domains appeared in 10 or more of the 120 answers. The engine columns count answers out of 40.
| Domain | All (of 120) | ChatGPT | Google AI Mode | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| google.com | 39 | 0 | 39 | 0 |
| yelp.com | 32 | 0 | 1 | 31 |
| expertise.com | 29 | 22 | 0 | 7 |
| bbb.org | 28 | 12 | 1 | 15 |
| thumbtack.com | 23 | 15 | 0 | 8 |
| bestprosintown.com | 22 | 16 | 0 | 6 |
| angi.com | 21 | 14 | 0 | 7 |
| birdeye.com | 21 | 21 | 0 | 0 |
| homeadvisor.com | 14 | 12 | 0 | 2 |
| justia.com | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| zillow.com | 10 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
The engines drew on different sites. ChatGPT cited Yelp and Google in none of its 40 answers, and Perplexity cited Birdeye in none of its 40. Six domains were cited in at least five answers by both ChatGPT and Perplexity, among them Expertise.com and BBB.
| Engine | Most-cited domains (answers out of 40) |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | expertise.com 22, birdeye.com 21, bestprosintown.com 16, thumbtack.com 15, angi.com 14 |
| Google AI Mode | google.com 39. The other 30 domains were cited in 1 or 2 answers each. |
| Perplexity | yelp.com 31, bbb.org 15, thumbtack.com 8, then reddit.com, expertise.com and angi.com at 7 each |
Reddit appeared only in Perplexity, in 7 of its answers. Across all engines, 395 domains were cited 887 times.
What kinds of sources does each engine cite?
Grouping every citation by type shows how the engines differ. Shares are rounded, so a row can sum to 99 or 101.
| Engine | Citations | Own site | Directories | Review platforms | News | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 375 | 15 (4%) | 218 (58%) | 134 (36%) | 6 (2%) | 2 (1%) |
| Google AI Mode | 70 | 22 (31%) | 7 (10%) | 41 (59%) | 0 | 0 |
| Perplexity | 442 | 214 (48%) | 116 (26%) | 88 (20%) | 13 (3%) | 11 (2%) |
| All engines | 887 | 251 (28%) | 341 (38%) | 263 (30%) | 19 (2%) | 13 (1%) |
ChatGPT’s answers rested on ranking and listing sites, and it linked a business’s own site in 15 of 375 citations. Perplexity linked business websites in 214 of its 442 citations. Google AI Mode’s 41 review-platform citations are mostly its own Business Profile cards, with 22 links to business sites alongside.
The study shows what each engine cited, not whether a listing caused a recommendation. For what vendors document, see how AI search engines choose sources.
Do the engines recommend the same businesses?
Only in part. Two names counted as the same business when they shared a distinctive word after generic words such as law or dental, and city names, were removed, and we checked the matches by eye. Merging duplicates within each question left 361 business mentions, where one business named by two engines for the same question counts once. Merging across all 40 questions, since one firm can appear for several cities, left 328 distinct businesses.
The shares below use the 361: 112 (31%) were named by two or more engines for the same question, and 21 (6%) by all three.
At the question level the overlap is more common. For 38 of the 40 questions, at least one business was named by two engines. For 18 of 40 (45%), at least one was named by all three.
ChatGPT and Google AI Mode shared a business on 35 questions. Google AI Mode and Perplexity did on 30, and ChatGPT and Perplexity on 26.
The two questions with no overlap were both dentist questions, for Boynton Beach and Boca Raton. The table averages, across the five cities, the share of named businesses that two or more engines agreed on.
| Category | Agreement share | Questions with a 2-engine match | Questions with a 3-engine match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Med spa | 45% | 5 of 5 | 3 of 5 |
| Roofer | 43% | 5 of 5 | 3 of 5 |
| Air conditioning repair | 43% | 5 of 5 | 4 of 5 |
| CPA | 41% | 5 of 5 | 1 of 5 |
| Personal injury lawyer | 36% | 5 of 5 | 3 of 5 |
| Plumber | 24% | 5 of 5 | 2 of 5 |
| Dentist | 20% | 3 of 5 | 0 of 5 |
| Real estate agent | 19% | 5 of 5 | 2 of 5 |
The engines also differ in list length. For real estate agents, Google AI Mode’s text named 7.4 per question on average (a floor) and Perplexity 3.4, so a short Perplexity list has less chance of overlapping with a long one.
