We wanted to stop guessing about how AI picks local businesses, so we ran a test. On 24 June 2026 we asked three AI engines (ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity) the same plain question 48 times: "Who are the best [trade] in [suburb], Perth? Name the few you'd recommend and why." Six trades, eight suburbs, 144 answers in total. Here's what came back.
How did we run the test?
We picked six trades Perth locals search for constantly (plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning, builders, landscapers, painters) and eight suburbs spread across the metro: Subiaco, Fremantle, Joondalup, Scarborough, Mount Lawley, Cannington, Midland and Rockingham. For each trade-and-suburb pair we asked all three engines the identical question and saved the raw answer plus every source it cited. No cherry-picking, no follow-ups. This piece reports only what the engines actually said.
How many businesses does AI actually name?
Short answer: not many. Across all 144 answers, each engine led with a small set of primary recommendations, typically three to six businesses, then sometimes added a "you could also check" line pointing at a directory. Nobody got a long list to scroll. The whole shortlist a customer sees is a handful of names, and being the better tradie does not put you on it. Being readable and well-documented across the web does.
In Subiaco, for instance, ChatGPT led with Proud Plumbing & Gas, Bingham Plumbing & Gas, Metropolitan Plumbing and GA Perry. Perplexity, asked the very same thing, named West Best Plumbing, Urbico Plumbing & Gas and Gillies Group instead, and openly noted there was "no single definitive list." Same suburb, same question, almost no overlap. That was the rule, not the exception.
Did the three AI engines agree with each other?
Barely. This was the most striking thing in the data. Out of 48 questions, only 10 had even a single business that all three engines named. For the other 38, the engines essentially handed back three different shortlists. Which AI your customer happens to use changes who gets recommended, so you can't win by pleasing just one of them.
The rare businesses that all three engines agreed on are worth naming, because they show what consensus looks like:
- Plumbers, Rockingham: Bell Plumbing & Gas
- Electricians, Fremantle: Sarros Electrical
- Electricians, Scarborough: Voltaic Electrical
- Electricians, Rockingham: Gen Y Electrical
- Air-conditioning, Subiaco / Mount Lawley / Cannington: Metropolitan Air Conditioning (named across three different suburbs)
- Builders, Subiaco: Sertorio Homes
- Builders, Rockingham: Compass Homes WA
- Landscapers, Rockingham: Looking Good Landscaping
Notice Metropolitan Air Conditioning turning up as the consensus pick in three separate suburbs. When a business is documented clearly and consistently across the web, every engine can find it and trust it. That consistency is the whole game.
What sources is the AI actually reading?
We logged 439 citations across the 48 questions. Just over half, 53%, were directories and aggregators, not business websites. The heaviest-cited sources, in order, were Facebook, hipages, Yelp, Reddit, Oneflare and Airtasker. Your own website was in the mix, but the AI leaned harder on third-party listings and what other people said about you than on your own marketing copy.
That has a blunt implication: your presence on the places AI reads matters as much as your website. A complete hipages or Oneflare profile, an active Facebook page, real reviews on Yelp, even a Reddit thread where a local vouches for you, these are the raw material the AI is built from. If you're thin or absent on those, you're handing the recommendation to whoever isn't.
Just over half of what the AI cited wasn't a business website at all. It was directories and what other people said about you.
Why did some answers hedge and others didn't?
The engines behaved differently when they weren't sure. Of the 144 answers, 14 carried an explicit hedge ("no definitive list," "based on available information," "please verify directly"). Almost all of those came from Perplexity (9) and Gemini (5). ChatGPT hedged zero times, it always named names with confidence, even where the others wouldn't commit.
This matters because confidence is contagious. The engine that hedges still nudges the customer toward "go check a directory." The engine that names you with conviction sends the customer straight to your door. You can't control how cautious an engine is, but you can make your information so clean and consistent that even the cautious ones feel safe naming you.
What did the businesses AI picked have in common?
We can't see inside the models, but the pattern across the businesses that got named repeatedly is consistent and unsurprising:
- They were easy to read. Plain-text services, clear service areas, a real address or coverage list. Nothing locked inside an image.
- They showed up in more than one place. A website plus directory listings plus a live social presence plus reviews, all saying the same thing.
- They were consistent. Same business name, same suburbs, same services everywhere the AI looked. Mismatched details make an engine hesitate.
- They had third-party proof. Reviews and mentions on the sites AI actually cites, not just claims on their own homepage.
None of that is about having the flashiest website. It's about being documented, consistent and verifiable across the handful of sources AI trusts.
What should a Perth business take from this?
The test confirms what we tell every client: AI hands customers a shortlist of a few names, the engines don't agree with each other, and they build those shortlists mostly from directories and reviews rather than your homepage. So the work is to be clean, consistent and well-reviewed everywhere the AI looks, not just on your own site.
If you run a Perth trade and want to see where you actually stand, start with your trade's hub: plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning, builders, landscapers and painters. Or see the full picture across every trade.
At OperateAI we help Perth local service businesses get found, recommended and set up to be booked, sorted for how customers search now. If you want to know exactly what these engines say about your business today, get your free AI Visibility Check.
P.S. This was a snapshot in time. AI answers shift week to week, which is exactly why the businesses with clean, consistent, well-reviewed information win the long game: they're the ones every engine can find, on every question, every time.