When someone asks AI for the best plumber, HVAC company, or electrician in your city, does it name you — or the shop down the road?

We asked AI to recommend home-services companies. Even the national brands lost.

To see how home services fare, we ran AskedAbout's free check (late June 2026) on two of the most recognizable national home-services franchises — the kind with billion-dollar ad budgets and trucks in every metro:

• A national plumbing franchise, checked in Chicago, scored 50/100. On Perplexity it was named first — but on ChatGPT's “best plumber in Chicago” answers it didn't appear at all, which instead recommended seven different local independent plumbers by name. A brand everyone has heard of, invisible on the engine most buyers reach for first.
• A national HVAC franchise, checked in Phoenix, scored 17/100. Across every “best HVAC company in Phoenix” buyer question, neither ChatGPT nor Perplexity named it — both listed local Phoenix independents instead. It only surfaced when we asked about it by name.

If the biggest franchises in the country are getting beaten by the local shop, the “best plumber near me” answer is wide open — and right now it's being decided without you in the room.

This is the same pattern we measured across local businesses

Home services aren't a special case — they sit in the same local-search reality we benchmarked. In our benchmark of 10 established US local businesses (med spas and law firms) across nine metro areas, the average AI Visibility Score was 20 out of 100, businesses appeared in just 38% of AI answers about their own specialty in their own city, and in 6 of 10 a single competitor was named more often than the business itself. Over the full benchmark the engines named 49 distinct competitors — specific, confident recommendations, all going to someone else. The home-services cut above is that same dynamic, in your trades.

For home services, the leak is more expensive than most

1. 1The jobs are big. A new HVAC system is $5,000–15,000. A re-pipe, a panel upgrade, a sewer line — thousands each. Losing a single AI-referred customer isn't a missed click; it's a five-figure job booked by a competitor.
2. 2The intent is urgent and winner-take-one. “Emergency plumber near me,” “AC not working who to call” — the customer is in a hurry and frequently calls the first name the assistant gives. There's no page two. If AI names three companies and you're not one, you never get the call.

And here's the upside hiding in the data: because AI favors local independents over national brands, a well-run local shop can win these answers — if it knows what the engines are reading.

Google rank doesn't protect you here

Plenty of contractors rank on Google's first page and still score badly with AI. The engines don't read your Google rank — they synthesize answers from directories and review consensus (Google, Yelp, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Nextdoor), “best plumber in {city}” listicles, and editorial mentions. That's a different surface than the one your SEO company or your front office watches — and for most home-services businesses, nobody is watching it at all. If a rival keeps winning the answer, here's why AI recommends a competitor instead of you.

How the free check works

1. 1Enter your company name, city, and your trade (plumber, HVAC, electrician, roofer, etc.). 60 seconds.
2. 2We ask the major AI engines the questions your customers actually ask.
3. 3You get an AI Visibility Score (0–100), your mention rate, and the competing local companies AI recommends instead of you.

The full audit ($79, one-time)

Because AI answers are nondeterministic — ask the same question twice and the shortlist reshuffles — visibility is a frequency, not something you can screenshot once and trust. The Full Audit runs 25 buyer questions × 4 engines × 3 samples = 300 answers and reports: your mention rate per engine, share-of-voice against every local competitor the engines name, which sources the engines actually cite about your trade in your market (the directories and review pages you need to be on), and a prioritized fix plan you can hand to whoever runs your marketing. $79 one-time — not a $99–500/mo enterprise dashboard. See how AskedAbout compares to the other AI visibility tools, most of which are monthly subscriptions.

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