Which websites does AI trust when it recommends a local business?

What we looked at

We ran the questions real customers ask, like "best dentist in Chicago" or "a good plumber near me", through ChatGPT and Gemini, for six local trades across nine cities in the US, UK, UAE and France. Then we recorded the sources behind every answer.

That was 54 checks in all, each a single trade in a single city, run on one of the two assistants with about six real customer questions, for 326 answers and 404 different websites cited. It is a focused snapshot, not a web-scale study: it covers local-service businesses, two assistants and a single point in time, so treat the numbers as a clear signal rather than the last word. What makes it useful is that it looks at exactly the thing most studies skip, which sources AI trusts specifically for local recommendations.

The websites AI trusts most

Across every trade and city, the same kinds of sites kept coming back: booking platforms, directories, review sites and one large community. The table below shows the sources cited in the most separate checks, out of 54, with how many times each was named.

It is almost never your own website

The clearest finding is what is missing. The sources AI leaned on were overwhelmingly third parties, directories and platforms that list many businesses, not the businesses' own sites. When a company's own website did appear, it was usually a single mention far down the long tail, not one of the sources the answer was built on.

That is the heart of it for an owner. A polished website reassures the customers who already found you, but it does little to get you named in the first place, because the assistant is reading the directories and review sites, not your homepage. Being present and well-reviewed on those third-party sources is what puts you in the answer. This is why a great business can still be invisible to AI.

Reddit shows up everywhere

One source stood out for its reach. Reddit appeared in more separate checks than any other site, across different trades and cities, and it was cited by both ChatGPT and Gemini. It was the only community forum to reach the top tier, sitting right alongside the professional directories.

For an owner that is worth knowing. Genuine discussion, recommendations and threads about your area and trade feed the same answers your listings do. You cannot manufacture it, but being the kind of business people mention and recommend in those places quietly helps you get named.

The trusted sources change by country

There is no single global list. The sites AI trusted in France were almost entirely different from the ones it trusted in the US and UK, because the assistants reach for the directories and platforms that dominate each market. Dubai was the only UAE city in this snapshot, too small a slice to break out on its own, so its checks sit inside the wider set.

And they change by trade

Within a country, each trade has its own set of trusted sources too. A dentist and a hair salon are recommended from almost entirely different places, so a generic "get on the big directories" misses the ones that actually matter for you. One nuance in the table below: for aesthetic clinics, individual clinics' own pages did appear, but that reflects the aggregate across many different clinics, not any single business's site carrying the answer on its own.

Beyond the big names, a long tail

The well-known platforms are only part of the story. Of the 404 sources we saw, 340 appeared in just a single check, a long tail of local directories, trade-specific listings, city guides and even individual businesses' own pages that an assistant surfaced for one particular question.

So the honest picture is two-layered. The big platforms in the table above are the reliable, cross-market bets, but a lot of local visibility is won on niche, trade-and-town-specific sources that never make a global top ten. It is worth checking which ones name businesses like yours: that long tail is where a lot of untapped local visibility sits.

What this means for your business

The practical version is short. AI recommends the businesses that the sources it trusts already carry, so the work is to become one of those names on the sources for your trade and your town, not to polish a website the assistant barely reads.

That means getting listed and well-reviewed on the directories and booking platforms above that fit your trade, keeping your details consistent, and earning the genuine reviews and mentions that feed the answers. For the full method, see how to improve your AI search visibility. To see which sources name you today, and which name competitors instead, a free Peekl check traces the sources behind your own results.