Hand Surgery across 6 US markets

Finding 01

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

The 8 best-ranked businesses on Google Maps still showed up in only 32.1% of AI answers. Measured across 81 hand surgeons in 6 markets — every one Google Maps returned: across the 8 best-ranked by map position, an AI engine named them in 32.1% 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.

Finding 02

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

29 of the 42 best-reviewed businesses in this category were named by no AI answer engine. Measured across 81 hand surgeons in 6 markets — every one Google Maps returned: among the top half by Google rank, star rating and review count combined, 29 of 42 show up in Google Maps but were named in none of the AI answers about their own category.

Finding 03

Do different AI answer engines recommend the same businesses?

No two AI answer engines recommended the same businesses in this category. Measured across 81 hand surgeons in 6 markets — every one Google Maps returned: asked the same questions, the closest any two engines came to agreeing was 18 of the 22 businesses either of them 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 24, Perplexity named 21, Google AI Overview named 19, ChatGPT named 18, Claude named 7.

How much does this vary between markets?

Substantially. The share of practices no engine named ranged from 0% to 86.5% 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 Hand Surgery practice Google Maps returns, then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 patient questions and recorded which ones each engine named.

Sample

81 practices across 6 markets: Binghamton, NY; Corpus Christi, TX; Johnson City, TN; Parkersburg, WV; Port St. Lucie, FL; Winchester, VA. A practice with more than one listing is counted once per market. 176 listings that share the websites of 25 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 patient 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

This is a small category: the 6 markets measured hold 81 practices between them, and that is every one Google Maps returned. Findings on this page are stated as counts of that universe rather than percentage-led claims, because at this size one practice moves a percentage by several points. Top-three concentration and review-correlation findings are not reported below 150 practices; a combined page still requires at least 3 markets, 30 practices, and a usable reading for at least half of them.

Scope

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