Four AIs, four answers: what artificial intelligence says about local businesses
More and more people no longer search on Google and click through ten blue links. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini or the AI Overview at the top of Google Search for the best local business, and they take the answer they get. So I asked that question, around 2,100 times, across 11 sectors and 3 languages in the Marina Alta. The result is quieter than the usual headlines, and for a business owner here it is more uncomfortable.
The AI is already talking about your business. You just don't control what it says. The four assistants name more than 2,200 distinct local businesses, but they largely disagree, and their information comes from third parties such as the Google profile, Tripadvisor and directories, not from the businesses themselves.
The AI knows your neighbourhood
The common fear goes: the AI overlooks the small local businesses and only recommends the big chains. In my data, that isn't true. Across around 2,113 answers, the assistants named more than 2,200 distinct businesses from the region. In 91 to 100% of answers there was at least one specific business, not a vague "have a look on a review site". And the mentions were spread widely: the five most-named businesses together made up only around 3% of all mentions. There is no small cartel of names that sweeps everything up.
In other words: your business is very likely somewhere in these answers. The AI is not ignoring you. And this is exactly where the real story begins.
There is no such thing as "the AI". There are four, and they disagree
If you assume there is one AI opinion about who the best business in your town is, one you can check once and put right, then I have bad news.
Ask two leading assistants the same question and their answers overlap by only about a seventh. Most tellingly, it shows up at Google itself: Gemini and the AI Overview in Search belong to the same company, and even so they name the same businesses for the same question only 14.4% of the time. Here is the overlap between the three robustly comparable pairs:
There is no single "AI ranking" to win. You can be right at the top with one assistant and not show up at all with the next, for the same question, on the same day. If you only look at one tool, you see a quarter of the picture.
Where the AI gets its answers, and why that is the heart of it
When the AI names your business, how does it know about it? Not from you. And that can be shown: the assistants also named businesses that have no website of their own at all, at least 228 such businesses in my sample. That information can only reach the AI from third parties: from the Google Business Profile, from Tripadvisor, from trade directories and booking portals. Fittingly, Google drew on at least one such portal in 96% of its answers.
What the AI says about your business is being written by others right now: review sites, portals, a business profile you may have set up years ago and not looked at since. If those sources are thin, out of date, or simply wrong, then that is exactly your AI reputation. You didn't write it, and chances are you don't know what it says.
The one answer your customers are most likely to see is the weakest
Not everyone deliberately opens an AI app. But almost everyone sees the AI Overview at the top of Google Search, whether they want to or not. That is the AI answer with the widest reach, and the one that least often gets specific about a local business.
The surface your customer is most likely to stumble across is the one most likely to send them on to a big booking portal instead of naming you. With the chat assistants that figure was close to zero; ChatGPT named a portal in only 3% of its answers (smaller sample).
What this means for you
- Your AI visibility already exists. You are probably in there.
- It is fragmented across four assistants that disagree with one another.
- It is written by third parties, out of portals and profiles, not by you.
- And it is weakest exactly where your customers look, in Google Search.
There is one lever you genuinely hold: making sure every one of those sources finds the same clear, current, machine-readable story about your business. A website of your own that is cleanly structured. A well-kept Google Business Profile. Consistent details everywhere. That is what the assistants pick up, and the only part of this chain that belongs to you.
Method and limits
I think it is more honest to write the limits of this analysis down openly than to make it sound bigger than it is. This report is the follow-up to the Digital Report Costa Blanca 2026: Part 1 measured whether the websites carry the technical signals an AI can read, this part measures what the AI then actually says.
- Sample. Gemini and Google, with 990 answers each, form the robust backbone. Claude (66) and ChatGPT (67) are smaller samples and run alongside as a supplementary perspective, clearly marked as indicative.
- Two of the four are Google. Gemini and the AI Overview both belong to Google. That even these two largely disagree makes the finding on disagreement stronger, not weaker.
- Not deterministic. AI doesn't answer the same way every time. All the figures are pooled over several repetitions and should be read as patterns, not as exact measurements to the decimal place.
- Interface, not app. Queried through programmatic access and interfaces in July 2026. That approximates what a customer sees, but it is not identical in every detail to the consumer app.
- Not that particular businesses are "invisible". The opposite is the case: the AI knows a great many local businesses, more than are cleanly recorded in the usual directories.
- No ranking of individual companies. This analysis names no names and no winners publicly.
- No alarm figures per sector. Where the data for a sector is too thin, I would rather say so than invent a percentage.
The questions, answered briefly
- Do ChatGPT or Gemini name local businesses on the Costa Blanca?
- Yes. Across around 2,100 test answers, the four assistants named more than 2,200 distinct local businesses in the Marina Alta; in 91 to 100% of answers there was at least one specific business. The AI does not ignore local businesses.
- Do different AI assistants give the same recommendations?
- No. Only around 16% of the businesses named appeared in more than one AI. Even Google's own two AI surfaces, Gemini and the AI Overview in Search, named the same businesses for the same question only 14.4% of the time (measured over 314 questions).
- Where does the AI get its local business recommendations?
- From third parties: the Google Business Profile, Tripadvisor, trade directories and booking portals. The assistants even named businesses with no website of their own (at least 228 in the sample); Google drew on at least one portal in 96% of its answers.
- How was the AI report measured?
- Around 2,100 buyer-intent questions to four assistants (ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Gemini, Claude), across 11 sectors and 3 languages in the Marina Alta, in July 2026. Queried through interfaces; AI is not deterministic, so each question was asked several times and pooled. Aggregates only, no ranking of individual businesses.
- How do I see what the AI says about my own business?
- With the free AI visibility check on this site: it runs the queries for you and shows whether and how you are named.
- "Across around 2,100 AI answers, four assistants named more than 2,200 distinct local businesses in the Marina Alta, but only 16% appeared in more than one AI."
- "Even Google's own two AI surfaces, Gemini and the AI Overview, named the same businesses for the same question only 14.4% of the time."
- "Google's AI Overview drew on a portal or directory in 96% of its answers; in 6.7% it named only a portal and not a single local business."
Source: AI Report Costa Blanca 2026, webdesign-costablanca.es. Press enquiries to oliver@webdesign-costablanca.es.
What does the AI say about your business?
The first step costs nothing. With my free AI visibility check I run the queries for you and show you whether and how you are named. After that, you know what you are dealing with, and you can decide what to do.
This report publishes only aggregated values, no individual data and no ranking. The method is open; I do not release the raw answers, so as not to expose any individual business. The figures may be quoted with a source credit ("AI Report Costa Blanca 2026, webdesign-costablanca.es"). This is the first edition; if you find an error, write to me and I will correct it. Legal details in the legal notice and the privacy policy.