What does the data look like question by question?
This is the aggregated data behind the tables, one row per question, with no business names. Each cell reads ChatGPT / Google AI Mode / Perplexity.
| Category | City | Businesses named | Domains cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal injury lawyer | Boynton Beach | 4 / 5 / 2 | 7 / 1 / 10 |
| Personal injury lawyer | Boca Raton | 4 / 5 / 2 | 9 / 1 / 21 |
| Personal injury lawyer | Delray Beach | 3 / 5 / 2 | 11 / 1 / 16 |
| Personal injury lawyer | West Palm Beach | 3 / 9 / 3 | 15 / 1 / 13 |
| Personal injury lawyer | Jupiter | 3 / 4 / 3 | 5 / 7 / 10 |
| Dentist | Boynton Beach | 4 / 5 / 2 | 10 / 3 / 17 |
| Dentist | Boca Raton | 5 / 5 / 2 | 10 / 1 / 10 |
| Dentist | Delray Beach | 4 / 7 / 3 | 11 / 1 / 10 |
| Dentist | West Palm Beach | 5 / 7 / 1 | 11 / 1 / 10 |
| Dentist | Jupiter | 5 / 6 / 2 | 10 / 1 / 7 |
| Roofer | Boynton Beach | 3 / 4 / 3 | 6 / 2 / 9 |
| Roofer | Boca Raton | 3 / 5 / 3 | 10 / 3 / 10 |
| Roofer | Delray Beach | 4 / 5 / 1 | 12 / 1 / 9 |
| Roofer | West Palm Beach | 4 / 5 / 3 | 12 / 4 / 10 |
| Roofer | Jupiter | 4 / 5 / 2 | 10 / 1 / 9 |
| Plumber | Boynton Beach | 4 / 5 / 4 | 8 / 4 / 10 |
| Plumber | Boca Raton | 5 / 5 / 3 | 10 / 1 / 10 |
| Plumber | Delray Beach | 4 / 6 / 3 | 7 / 4 / 10 |
| Plumber | West Palm Beach | 5 / 6 / 3 | 10 / 1 / 10 |
| Plumber | Jupiter | 4 / 6 / 2 | 9 / 1 / 9 |
| Air conditioning repair company | Boynton Beach | 3 / 4 / 2 | 8 / 1 / 17 |
| Air conditioning repair company | Boca Raton | 3 / 6 / 4 | 9 / 1 / 8 |
| Air conditioning repair company | Delray Beach | 3 / 4 / 2 | 7 / 1 / 17 |
| Air conditioning repair company | West Palm Beach | 4 / 4 / 4 | 9 / 1 / 10 |
| Air conditioning repair company | Jupiter | 4 / 5 / 2 | 7 / 1 / 10 |
| Real estate agent | Boynton Beach | 8 / 6 / 4 | 7 / 1 / 10 |
| Real estate agent | Boca Raton | 4 / 5 / 3 | 10 / 1 / 10 |
| Real estate agent | Delray Beach | 4 / 9 / 3 | 8 / 1 / 4 |
| Real estate agent | West Palm Beach | 4 / 8 / 3 | 10 / 1 / 7 |
| Real estate agent | Jupiter | 4 / 9 / 4 | 13 / 1 / 9 |
| Med spa | Boynton Beach | 3 / 5 / 4 | 16 / 3 / 15 |
| Med spa | Boca Raton | 4 / 4 / 3 | 10 / 1 / 18 |
| Med spa | Delray Beach | 3 / 5 / 3 | 9 / 1 / 17 |
| Med spa | West Palm Beach | 5 / 4 / 5 | 9 / 1 / 18 |
| Med spa | Jupiter | 5 / 6 / 4 | 8 / 2 / 16 |
| CPA | Boynton Beach | 6 / 6 / 3 | 8 / 6 / 8 |
| CPA | Boca Raton | 4 / 5 / 1 | 8 / 1 / 5 |
| CPA | Delray Beach | 3 / 5 / 1 | 10 / 2 / 8 |
| CPA | West Palm Beach | 6 / 8 / 3 | 8 / 1 / 7 |
| CPA | Jupiter | 3 / 6 / 1 | 8 / 2 / 8 |
What are the limits of this study?
These limits apply to every number above:
- One day, one phrasing, no repeats. Every answer comes from a single day, and every question used the same “best” wording. No question was run more than once, so we cannot say how much answers change from day to day.
