Research · September 2026
Who AI recommends in Perth
We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google Gemini the questions Perth customers ask when they need a smash repairer, an electrician or a café. Each question was asked three times on each assistant: 459 answers in all. Here's what they show.
1. The shortlist is short
Hundreds of businesses got at least one mention, but a small group appeared again and again. In every industry, the 10 most-named businesses showed up in most answers, while more than half of all businesses named appeared only once or twice.
| Industry (area searched) | Answers | Businesses named | Answers naming one of the 10 most-named | Named in 2 answers or fewer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smash repairers (Bayswater) | 153 | 137 | 82% | 82 of 137 |
| Electricians (Joondalup) | 153 | 128 | 69% | 76 of 128 |
| Cafés (Leederville) | 153 | 164 | 73% | 97 of 164 |
For a customer, the answer is the shortlist. If a business isn't in it, most people never hear its name.
2. The answer changes from one ask to the next
When we asked the same assistant the same question again, it gave exactly the same businesses only 12% of the time for smash repairers, 22% for electricians and 7% for cafés. On average, about half of the businesses named carried over from one ask to the next.
So a single screenshot of one AI answer proves very little, good or bad. The only fair way to measure a business is to ask many questions, several times each, and count how often it's named.
3. Each assistant reads different sources
- Google Gemini built every one of its 153 answers per industry from Google Maps listings. For Google's AI, the Google Business Profile is the starting point.
- ChatGPT and Perplexity searched the web. They cited at least one business's own website in 81% and 82% of their answers.
A business with an accurate, complete Google profile and a website that says clearly what it does and where has the basics covered for all three.
4. Directories are read far more than they're quoted
ChatGPT and Perplexity opened directory pages (Yellow Pages, Whereis, TrueLocal, Yelp, Localsearch) 141 times across the three industries, but cited them only 15 times. Yellow Pages alone was opened in 50 answers and cited in 4. Directories still matter for keeping your details consistent, but they're rarely the source an assistant quotes.
5. The sites that do get quoted depend on the industry
Leaving out businesses' own websites, these were the sites ChatGPT and Perplexity cited most (number of answers citing each site, out of 102 per industry):
| Smash repairers | Electricians | Cafés |
|---|---|---|
| Birdeye (22) | WA Government, incl. licence search (38) | The Urban List (51) |
| DingGo (17) | hipages (19) | TripAdvisor (21) |
| Word of Mouth (12) | Starworks (15) | Time Out (15) |
| Whereis (10) | Word of Mouth (12) | Sitchu (8) |
| WA Consumer Protection (10) | Western Power (8) | Broadsheet (6) |
| Reddit (9) | OpenTable (4) |
Review sites and quote marketplaces matter for trades, government licence pages matter for electricians, and editorial "best of" guides dominate for cafés. There's no single list of sites that works for every business.
What this means for a local business
- Being mentioned somewhere online isn't enough. What matters is being in the short list the assistant gives, often.
- Get the basics right first: an accurate, complete Google Business Profile and a website that clearly states your services, suburbs, contact details and credentials.
- Be present, and accurate, on the few sites the assistants actually quote for your industry.
- Measure over many questions and repeats, not one answer.
How we tested
- Questions: 17 everyday questions per industry, the kind customers ask: finding someone nearby, urgent jobs, specific services and quality. Three further questions about one named business were asked in the smash repairer test and are left out of these figures.
- Assistants: ChatGPT (OpenAI's API with web search), Perplexity (its API with web search) and Google Gemini with Google Maps, each through the company's official connection, searching from the suburb shown.
- Repeats: every question asked three times on each assistant, on 26 September 2026.
- Counting: business names were extracted from each answer and matched across answers. "Cited" means the assistant listed the site as a source for its answer.
- Limits: one city, one week and three industries. The consumer apps can add personalisation that the official connections don't. We don't name the businesses in the results.
Please cite as: Named First (2026), Who AI recommends in Perth, namedfirst.com.au/perth-ai-study.html.