What 57,000+ AI-cited sources say about local AI search.
Most AI visibility services sell a dashboard and keep their data to themselves. This is ours: what ChatGPT and Gemini actually read and cite when someone asks for a local business, measured across 1,300+ UK businesses. It changed how we work.
- UK businesses audited
- 1,300+
- UK towns
- nearly 300
- sources ChatGPT and Gemini cited in their answers
- 57,000+
What we did
We audited 1,300+ UK local businesses in nearly 300 towns, mainly plumbers, driving instructors, locksmiths, electricians and accountants. For each one we asked ChatGPT and Gemini (plus Google's AI Overview where Google showed one) the questions their customers actually ask, recorded which businesses got named, and logged every source the engines cited: 57,000+ of them, each tied to a trade and a town. Counted 23 October 2026: distinct UK business audits with AI answers from ChatGPT and Gemini. These are our own measurements, not a vendor's whitepaper.
Last updated
Read the measurement methodology for the definitions and limitations behind these figures. If you want to apply the same measured approach to your business, see our AI visibility service.
Findable also has practical guidance for electricians, locksmiths and plumbers, based on the wider local-business research rather than trade-wide guarantees.
Example record
Illustrative
Question
“Who’s a reliable locksmith in Canterbury?”
- Trade
- Locksmith
- Town
- Canterbury
- Engine
- ChatGPT
- Business named?
- Yes No
- recorded for every answer
- Source cited
- A trade directory listing
- Source type: directory
How to read these numbers
In this research, a business is named when it appears as a business recommendation in an answer to one of the measured customer questions. A citation is a source the engine returned or relied on while producing that answer. Being listed on a source means the business is present there; it does not by itself mean the business was named. These are observational measurements, not a claim that one factor causes an AI answer.
Finding 01
What AI reads is trade-specific.
Checkatrade was cited in 457 of our 493 plumber audits. In our accountant audits it appeared in one of 77, while Yell, the directory that does matter for accountants, was cited in 48 of 77. Same engines, same country, same count. The sources AI trusts for one trade mean nothing for another, which is why a generic "get listed everywhere" checklist cannot work: half of it is effort spent where your trade's answers are never sourced from. So the first thing we do is measure your market, not run a checklist: which sources AI actually cites for your trade, in your town.
One directory, two trades
-
Plumber audits citing Checkatrade 457 of 493
-
Accountant audits citing Checkatrade 1 of 77
One business, before any work
242
times measured
0
times named
It already sat on the exact page AI cites most for its trade (we checked that listing by hand). One business, not a sample. ChatGPT and Gemini answers.
Finding 02
Being listed is not being named.
We measured one business 242 times on ChatGPT and Gemini before doing any work for it. It already sat on the exact page AI cites most for its trade; we checked that listing by hand. It was named zero times. This is one case, not a sample. Presence on a cited source gets you read; it does not get you recommended. The difference between the two is where the actual work is, and it is invisible unless you measure. So the work is making you quotable, not just present: pages that say specifically what you do and where, in the words people ask with.
Finding 03
The levers people assume mostly aren't.
Structured data (schema markup) is the standard advice for machine readability. In our measurements it made no measurable difference to being named: 65.5% of named businesses had it (114 of 174), against 68.0% of everyone else (100 of 147), across the 321 audits with a usable website check. Website quality surprised us more: many of the businesses AI names have worse websites than businesses that never get named at all. We still fix both, as hygiene. But the lever is being present and consistent in the sources AI reads for your trade, not polish. So that is where we spend the effort: pages AI can quote and details it can trust, rather than a prettier site.
Schema markup, named against not named
-
Named businesses with schema markup 65.5%
-
Everyone else with schema markup 68.0%
The wider picture
Our findings line up with the largest study published in this space: Yext's analysis of 6.8 million AI citations for local queries found 86% came from sources the business already controls. Its own website, its profile, its listings. The answer to AI visibility is mostly work on things you own, which is bad news for anyone selling you a dashboard and good news for anyone willing to do the work.
Third-party study
Source: Yext, 6.8 million AI citations from location-specific queries across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, July–August 2025. First-party websites 44% plus listings 42%. Yext sells listings management, so this is vendor-interested research; it is used here as a supporting figure only, never a headline one.
The work
What we do about it.
The findings above are the shape of the work. It starts with a free check that shows what AI says about you today. Then a four-week project: your details made consistent everywhere AI reads, and service and area pages written the way people ask. At week four, the original questions are re-run on the same engines and the before-and-after reports are compared side by side. The monthly starts the day after the refund window closes, 7 days after those four-week results are sent, and keeps the work going, because the engines and the sources they read keep changing.
The free check takes a minute. No card.