Does AI recommend plumbers in London?
More and more customers skip the search results and simply ask an AI assistant to recommend a plumber. When someone in London does that, the assistant doesn't hand back ten blue links, it replies with a short list of names. If you run a plumber in London, being on that list is the whole game.
So we asked ChatGPT and Gemini the questions customers actually use, 12 answers in all, and recorded every business named and every source leaned on. Together they named 20 plumbers. Here are the ones recommended most, how the two assistants differ, the sources shaping their answers, and what it takes to be one of them.
The plumbers AI recommends most in London
Ranked by how many of our 12 answers named each business, across ChatGPT and Gemini. AI answers shift over time, so treat this as a snapshot, not a fixed ranking.
Across 12 answers, ChatGPT and Gemini named 20 different plumbers in London. Checkatrade came up most often, in 4 of 12 answers, followed by MyBuilder and WPJ Heating. 10 plumbers appeared in more than one answer, which means the assistants keep returning to a recognisable short list rather than picking a different business every time. Breaking into that list is the goal. Beyond the names above, 10 other plumbers were mentioned once or twice across the answers. That long tail is what an assistant reaches into when it varies its reply, so being in it is the first foothold, and being named consistently is the goal after that.
ChatGPT vs Gemini: they rarely agree
We asked ChatGPT and Gemini the same questions. They named entirely different businesses, with no overlap in their top picks. Being recommended by one assistant is no guarantee of the other, so it pays to check both.
What ChatGPT actually said
Asked “Who is the best plumber in London, and how do the top-rated options compare?”, here is how ChatGPT opened its answer, in its own words:
Assuming you mean **London, England**: there isn’t one objectively “best” plumber for every job—postcode coverage, urgency, price, and whether you need gas/heating work matter. But based on the current London-wide Checkatrade listings, **3F Heating and Plumbing Ltd** is the strongest *pure rating* pick among firms with a meaningful number of reviews: **10.0/10 from 109 reviews**. It is an active London company incorporated in 2014. ([checkatrade.com](https://www.checkatrade.com/Search/Plumber/in/London?utm_source=openai)) ### Top-rated London options compared | Option | Current Checkatrade score / reviews | Best fit | Trade-off | |---|---:|---|---| | **3F Heating and Plumbing Ltd** | **10.…
Where AI gets its answers
ChatGPT and Gemini's answers don't come from nowhere. They leaned most on checkatrade.com, cited in 9 of 12 answers, alongside wpjheating.co.uk and watersafe.org.uk. These are the directories and review sites that quietly decide which plumbers in London an assistant will name. If your business isn't listed there, or isn't well reviewed there, you simply aren't part of the answer.
Look at what those sources are, not just their names, and a pattern shows up. For plumbers in London, ChatGPT and Gemini leaned mostly on other business pages such as wpjheating.co.uk and watersafe.org.uk, with directories such as checkatrade.com, reference sites such as hse.gov.uk. That particular mix is specific to this market: the sites that decide who gets named here are not the same ones that matter in another city. Getting onto the ones that carry the most weight, and being well reviewed there, is what moves a business into the answer.
Want to know where your business stands?
This page shows the market. To see whether AI names your business, across ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, and exactly what to change, run a free Peekl check.