# Local AI Registry Research > Original research from Local AI Registry (localairegistry.com), an answer engine optimization (AEO) company for local businesses, on how AI systems answer questions about local businesses. Local AI Registry builds verified, owner-confirmed public records of local businesses and pushes those facts to the sources AI reads, through Google Business Profile management, press releases, AEO content, technical AEO (schema, llms.txt) and listing consistency. Headquarters: 9891 Irvine Center Dr, Irvine, CA 92618. Research is published by the Local AI Registry Research Team, led by a former Google Search executive, which builds on research by Aggarwal et al. (Princeton, GEO), Xu, Iqbal and Montgomery (WashU), Kumar and Lakkaraju (Harvard) and Liu, Zhang and Liang (Stanford). ## Research - [Research hub](https://localairegistry.com/research): Library of Local AI Registry studies, indexes and datasets on AI search and local businesses. - [How Often AI Recommends Your Business](https://localairegistry.com/research/how-often-ai-recommends-your-business): How Often AI Recommends Your Business: A Better Measure of Local Visibility. Asked the same query twice, Gemini’s sources overlapped by only 0.46 and a median of 29% of the businesses ChatGPT named appeared in both answers, so AI visibility is best measured as how often a business is named across many answers. - [How Often AI Recommends Your Business, full text (Markdown)](https://localairegistry.com/research/how-often-ai-recommends-your-business/index.md): Complete report as plain Markdown. - [How Often AI Recommends Your Business, data (CSV)](https://localairegistry.com/research/how-often-ai-recommends-your-business/data/how-often-ai-recommends-your-business-data.csv): Aggregated tables behind all charts, CC BY 4.0. - [How Often AI Recommends Your Business, video explainer](https://youtu.be/g0Q8h4WKVw8): A short plain-language walkthrough of the findings. - [The Local Answer Gap](https://localairegistry.com/research/local-answer-gap): The Local Answer Gap: what 7,583 Google AI answers reveal about AEO for local businesses. News outlets supplied 67.5% of the citations in Google’s AI answers about local businesses; businesses’ own websites supplied 6.5%, and 83.6% of answers told people to check with their local store. - [The Local Answer Gap, full text (Markdown)](https://localairegistry.com/research/local-answer-gap/index.md): Complete report as plain Markdown. - [The Local Answer Gap, data (CSV)](https://localairegistry.com/research/local-answer-gap/data/local-answer-gap-data.csv): Aggregated tables behind all charts, CC BY 4.0. - [Full site text](https://localairegistry.com/research/llms-full.txt): All research in one file. ## Key findings: How Often AI Recommends Your Business - In research reviewed by Local AI Registry, the same query run twice shared 0.78 of its sources on Google Search, 0.66 on Google AI Overviews and 0.46 on Gemini (Grossman et al., SIGIR 2026). - In a preprint census of cafés, restaurants and bars in Bali reviewed by Local AI Registry, the overlap between repeated runs of the same query ranged from 0.45 for Gemini to 0.22 for Claude. - When ChatGPT was asked the same local question twice, a median of 39 minutes apart, a median of 29% of the businesses named in either answer were named in both, according to 8ight.AI data reviewed by Local AI Registry. - Only 10.8% of doctors named by an AI model without web search matched a real clinician in the queried city, versus 63.9% with web search on, in a preprint audit of the 100 largest US metro areas reviewed by Local AI Registry. - Wording changes who AI recommends: 74.7% of the people recommended for “an oculoplastic surgeon” were oculoplastic specialists, versus 46.6% for “a doctor who does eyelid lifts,” in a peer-reviewed study reviewed by Local AI Registry. - ChatGPT declined to recommend an orthopedic surgeon in 52.8% of 40,500 persona-based requests, and stated income, insurance status and location were the strongest predictors of a recommendation, according to research reviewed by Local AI Registry. - Only 3.5% of the businesses ChatGPT named in localized searches appeared at every point tested across a town, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 analysis reviewed by Local AI Registry. - In the Bali census reviewed by Local AI Registry, 85.6% of venues were never recommended by any of the four AI systems, and being named was associated with documentation such as a website, more reviews, listed prices and mentions elsewhere on the web. - Local AI Registry calculated that a business named in 40% of AI answers has a 95% confidence interval of roughly 17% to 69% after 10 answers and 31% to 50% after 100, so one answer cannot measure AI visibility. ## Key findings: The Local Answer Gap - Local AI Registry found that local business searches triggered a Google AI Overview 76.4% of the time, the highest of any topic and over five times the 13.7% average (US searches, March to April 2026). - In Local AI Registry’s analysis, news outlets supplied 67.5% of citations in Google’s AI answers about local businesses, and Gannett newspapers alone appeared in 90.3% of those answers. - Businesses’ own websites supplied only 6.5% of citations in local AI answers, and directories such as Yelp, MapQuest and OpenTable supplied 0.5%, according to Local AI Registry. - Local AI Registry found that brand websites ranked on Google’s first page in 147 of 157 brand questions but were cited by Google’s AI in only 70. - 83.6% of local AI answers told people to check with their local store, and only 1 of 207 gave a street address or phone number, Local AI Registry found. - When Google’s AI attributed a local fact to a store locator, app or official site, 51.6% of those claims were not supported by any page it cited, according to Local AI Registry. - Cited social media posts had a median of 8 readable words, and 78% were too thin for AI to verify anything, in Local AI Registry’s review of 1,496 cited pages. - Asking the same local question in different words changed about two-thirds of the sources Google’s AI cited, Local AI Registry found. - Only 2 of 39,676 queries in public AI search research datasets ask an AI to find a local service provider, according to Local AI Registry’s census. ## About - [Local AI Registry](https://localairegistry.com): AEO and GEO services for local businesses; free business records and AI visibility audits. - [Add your business free](https://localairegistry.com/signup/business/new): Create a free Local AI Registry record for a local business.