How ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude Pick Local Businesses: A Test
We asked the AI assistants the questions a business owner asks when looking for a marketing agency around Atlanta, while logged out, and recorded every business they named and every source they cited. Three patterns decided almost every answer: star ratings for city questions, published comparison pages for category questions, and a plain statement of what a business does for attribute questions.
Engage Ads ran this test and is one of the agencies being judged, which is why the method and the misses are published in full. We were named in 1 of 8 ChatGPT questions.
How the test worked
- Date: 24 September 2026, all runs logged out so no account history could skew them.
- ChatGPT: 8 buyer questions with web search on.
- Perplexity: 7 of the same questions.
- Claude: Claude's web search runs on Brave Search, so we recorded Brave's top results for 4 questions.
- Gemini and Copilot: both required a sign-in for these questions, so they are not included.
What ChatGPT named
| Question | Businesses named | Where the answer came from |
|---|---|---|
| Best marketing agency in Gwinnett County GA | The Edge Agency, Force Media, BestLyfe Group, Grapevine Marketing, Barta Media Group, i800services | Map listings with ratings; Guide to Gwinnett; engageads.io |
| Best digital marketing agency in Duluth GA | Barta Media Group, ariMarketing, i800services, Salelynn Marketing | Agency websites; topseos.com |
| Marketing agency in Suwanee GA | The Edge Agency, Twenty Five Marketing, Silver Web Solutions, Suwanee Digital, Visual Vybz Studios | Guide to Gwinnett; agency websites |
| Flat monthly fee agency near Atlanta | Credible Visibility, Lets Run Local, BriteBuzz, K3 Marketing, SevenWired, GrossiWeb | Agency pricing pages; PPC Chief |
| Agency to get my business recommended by ChatGPT (Atlanta) | Relevance Advisors, YEAH! Local, WISLR, iORSO, Searched Marketing, Mindflow Marketing, Mulder Agency | Other agencies' own comparison posts, including engageads.io |
| Best dental marketing agency in Atlanta | Flow New Patient Marketing, Amplify360, YEAH! Local, Medikkare, Data Driven Marketing Group, Twig Dental Marketing | Dental marketing publishers and agency blogs |
| Best HVAC and home services marketing agency in Georgia | All Contractor, Team Genius Marketing, Marketing Vines, Nelly IS Marketing, IQ Contractor Marketing, Aletheia Digital | Agency blogs and contractor marketing sites |
| Best med spa marketing agency in Atlanta | Visual Vybz Studios, Intrepy, Cardinal Digital Marketing, DGM Global, CTRLClick Advertising, Engage Ads | Med spa marketing publishers; agency sites; engageads.io |
What Brave (and so Claude) shows first
| Question | Top result domains, in order |
|---|---|
| Best marketing agency in Gwinnett County GA | yelp.com, engageads.io, guidetogwinnett.com, intersearchmedia.com, makeitloud.net, web.gwinnettchamber.org |
| Digital marketing agency Duluth GA | ezmarketing.com, yelp.com, kwsmdigital.com, makeitloud.net, guidetogwinnett.com |
| Best med spa marketing agency Atlanta | pilotpractice.com, engageads.io, webtonic.io, thriveagency.com, youtube.com, reddit.com |
| AEO agency Atlanta | agencyaeo.com, answermaniac.ai, getcito.com, youtube.com, linkedin.com, iorso.com, wislr.com |
Finding 1: city questions are won with reviews
For best-of-city questions, ChatGPT opened with a map of local listings carrying star ratings, then built its list from them. In Gwinnett it led with The Edge Agency (5.0 from 65 reviews) and Force Media (5.0 from 53). In Suwanee, three agencies share one office building, and the two with reviews were named while the one without was not. Perplexity quoted review counts and years in business straight from comparison pages.
Finding 2: category questions are won with published pages
For questions about a category, such as AI search agencies or flat-fee pricing, ChatGPT cited agencies' own comparison posts and pricing pages rather than directories. Businesses were named for exactly what their pages said: a published flat fee, a named specialty, a stated method.
Finding 3: say what you are best for, or someone else will
Our own comparison posts were cited as sources by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Brave, and were used to recommend other agencies, because they listed us honestly as new with no reviews and never said what we are the right choice for. The one page that did say it, our med spa comparison, got us named by ChatGPT: it suggested interviewing CTRLClick, Visual Vybz and Engage Ads.
Finding 4: local guides and Yelp carry weight
Guide to Gwinnett, a county business directory with an annual Best of Gwinnett award, was cited twice by ChatGPT and ranked in Brave's top results for two questions. ChatGPT also mentioned Best of Gwinnett recognition when describing one agency. Yelp led Brave's results for two of four local questions.
Finding 5: Claude sees an older, smaller web
Brave had indexed only a handful of pages from our own site and still showed our home page with a title from months earlier. For AI-search questions, LinkedIn and YouTube posts ranked in Brave's top results alongside agency sites, which makes them a practical way to reach Claude's index.
What a local business should do with this
- Get a verified Google Business Profile and a steady flow of reviews. City questions start there.
- Publish plain pages that state your service, city, price model and who you are best for.
- Get listed on the local guides the assistants cite, such as Guide to Gwinnett, and on Yelp.
- If you publish a comparison, say clearly which need you are the best fit for, with a fact to back it.
- Post your expertise on LinkedIn and YouTube, which Brave and so Claude pick up.
- Re-run the same questions logged out every month. Use our 25-prompt test.
Common questions
Does ChatGPT use Google reviews to pick local businesses?
For best-of-city questions, ChatGPT opened with a map of local listings showing star ratings and review counts, and every business it named in our three city questions had a rating of 4.8 or higher where one was shown. A business with no reviews was not named in any of them.
What search index does Claude use?
Claude's web search is built on Brave Search, so a page Brave has not indexed, or has indexed with an old title, is invisible or out of date to Claude. We used Brave's top results as the proxy for what Claude can see.
How do you get named by ChatGPT for a specific service?
State the attribute plainly on your own site: the service, the city, the price model and who it is for. In our test ChatGPT named businesses for exactly those attributes, often quoting their own pages, and it pulled category answers from published comparison pages.
Related: how to get recommended by AI assistants, is AI search sending you leads? and our August 95-check study.
