Do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity recommend the same businesses?

No. Asked the same questions about Pain Management (Interventional) in Santa Fe, the closest any two engines came to agreeing was 71.4% of the practices they named (Gemini & Perplexity), and the furthest apart agreed on just 33.3% (ChatGPT & Google AI Overview). Perplexity named 7, Gemini named 5, Google AI Overview named 5, ChatGPT named 3, Claude named 3.

The Local AI Visibility Index

Santa Fe Pain Management (Interventional)

Q: Does ranking well on Google mean AI recommends you?

It helps, and it is not enough. Of the 11 best-ranked Pain Management (Interventional) practices in Santa Fe, 4 were named by an AI answer engine — 36.4%. Of the 12 ranked lowest, 0 were. The single most-named practice ranked 2nd on Maps, coming up in 40% of the 50 answers collected.

Q: How many local businesses actually appear in AI answers?

Very few. Of 34 Pain Management (Interventional) practices measured in Santa Fe, 5 were named at least once and 29 were never named. The three most-named practices took 80% of every mention in the market.

Q: Are the best-reviewed local businesses visible in AI answers?

Often not. Take the 8 strongest practices in Santa Fe — the top 25% once you combine Google rank, star rating and number of reviews — and 7 of them (87.5%) were named by no AI engine at all.

Q: Do Google reviews affect whether AI recommends you?

Not the way you would expect. In Santa Fe the practices AI engines named average 4.1 stars, while the ones named by no engine average 4.72. The better-rated practices are the ones being left out.

We asked 5 AI answer engines 10 questions a prospective patient would actually ask, then measured which of the market’s 34 practices got named. 29 of them never came up once.

Market: Santa Fe, NM
Practices: 34
Questions: 10
Engines: 5
Measured: July 2026

Every practice in the market · one dot each · ordered by Google Maps rank · lit = named by at least one engine

Named by AI — 5 practicesNever named — 29 practices

85.3%

of Pain Management (Interventional) practices in Santa Fe were named in none of the 50 AI answers we collected.

Finding 01

Does ranking well on Google mean AI recommends you?

It helps, and it is nowhere near enough. Of the 11 best-ranked practices in Santa Fe, 4 got named by an AI engine — 36.4%. Of the 12 ranked lowest, 0 did. The single most-named practice in this market ranked 2nd on Maps, coming up in 40% of answers.

Google rank and AI answers are decided by two different systems looking at different things. Your map position comes from how close you are, what category you are in, and how people engage with your listing. Whether an AI names you depends on whether it can find, read and trust a description of your practice in the sources it pulls from. Ranking first buys you better odds. It does not buy you the answer.

Google Maps rank vs getting named — Santa Fe
Where they rank on Google Maps	Named by AI	Share
The 1st third — best ranked on Maps	4 of 11	36.4%
The middle third	1 of 11	9.1%
The bottom third	0 of 12	0%

Finding 02

How many local businesses actually appear in AI answers?

Very few, and the ones that do take most of it. Of 34 practices measured, 5 were named at least once and 29 were never named. The three most-named practices took 80% of every mention in the market.

The most-named practice came up in 40% of answers; the fourth came up in 18%; everything below that was 2% or less. A short shelf at the top, and a long floor underneath it.

Practice A40%

Practice B22%

Practice C18%

Practice D18%

Practice E2%

29 practices0%

Bar length is the share of all 50 answers, so a full bar would mean every answer named them.

Practice A is one organization — 14 Google Maps listings that share its website, counted once because AI engines cite the organization’s site rather than any individual listing.

Finding 03

Are the best-reviewed practices invisible to AI?

Often, yes. Take the 8 strongest practices in Santa Fe — the top 25% once you combine Google rank, star rating and number of reviews — and 7 were never named by any engine. That is 87.5% of the best practices in town, missing from every answer.

One of them ranks 7th on Maps with 4.2 stars, and was named zero times across all 50 answers. One of them ranks 11th on Maps with 5.0 stars, and was named zero times across all 50 answers. Their patients rate them highly and Google ranks them well. The AI engines do not know they exist.

Why this matters more than who came first. The practices at the top of this market are already competitive. The practices with the most to gain are the 7 practices that earned a top-25% reputation and get none of the benefit of it in AI answers.

Finding 04

Do Google reviews affect whether AI recommends you?

Not the way you would expect. In Santa Fe the practices AI named average 4.10 stars, and the ones it never named average 4.72 stars. The better-rated practices are the ones getting left out.

5 practices here were named by at least one engine, rating between 2.0 and 4.9 stars. 29 were named by none, rating between 3.6 and 5.0. The two groups overlap, and the better-rated group is the one being left out.

Reviews do real work in the map pack and in how patients choose. This measures something narrower: whether they are what makes an AI say your name. In Santa Fe the answer is what the numbers above say it is, and it is not the same answer in every market we measured.

Finding 05

Do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity recommend the same practices?

No. Asked the same questions about the same market, the closest any two engines came to agreeing was 71.4% of thepractices they named — and the furthest apart pair agreed on just 33.3%.

Each engine surfaced a different slice of the market: Perplexity named 7, Gemini named 5, Google AI Overview named 5, ChatGPT named 3, Claude named 3. Showing up in one does not mean showing up in the others, so checking yourself against a single assistant tells you very little.

Of the 7 practices named by any of the three, all three agreed on 2.

How often two engines named the same business
Engine pair	Agreed on
Gemini & Perplexity	71.4%
Perplexity & Google AI Overview	71.4%
Gemini & Google AI Overview	66.7%
Claude & Gemini	60.0%
Claude & Google AI Overview	60.0%
ChatGPT & Claude	50.0%
ChatGPT & Perplexity	42.9%
Claude & Perplexity	42.9%
ChatGPT & Gemini	33.3%
ChatGPT & Google AI Overview	33.3%

How we measured it

We pulled every Pain Management (Interventional) practice Google Maps returns for Santa Fe — 34 of them, after combining duplicate listings of the same practice — then asked 5 AI answer engines the same 10 patient questions and recorded which ones each engine named.

Who is in it: 34 practices, from everything Google Maps returns for "pain management" in Santa Fe, NM. A practice with more than one listing is counted once. 14 listings that share one organization's website are counted as that organization, because AI engines cite the organization's site rather than any individual listing.
What we asked: 10 questions a patient would actually ask, kept identical across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview. 50 answers in total, July 2026.
How we scored it: The share of answers that named or cited a practice, weighted by how many people use the engine that named it.
How we ranked reputation: Google Maps position, star rating adjusted for how many reviews back it up, and review count on a sliding scale that levels off around a thousand.
Scope: One market, one category. Every number on this page describes Santa Fe and comes from that market alone — results differ between markets and we do not carry them across. We never name individual practices. AI engines change over time; this describes 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, for readers who prefer them.

Reputation signals vs getting named — 34 practices
What we measured	How closely it tracked	What that means
Google Maps rank	−0.434	A clear connection
Review count	−0.192	No real connection
Star rating	−0.614	A strong 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.