Cabinet Makers / Refinishing across 6 US markets

Finding 01

How often do the best-ranked local businesses show up in AI answers?

The businesses ranked highest on Google Maps still show up in only 11.9% of AI answers. Measured across 158 cabinet makers in 6 markets: across the best-ranked 10% by map position, an AI engine named them in 11.9% of the answers about their own category.

Ranking well clearly helps. It is also clearly not the thing that decides it — most of the best-ranked businesses across these 6 markets still never came up. And this is an average of markets that do not agree with each other: rank counted for more in the smaller markets we measured than in the larger ones.

Finding 02

How much of the AI answers do a handful of businesses take?

In the average local market, three businesses take 91.9% of everything AI answer engines say. Measured across 158 cabinet makers in 6 markets: the three most-named businesses in each market got 91.9% of all the mentions, and everyone else split what was left.

Finding 03

Are the best-reviewed local businesses named by AI answer engines?

84.8% of the best-reviewed local businesses are never named by an AI answer engine. Measured across 158 cabinet makers in 6 markets: among the top half by Google rank, star rating and review count combined, 84.8% show up in Google Maps but were named in none of the AI answers about their own category.

Finding 04

Do Google reviews decide whether AI names a business?

Google reviews do not decide whether AI answer engines name a business. Measured across 158 cabinet makers in 6 markets: neither the number of reviews nor the star rating tracked with getting named — both came out close enough to zero to mean nothing (review count -0.071, star rating +0.107, on a scale where 1.0 would be a perfect match).

Finding 05

Do different AI answer engines recommend the same businesses?

No two AI answer engines recommend the same local businesses. Measured across 158 cabinet makers in 6 markets: asked the same questions, any two engines agreed on somewhere between 11.5% and 58.6% of the businesses they named — so being named by one is no guarantee of being named by the others.

Across every market combined, each engine named a different share of the businesses measured: Perplexity named 27, Gemini named 26, Google AI Overview named 19, ChatGPT named 10, Claude named 6.

How much does this vary between markets?

Substantially. The share of businesses no engine named ranged from 66.7% to 100% across the 6 markets measured. Every market’s own figures are published on its own page, computed from that market alone.

How we measured it

In each of 6 markets we pulled every Cabinet Makers / Refinishing business Google Maps returns, then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 customer questions and recorded which ones each engine named.

Sample

158 businesses across 6 markets: Chico, CA; Elmira, NY; Florence, SC; Providence, RI; Staunton, VA; Virginia Beach, VA. A business with more than one listing is counted once per market. 6 listings that share the websites of 3 organizations are counted as those organizations, because AI engines cite an organization's site rather than any individual listing.

Market selection

The 6 markets were picked before any measuring started — deliberately spread across large, medium and small cities and across the country — and every market we opened is reported here, including the ones that came back less interesting.

Collection

10 customer questions per market, held identical across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview. 50 answers per market, July 2026.

Visibility

Share of answers naming or citing a practice, weighted by the reach of the engine that named it.

What we will and will not publish

A combined number only goes up when it covers at least 3 markets and 150 businesses, with a usable reading for at least half of them. Where markets disagree with each other, we publish the range as well as the average rather than hiding it.

Scope

One category, 6 US markets. Practices are never named. Answer engines change over time; these figures describe July 2026.