Many brands that perform well in traditional local searches fail to appear in results from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, according to SOCi’s recently released 2026 local visibility index.
- Also of note: business profile information was only about 68% accurate on ChatGPT and Perplexity, compared to 100% accuracy on Gemini, based on Google Maps.
AI limits visibility. Performance data from nearly 350,000 locations across 2,751 multi-location brands was analyzed to measure how often locations are featured or recommended by AI assistants. It turns out that AI platforms are more selective than Google’s local results:
- 1.2% of sites are recommended by ChatGPT, 11% by Gemini, and 7.4% by Perplexity.
- By comparison, brands appeared in the 3-pack of Google’s site 35.9% of the time.
- AI visibility is three to 30 times harder to achieve than ranking well in traditional local search, SOCi estimates.
The visibility of AI and Google is different. Across all industries, less than half of the top brands in Google’s location visibility also appear among the top brands in AI results.
- In retail, only 45% of the top 20 brands by traditional local search visibility overlapped with the top 20 brands most recommended by AI.
Why do we care. Google’s strong local ranking does not guarantee visibility in AI-powered recommendations. Your brand data, reputation, and content must be compatible with the wider ecosystem that AI systems rely on (Google Maps, Yelp, Facebook, brand websites, and other trusted sources). They filter hard and like places with accurate data, strong emotions, and clear distinctions. That’s a big change – from doing well to getting a degree.
AI likes businesses with high leverage. AI recommendations always favor businesses with above-average sentiment, treating reviews as a filter rather than a quality signal.
- Sites recommended by ChatGPT have an average of 4.3 stars, compared to 3.9 stars for Gemini and 4.1 stars for Perplexity, according to SOCi.
- In a typical local search, businesses with average or moderate ratings may rank based on proximity and category relevance. In AI-driven outcomes, SOCi found those same areas are often completely excluded, as AI systems prioritize confidence and risk reduction more broadly.
The impact varies by sector. The limitations of AI visibility vary widely by sector:
- Selling: Less than half of the top local search results (45%) were referred to AI recommendations. Sam’s Club and Aldi beat expectations, while Target and Batteries Plus Bulbs slipped. The gap shows that AI prefers consistent, reliable signals across platforms.
- Restaurants: Visibility is concentrated in a small group of leaders. Culver’s benchmarks beat class, achieving AI recommendation rates of 30.0% on ChatGPT and 45.8% on Gemini. Strong measurements and perfect profiles drive this performance. Brands with weak data and intuition often failed to emerge from AI recommendations at all.
- Financial services: After improving profile coverage, ratings, and data accuracy, Liberty Tax achieved 68.3% visibility on Google’s local 3-pack and was recommended 19.2% of the time on Gemini and 26.9% on Perplexity, above category benchmarks.
- Poorly performing financial products with low profile accuracy, average ratings close to 3.4 stars, and a review response rate of less than 5% were not effectively reflected in AI recommendations. The weak core now translates directly into AI invisibility, found SOCi.
Report. Local Visibility Index 2026 (registration required)
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