Ask three AIs who to hire in Jacksonville. You’ll get three different lists.

Key findings

Finding 01

There is no single “AI ranking.” Each assistant keeps its own list.

We compared which businesses each pair of assistants had in common. The overlap ran from 13% to 17% of the combined names. Showing up in ChatGPT tells you very little about whether Perplexity or Google will name you.

The businesses all three assistants named:

• • Cool R Us, Inc A/C & Heating, ac repair, 2,338 Google reviews

• • Hammond Heating & Air Conditioning, ac repair, 1,234 Google reviews

• • Pajcic & Pajcic, personal injury lawyers, 739 Google reviews

• • Lindsey Pest Services, pest control, 1,153 Google reviews

• • David Gray Plumbing, plumbers, 6,798 Google reviews

• • Jack C. Wilson Roofing Co, roofers, 255 Google reviews

Finding 02

The more AIs agree on a business, the more reviews it tends to have.

We looked up every recommended business on Google Maps. At each step, businesses named by more assistants had a higher median review count. It's one snapshot, and the all-three group is small, so read it as a pattern, not proof that reviews cause AI mentions.

Finding 03

Ranking well on Google Maps doesn't guarantee an AI mention.

We pulled Google's own top results for each category. Only 14% of the businesses AI recommended were in Google Maps' top 3, and 14 of the 36 top-3 businesses weren't named by any assistant. Google AI Mode also showed no source links in 6 of its 12 answers; ChatGPT and Perplexity showed sources every time.

Finding 04

Assistants lean on review and directory sites.

When an assistant showed its sources, these were the sites it pointed to most. A business's profile on these sites is part of what an AI reads about it.

1. angi.com8 of 36 answers
2. bbb.org8 of 36 answers
3. yelp.com8 of 36 answers
4. consumeraffairs.com7 of 36 answers
5. expertise.com7 of 36 answers
6. Google Business Profiles / Maps6 of 36 answers
7. yellowpages.com4 of 36 answers
8. reviews.birdeye.com3 of 36 answers

What to do with this

If you own a local business in Jacksonville

1. Check all three, not one. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode the question your customers would ask. Being on one list says little about the other two.
2. Keep asking for reviews. The businesses AI recommended had a median of hundreds of Google reviews. Of the things we measured, review count lined up with AI mentions most consistently.
3. Fix the directory profiles AI reads. Angi, BBB and Yelp were the most-cited sources. Claim them and make the name, address and phone match your Google profile exactly.
4. Re-check every quarter. These answers move. We're re-running this study each quarter so the trend is on the record.

Methodology

How we ran it, and what it can't tell you

On September 23, 2026, we asked each assistant the same question for each of 12 categories: “Who are the best [category] options in Jacksonville, FL? Give me a few names.” The categories: plumbers, AC repair, roofers, electricians, pest control, pressure washing, mobile auto detailing, lawn care, house cleaning, dentists, med spas and personal injury lawyers. The exact service wording we typed was: plumber, AC repair company, roofer, electrician, pest control company, pressure washing company, mobile auto detailer, lawn care company, house cleaning service, dentist, med spa and personal injury lawyer. That's 36 answers and 206 named recommendations.

• • ChatGPT: a new temporary chat for every question, with personalization turned off.

• • Perplexity: a new thread for every question, default search mode, on a free signed-in account.

• • Google AI Mode: one AI Mode search per question. Ads were excluded.

We recorded every business an answer recommended, in order. Obvious variations of the same name (“Cool R Us A/C & Heating” and “Cool R Us, Inc A/C & Heating”) were merged. When two names were only similar, or pointed to different addresses, we kept them apart, so the “named by all three” count errs low rather than high. An independent re-check of every merge was run before publishing.

Google data comes from the Google Places API on the same day. The “Google Maps top 3” comparison uses a search for “[category] in Jacksonville, FL” centered on downtown. It approximates, but isn't identical to, the map results any one person sees. We found review counts for 135 of the 157 recommended businesses; the rest couldn't be matched to a listing with confidence and are left out of the review figures.

Limits

• • One question wording, one day, one location. AI answers change with wording, location and time.

• • The assistants display sources differently, so source counts are directional, not exact.

• • Correlation isn't causation. Review counts line up with AI mentions here; we don't claim reviews alone cause them.

• • Being named, or not, says nothing about the quality of any business.

Get the data

Free to use with credit to 904 Digital Media (CC BY 4.0): one row per business (CSV) and every individual recommendation (CSV). Journalists and researchers can reach Ryan Warren at hello@weare904digitalmedia.com.

How to cite: 904 Digital Media, “Jacksonville AI Search Visibility Report, Wave 1,” September 2026, weare904digitalmedia.com/research/jacksonville-ai-visibility-report.