We asked Perplexity and Google the same buyer questions a real customer would — across 18 category checks in St. Charles, St. Peters and O'Fallon. In several, AI named no business at all. In others it named a short list and left everyone else out. And in one case the answer flipped from one town to the next. Here's the data.
Get your free AI-visibility score →Ask AI for the best plumber in St. Charles and it names no one. Ask for the best plumber in O'Fallon — nine miles away — and it names five. Same question, same engine, same day. So it's not that "AI doesn't do plumbers" — it does; it just hasn't locked in St. Charles yet. That means you can't guess your AI visibility from a neighboring town — it has to be measured city by city. Some categories (med spas, dentists, chiropractors) came back empty in every city we checked. The businesses that get AI-ready now own those answers before their competitors notice they changed.
And which bucket your category is in decides everything about how visible you are right now.
Med spas · Dentists · Chiropractors · Plumbers (St. Charles)
Asked for the best in St. Charles, Perplexity refused to name a single business and gave a generic "how to choose" checklist. Nobody owns the answer yet — so the first business to get AI-ready claims an empty space.
Pet care · Vets · HVAC · Salons · Roofing · Auto repair · Restaurants · Lawyers · Daycares · Landscaping · Plumbers (O'Fallon)
Here AI names 2–6 specific businesses and stops. If you're on the list, you're winning. If you're not, you're invisible to every customer who asks — and the play is to break in.
| Category & area | AI result | Who AI named (in order) |
|---|---|---|
| Med spa St. Charles |
Named no one | Perplexity named zero businesses (generic checklist). Google's local pack named several — so they're visible on Google but absent from the AI answer. |
| Plumber St. Charles |
Named no one | Zero businesses named — a generic "how to pick a plumber" checklist. A whole emergency-search category with no AI leader. |
| Dentist St. Peters |
Named no one | Zero businesses named. The third high-value category where AI recommends nobody at all. |
| Pet grooming & boarding St. Peters |
Named a short list | The Watering Bowl, Kennelwood Pet Resort, Paw Perfection, Dogs on Duty, Petropolis. |
| Veterinarian St. Peters |
Named a short list | Arch Animal Hospital West, Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) — only two of the area's many vets. |
| HVAC St. Charles |
Named a short list | Integrity Aire, Premier Heating & Cooling, Galmiche & Sons, Air Comfort Service. |
| Hair salon St. Charles |
Named a short list | Avant Garde, Studio 8, Hair by Livi, J. Webster, Fringe Hair Studio, Salon 101. |
| Chiropractor St. Peters |
Named no one | Zero businesses named — a generic "how to shortlist a chiropractor" checklist. Another high repeat-visit category wide open. |
| Roofing St. Charles |
Named a short list | Joe Kuhl Roofing, Beldon Roofing, Roofing & Siding of St. Charles, Banner Construction, Cornerstone Roofing. |
| Auto repair St. Charles |
Named a short list | Offenhauser's, Meineke, AAMCO, Firestone — but heavy on national chains; independents got lumped together. A strong independent is most likely invisible. |
| Med spa O'Fallon (geography test) |
Named no one | Zero again — same as St. Charles. Med spa is invisible to AI across both cities, so it's a structural gap, not a one-city quirk. |
| Plumber O'Fallon (the flip) |
Named a short list | Adam's Plumbing, Roto-Rooter, Re-Bath + Plumbing, CWC Plumbing, Champion Plumbing — five named, while St. Charles got zero. Same category, different town, opposite result. |
| Dentist O'Fallon |
Named no one | Empty again (also empty in St. Peters). Dentist is invisible to AI across both cities checked — a structural opening. |
| Chiropractor St. Charles |
Named no one | Empty again (also empty in St. Peters). Another category AI recommends nobody for, in two different cities. |
| Restaurant St. Charles |
Named a short list | River's Edge, Trolley Car Diner, The Iron Gate, Las Palomas, Middleton's on Main, Prasino, Gorat's. Deeply answered — if you're not listed, AI is recommending your competitors. |
| Personal injury lawyer St. Charles |
Named a short list | Allen Injury Law, Amanda Murphy Pietoso, Bruning Law, Lampin Law, Brown & Crouppen, Bradley Law — pulled from legal directories with citations. Directory presence is the play here. |
| Daycare St. Charles |
Named a short list | Creative World, Goddard, Little Valley, Kidz Corner, St. Charles Early Learning. National franchises lead — a strong independent is the one most likely missing. |
| Landscaping St. Charles |
Named — but shaky | Malone's, Ideal Landscape, Nature's Touch, Natural Lawn — but AI flagged each "citation needed." A thin presence that's easy to lock down with real citations, or easy to lose. |
One run per query this edition; variance is possible. We're expanding to 3-run averages, more cities, and ChatGPT + Apple next edition.
A customer asking AI "who's the best near me?" gets one answer — not ten blue links. If your business isn't in it, you're not in the running, no matter how good your Google reviews are. The fix isn't tricks or guarantees. It's being accurate, complete, and readable to the engines that are quietly becoming how people choose. That's the work we do — and we'll show you exactly where you stand first, for free.
Tell us your business and category. We'll ask the AI engines the same buyer questions a real customer would, show you exactly who gets named instead of you, and what it would take to be in that answer. No charge, no catch.
Get my free score →Prompts: Buyer-intent questions — "best [category] in [city], MO" — run live on each engine with fixed wording so the index is repeatable month to month.
Engines: Perplexity (no login, recency-biased) and Google (local pack + web results). ChatGPT and Apple/Siri join next edition.
Recorded: Which businesses each engine named, and in what order, on June 24, 2026.
Limits: One run per query (variance possible); 18 category-runs across St. Charles, St. Peters and O'Fallon over Editions #1–#2. This is the anonymous, logged-out baseline — what a new user sees — tracked consistently over time. We're expanding cities, engines (ChatGPT + Apple), and moving to 3-run averages.
We measure accuracy and visibility. We don't sell rankings, and we don't promise to make AI say anything — only to make sure what it can find about you is accurate, complete, and readable. © 2026 Carter Enterprise LLC — Carter Studio.