Does this look the same in every market?

No. Across the 6 markets measured, the share of businesses no AI engine named ranged from 59.3% to 87.9%. 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

Hair Salons & Barbershops across 6 US markets

We measured every Hair Salons & Barbershops business Google Maps returns in 6 markets — 255 businesses in total — then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 customer questions in each one and recorded who got named.

Businesses: 255
Markets: 6
Questions: 10 per market
Engines: 5
Measured: July 2026

72.7%

of the best-reviewed Hair Salons & Barbershops 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 9.4% of AI answers. Measured across 255 hair salons and barbershops in 6 markets: across the best-ranked 10% by map position, an AI engine named them in 9.4% 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	29 of 85	34.1%
The middle third	22 of 85	25.9%
The bottom third	7 of 85	8.2%

Finding 02

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

In the average local market, three businesses take 61.0% of everything AI answer engines say. Measured across 255 hair salons and barbershops in 6 markets: the three most-named businesses in each market got 61.0% of all the mentions, and everyone else split what was left.

Finding 03

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

72.7% of the best-reviewed local businesses are never named by an AI answer engine. Measured across 255 hair salons and barbershops in 6 markets: among the top half by Google rank, star rating and review count combined, 72.7% 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 255 hair salons and barbershops 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 +0.200, star rating -0.086, 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 255 hair salons and barbershops in 6 markets: asked the same questions, any two engines agreed on somewhere between 22.1% and 44.9% 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: Gemini named 95, Perplexity named 76, Google AI Overview named 66, Claude named 43, ChatGPT named 36.

Of the 122 businesses named by any of the three, all three agreed on 25.

How often two engines named the same business
Engine pair	Agreed on
Gemini & Perplexity	44.9%
Perplexity & Google AI Overview	42.0%
Claude & Google AI Overview	39.7%
Gemini & Google AI Overview	38.8%
Claude & Perplexity	38.4%
ChatGPT & Google AI Overview	34.2%
ChatGPT & Gemini	32.3%
ChatGPT & Perplexity	28.7%
ChatGPT & Claude	27.4%
Claude & Gemini	22.1%

How much does this vary between markets?

Substantially. The share of businesses no engine named ranged from 59.3% to 87.9% across the 6 markets measured. Every market’s own figures are published on its own page, computed from that market alone.

Per-market results — 255 businesses across 6 markets
Market	Businesses	Never named	Top 3 took
San Jose, CA	58	87.9%	74.8%
Napa, CA	54	77.8%	84.1%
Winston-Salem, NC	54	81.5%	44.4%
Hammond, LA	35	77.1%	59.9%
Ames, IA	27	63%	50.6%
Battle Creek, MI	27	59.3%	52.2%

How we measured it

In each of 6 markets we pulled every Hair Salons & Barbershops business Google Maps returns, then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 customer questions and recorded which ones each engine named.

Sample: 255 businesses across 6 markets: Ames, IA; Battle Creek, MI; Hammond, LA; Napa, CA; San Jose, CA; Winston-Salem, NC. A business with more than one listing is counted once per market. 26 listings that share the websites of 9 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 255 businesses.

Reputation signals vs getting named — 255 businesses
What we measured	How closely it tracked	What that means
Google Maps rank	−0.276	A slight connection
Review count	+0.2	A slight connection
Star rating	−0.086	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.