- Signed-in accounts. History or memory may have shaped some answers, and a signed-out visitor may see different ones.
- Perplexity’s mode. Its last four answers, the CPA questions, were much shorter, so its means may understate its usual output.
- Place cards. Google AI Mode’s business counts cover businesses named in the text, and some cards shown beside the answer were left out in about a dozen answers, so they are a floor. Its domain counts record the cards as one google.com citation per answer. Neither measure compares directly with the other engines.
- Pattern matching. The flags for years in business, for awards and for star ratings came from text patterns on the saved answers, and we did not read all 120 by hand.
- Source groups. We sorted domains by a fixed list, and a domain missing from the list defaults to “own site”. We checked that group by hand and moved one regional guide to directories.
- Name matching. A firm named after a person in one answer and by firm name in another could be missed.
- Scope. Eight categories in five Palm Beach County cities. The study does not rate whether any recommended business is good.
What should a local business owner take from this?
Check how your business appears in each engine’s answer for your category and city. When someone asks ChatGPT who to call, the business it names is the one that gets searched next. We do AI visibility alongside SEO, never instead of it. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,227 US consumers who had searched online for a local business found that 31% use AI tools for local business recommendations at least monthly, a figure we also list on our local marketing statistics page.
The engines cited different sources, so the same step may not help in all three. This study cannot show which changes improve a business’s chance of being named:
- For ChatGPT, look at how your business appears on the directory and review sites in the tables above, and whether your name and address match across them. Our guide to business listings beyond Google covers the main ones.
- For Google AI Mode, the Business Profile cards were in 39 of 40 answers, so your profile and your reviews are what a searcher sees first.
- For Perplexity, business websites made up nearly half of citations, so the pages on your own site matter there.
Run the same test for your own category. Ask each engine your own question in your own city, in a new chat each time, and save the names and links with the date. Repeat it on another day. The step-by-step method is in our guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, and what answer engine optimization is explains the term.
I’m Donnie Strompf, and Good At Marketing sells AI visibility work through its AEO services, so we have an interest in this topic. Fees are listed on the pricing page. The search fundamentals behind every engine are in the SEO guide.
For what AI visibility work costs, see our guide to what AEO costs. If an answer about your business is wrong, read How to fix wrong information about your business in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.
Good At Marketing is based in Boynton Beach and works with businesses across Palm Beach County.
How to cite this study
Cite as: Good At Marketing, “What AI Recommends for Local Services in Palm Beach County: A 120-Answer Study,” data collected October 17, 2026, https://goodatmarketing.com/what-ai-recommends-for-local-services-in-palm-beach-county/. Quote figures with the date and the 120-answer sample.
FAQ
Can I quote these numbers in my own article?
You can, with credit and a link to this page. Include the collection date and say the figures come from 120 answers to one question wording in five Palm Beach County cities. Do not present them as a measure of how AI engines behave everywhere.
Does being named first mean a business is the best?
No. The study counted which businesses were named and which sites were cited. It did not check service quality, prices or outcomes, and the question asked for “the best,” which invites a short list. A mention shows visibility on that day and nothing more.
Why did Google AI Mode cite so few domains?
Most of its answers showed Business Profile cards, which we recorded as one google.com citation per answer. The cards appeared in 39 of 40 answers, usually five to ten at a time. Business websites showed up as extra links in only some answers, so its domain count looks small beside the other two.
Will the answers be the same next month?
We cannot say, because we ran each question once. AI answers are generated fresh and sources can change between runs. If you test your own category, repeat the same wording on different days, keep each answer with its date, and compare the names and links before drawing a conclusion.
Where are the business names?
They are not published here. The answers name private businesses, and this study is about patterns, so the page shows counts and shares only. The table above has the per-question numbers, and the method section gives the exact wording, so you can run the same questions yourself.
Does this study tell me how to get recommended?
It tells you where each engine looked on October 17, 2026. It does not show what caused any business to be named, and nobody can promise a mention. For practical steps, use the guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, then book the free audit if you want a second look.
Related reading
- Does AI Make Mistakes in Digital Marketing? A Channel-by-Channel Reality Check
- Can you pay to be recommended by ChatGPT or Google AI answers?
- Which AI crawlers to allow in robots.txt, and whether llms.txt does anything
Next step
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