Letgro is a digital marketing agency that specializes in AI visibility, helping businesses in the GTA and across Ontario show up when people ask AI platforms for a recommendation.
Ask Google Gemini who does what you do in your city, and it names a business 11% of the time. Ask ChatGPT the exact same question, and it names one just 1.2% of the time (SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index, 350,000+ business locations tracked). That's not a small gap. It's nearly ten times.
The short version:
- Gemini recommends a business 11% of the time it could. ChatGPT does it 1.2% of the time. Nearly ten times the gap (SOCi, 2026).
- The gap isn't really about the platform. It's about how much each one demands before it will say a name out loud.
- Data accuracy, your name, category and service area matching everywhere, is the single biggest factor in whether any AI trusts you enough to recommend you (SOCi, 2026).
- Branded mentions predict AI visibility three times better than backlinks do: 0.664 versus 0.218 (Ahrefs, 75,000 brands studied).
Why does Gemini recommend nearly ten times more businesses than ChatGPT?
Not because Gemini likes your business more. Because it demands less proof before it says your name.
| Platform | % of locations recommended |
|---|---|
| Google local map pack | 35.9% |
| Gemini | 11% |
| Perplexity | 7.4% |
| ChatGPT | 1.2% |
That's SOCi's 2026 scan of six platforms across 350,000+ locations. Read it as a line of gatekeepers, not a ranking. Google's map pack barely gatekeeps at all. ChatGPT is the strictest reviewer in the room, and it would rather say nothing than guess wrong.
Should you build a different strategy for each AI platform?
No. Chase the strictest gate, and the easier ones open on their own.
ChatGPT sets the highest bar for confidence of the four. Whatever convinces ChatGPT to say your name, accurate listings, a specific review, an earned mention, convinces Gemini and Perplexity even more easily, since they were already asking for less. Businesses don't need a Gemini playbook and a separate ChatGPT playbook. They need one set of facts solid enough to clear the hardest gate.
What actually decides whether any AI recommends you?
Three things, and none of them are a technical trick.
Your information has to match everywhere. Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, your own website: same name, same category, same service area. SOCi found this is the single biggest factor in whether an AI trusts a listing enough to say it out loud. A model that finds three different versions of your business name has no reason to pick any of them.
Your reviews need to say something. A star rating alone gives a model nothing to repeat. In Letgro's own GTA test, what got a business named wasn't a high rating, it was a review or a licence number stating one exact fact, like a warranty term or exactly what got fixed.
Mentions outweigh links. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found branded web mentions correlate with AI visibility at 0.664. Backlinks scored 0.218, roughly a third as strong. A link tells a search engine you exist. A mention tells a language model what you actually do, in words it can quote back.
Does earning a mention actually move the number, or is that just theory?
It moves it, and there's a controlled study behind that, not just a correlation. A Stacker/Scrunch study distributed the same set of articles through third-party publishers and watched the citation rate climb from 8% to 34%. Writing about your business on your own site is half the work. Getting someone else to write about it is the other half, and it's the half almost every business skips.
Think of one place outside your own website that could publish something naming your business this month: a local paper, a detailed HomeStars or Google review, a YouTube video, a supplier's case study. One specific mention there outweighs a stack of backlinks.
What should you do this week to close a ten times gap?
Four things, in the order that pays off fastest.
- Fix your name, category and service area everywhere they appear. This is SOCi's single biggest factor, and it costs nothing but an afternoon.
- Get one review that names a specific detail. Not "great service," but "fixed the basement wall in a day, five-year warranty." That's the sentence a model can quote.
- Earn one mention that isn't on your own site. A local news piece, a supplier feature, a detailed review, a short video. Pick the one that's actually reachable this month.
- Ask ChatGPT who does what you do in your city. It's the strictest gate of the four. If your name comes up there, the easier platforms are very likely already covered.
What isn't settled yet is whether this gap holds steady or moves. SOCi's numbers are one 2026 snapshot. As these systems pull from more sources over time, the gap between Gemini and ChatGPT could close, or it could widen, and there's no way to know which from one measurement. Letgro's earlier posts go deeper on the ranking-versus-citation gap and what specifically gets a business named.
If you want to know exactly where your business stands against this gap right now, Letgro's AEO service runs the check.