Does ChatGPT recommend local contractors? I checked 197 of them.

The short answer: yes, ChatGPT names local contractors, about 4 per answer. But 28% of the contractors I checked were not named in any of three questions about their own trade in their own town. The ones it named had more Google reviews, a website on their Google profile, and a top 3 spot on Google Maps. Star rating barely mattered, because almost everyone has 4.8 or better.

Why this matters

Homeowners are already asking ChatGPT who to hire. One of my clients got this lead: the customer asked ChatGPT who does the job in their town, and my client was the business it named.

How I ran the study

In November 2026 I searched Google Maps for 8 trades in 6 Lehigh Valley towns (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Emmaus, Whitehall and Nazareth) and took the businesses that came up. That gave 197 contractors in 18 towns: about 25 each in HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, landscaping, tree service, painting and remodeling.

For each one I ran the same scan that powers my free contractor scan:

• ChatGPT: three questions with web search on, like "best HVAC company in Bethlehem, PA", "HVAC repair near Bethlehem PA" and "who should I call for HVAC in Bethlehem". I recorded which businesses each answer named.
• Google Maps: where the business ranks for its trade in its own town.
• Google Business Profile: reviews, rating, photos, and whether a website is linked.

One thing to keep in mind: every business here already shows up on Google Maps, because that is where the list came from. A random list of every contractor in the area would almost certainly look worse.

How often ChatGPT named each contractor

Named in	Contractors	Share
All 3 questions	60	30%
2 of 3	52	26%
1 of 3	30	15%
None	55	28%

Only 3 in 10 were named every time. Ask ChatGPT the same thing a slightly different way and the list changes, so a business that shows up once can easily miss the next customer's question.

Never named by ChatGPT, by trade

HVAC was the hardest trade to break into. Half the HVAC companies were never named. HVAC also had the lowest median review count in the study, 17, and the most profiles with no website linked. Tree service was the opposite: almost every tree company in the sample got named at least once. With about 25 businesses per trade, treat the trade numbers as a rough picture, not an exact rate.

Reviews: the clearest pattern

Google reviews	Contractors	Named at least once	Top 3 on Maps in their town
Under 25	94	57%	41%
25 to 99	64	80%	66%
100 to 299	22	95%	68%
300 or more	17	94%	88%

Contractors with fewer than 25 reviews were named less than 6 times in 10. Past 100 reviews it was almost everyone. Nearly half the businesses in the study (48%) were under 25 reviews, and the median was 27.

The rating was a different story. The median rating was 4.9, and 78% of businesses had 4.8 or higher. When everyone has close to five stars, stars stop telling anyone apart. How many reviews you have does.

This is a pattern, not proof that reviews cause ChatGPT to name you. Businesses with lots of reviews also tend to be older, bigger and more talked about online. But review count is the one on that list you can change this month. If you are not sure how far behind you are, the review gap calculator shows how many you need per month to catch the company ahead of you.

No website on your Google profile is expensive

Google profile	Contractors	Named at least once
Website linked	160	80%
No website linked	37	38%

About 1 in 5 contractors had no website on their Google profile. Among HVAC companies it was 36%. Those businesses were named less than half as often. With web search on, ChatGPT cites websites and directory pages in its answers, so a business with no site gives it less to work with.

Google Maps and ChatGPT mostly agree

Of the 111 contractors in the top 3 on Google Maps for their own town, 84% were named by ChatGPT at least once. Of the 86 outside the top 3, 57% were. Showing up in AI answers is not a separate project from ranking on Google. The same profile, reviews and website do the work for both.

One more finding: I also checked whether Google showed an AI Overview, the AI summary at the top of the results, for searches like "best furnace repair service in Bethlehem, PA". It appeared on only 29 of 141 searches. For most of these searches, Google showed no AI summary at all.

What to do with this

1. Link your website on your Google Business Profile. It is the easiest fix in this whole study, and a lot of businesses are missing it.
2. Get past 25 reviews, then keep them coming. Ask after every finished job, not when you remember.
3. Work on your Maps rank in your own town. The businesses at the top of Maps were the ones ChatGPT named most.
4. Ask ChatGPT yourself. Ask it a few ways, like a homeowner would, and see who it names. Or run the free scan, which asks it three ways and shows you who it names instead.

Limits of this study

ChatGPT's answers change from day to day and from one wording to the next, so this is a snapshot from November 2026, not a permanent ranking. Names in each answer were matched to businesses automatically, which can miss a business written very differently. The sample came from Google Maps results, so it leans toward businesses that already have some visibility. I am not publishing business names. The point is the pattern, not calling anyone out.