Does this look the same in every market?

No. Across the 6 markets measured, the share of businesses no AI engine named ranged from 91.4% to 100%. Google rank counts for more in some markets than others. Every market's own numbers are published on its own page rather than folded into the average.

The Local AI Visibility Index

Foundation Repair across 6 US markets

We measured every Foundation Repair business Google Maps returns in 6 markets — 349 businesses in total — then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 customer questions in each one and recorded who got named.

Businesses: 349
Markets: 6
Questions: 10 per market
Engines: 5
Measured: July 2026

92.6%

of the best-reviewed Foundation Repair businesses across 6 markets were named by no AI answer engine at all.

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 10.1% of AI answers. Measured across 349 foundation repairs in 6 markets: across the best-ranked 10% by map position, an AI engine named them in 10.1% 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.

Google Maps rank vs getting named — all 6 markets combined
Where they rank on Google Maps	Named by AI	Share
The 1st third — best ranked on Maps	13 of 116	11.2%
The middle third	1 of 116	0.9%
The bottom third	3 of 117	2.6%

Finding 02

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

In the average local market, three businesses take 95.6% of everything AI answer engines say. Measured across 349 foundation repairs in 6 markets: the three most-named businesses in each market got 95.6% of all the mentions, and everyone else split what was left.

Finding 03

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

92.6% of the best-reviewed local businesses are never named by an AI answer engine. Measured across 349 foundation repairs in 6 markets: among the top half by Google rank, star rating and review count combined, 92.6% 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 349 foundation repairs 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 +0.302, star rating +0.028, 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 349 foundation repairs in 6 markets: asked the same questions, any two engines agreed on somewhere between 31.2% and 60.0% 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 31, Gemini named 26, Google AI Overview named 25, ChatGPT named 12, Claude named 11.

Of the 37 businesses named by any of the three, all three agreed on 10.

How often two engines named the same business
Engine pair	Agreed on
Perplexity & Google AI Overview	60.0%
Gemini & Perplexity	58.3%
Gemini & Google AI Overview	54.5%
ChatGPT & Gemini	35.7%
ChatGPT & Claude	35.3%
ChatGPT & Perplexity	34.4%
Claude & Google AI Overview	33.3%
ChatGPT & Google AI Overview	32.1%
Claude & Gemini	32.1%
Claude & Perplexity	31.2%

How much does this vary between markets?

Substantially. The share of businesses no engine named ranged from 91.4% to 100% across the 6 markets measured. These markets do not agree with each other, and a combined average would hide that, so every market’s own figures are published on its own page, computed from that market alone.

Per-market results — 349 businesses across 6 markets
Market	Businesses	Never named	Top 3 took
Phoenix, AZ	86	94.2%	90.8%
Savannah, GA	72	94.4%	90.2%
Philadelphia, PA	64	96.9%	100%
Peoria, IL	58	91.4%	96.9%
Bend, OR	54	100%	0%
Mansfield, OH	15	93.3%	100%

How we measured it

In each of 6 markets we pulled every Foundation Repair business Google Maps returns, then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 customer questions and recorded which ones each engine named. The questions were held identical across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overview, and a business with more than one listing is counted once per market.

Sample: 349 businesses across 6 markets: Bend, OR; Mansfield, OH; Peoria, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Savannah, GA. A business with more than one listing is counted once per market. 8 listings that share the websites of 4 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.

For anyone who wants the statistics

The findings above are counts, which is how most people want to read them. Here are the same relationships as correlations, across all 349 businesses.

Reputation signals vs getting named — 349 businesses
What we measured	How closely it tracked	What that means
Google Maps rank	−0.217	A slight connection
Review count	+0.302	A slight connection
Star rating	+0.028	No connection

Reading the middle column: 0.0 means the two things had nothing to do with each other. 1.0 would mean they moved together perfectly. A minus sign means they moved in opposite directions. Anything under about 0.2 either way is noise.