Will AI Recommend Your Home Care Agency? We Checked 100 AI Answers Against the CQC Register

Last Updated on September 29, 2026

On 29 September 2026, Whito asked three AI engines the same question in ten English towns: “Recommend a trustworthy home care agency in [town].” Every agency named was then checked against the CQC’s own register. The answer to the question in the title is: probably yes, if you are registered, and especially if you are a franchise. 90 of the 100 recommendation slots matched an active CQC-registered service in or near the town. The exceptions cluster in an uncomfortable place: they include names the engines put at or near the top.

How to read this page

• Asked. One question per town per engine, verbatim: “Recommend a trustworthy home care agency in [town].” Ten towns: Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Southampton, Plymouth and Norwich. Engines: ChatGPT (logged-in consumer account), Google AI Mode (logged out, no account), and Gemini (logged-in free tier, 3.5 Flash-Lite shown). All answers collected on 29 September 2026.
• Checked. Every named agency against the CQC’s published register file dated 26 August 2026, used under the Open Government Licence, with a live search on cqc.org.uk on 29 September 2026 for every name the file could not resolve. The check asks one thing: does an active registered service match the name, in or near the town?
• Not checked. Quality of care. Prices. Whether any agency is good at the job. Current inspection ratings are not reprinted here; the data file links each matched service’s CQC record so you can read the register yourself.
• Gemini gap, disclosed. Gemini’s free tier silently discarded sends after two towns, a behaviour we have documented before. Its Leeds and Bradford answers are counted; the other eight towns could not be collected and no figure on this page depends on them.

The finding

• 100 recommendation slots were collected: 47 from ChatGPT and 45 from Google AI Mode across all ten towns, plus 8 from Gemini across two towns. They contained 78 distinct agency identities.
• 90 of 100 matched an active CQC-registered service in or near the town. By engine: ChatGPT 44 of 47, AI Mode 39 of 45 with a further 2 matched only well outside the town, Gemini 7 of 8.
• 29 of the 90 matched services have no website recorded on the register. The engines are recommending providers the register itself lists blind, the same failure measured across all of England’s care services in The Invisible Half (48.3% of 57,082 services, file dated 26 August 2026).
• All 22 answers invoked the CQC by name. Almost none linked the record. ChatGPT cited cqc.org.uk pages in 9 of its 10 answers. Across the 12 Google answers (AI Mode plus Gemini), exactly one listed the register among its sources. 19 of the 22 answers attached a CQC rating claim to at least one named agency.
• Franchise networks dominate the answers. Home Instead was named in 9 of the 10 towns and took 19 of the 100 slots. National franchise and branded-network agencies took 52 of the 100 slots between them.
• Engines agree more on care than on trades. 20 of the 78 distinct identities were named by two or more engines for the same town. In Whito’s June trades study, two of three engines agreed on a best tradesperson in 1 of 12 questions.

The ten slots that did not match

Check results are stated flatly. A failure to match is a register result, never an accusation: a business may trade lawfully under a different registered entity, and some introduction agencies fall outside CQC registration altogether.

• Caremark Leeds & Bradford (named by both ChatGPT and AI Mode for Leeds, with a Leeds address and a 4.8-star map rating). A live register search on 29 September 2026 found no active registration under this name within 10 miles of Leeds. The nearest active Caremark location is in Wakefield, 8.6 miles away, under a different franchise name.
• Carefound Home Care (AI Mode’s lead recommendation for Leeds, repeated for Bradford as “highly trusted”). The register holds four Carefound branches: Harrogate, York, Wilmslow and West Bridgford. None is in Leeds or Bradford; the nearest is Harrogate, 18.7 miles from Leeds. The Leeds answer’s own place card located the firm at Nottingham.
• Nurseplus Care at home, Southampton and Plymouth (three slots). Live searches found zero active Nurseplus results within 10 miles of either town. The brand’s registered Hampshire locations on the 26 August file are Gosport and Andover.
• New Age Care (AI Mode, Birmingham). No active registration under this name in or near Birmingham; a same-name registration exists in Warwickshire.
• Able Care Agency (ChatGPT, Norwich). No active registration matching this name in or near Norwich.
• Home Instead (Wetherby, North Leeds and Horsforth) (Gemini, Leeds). No registration under this branch name exists. The register’s similarly named service is Right at Home North Leeds, Otley and Wetherby, a different company. Home Instead’s Leeds-area registrations carry other names.

The rating claims come with old dates

Whito does not reprint named providers’ current ratings; the register is one click away in the data file. What the answers themselves said is on the record, though, and two examples carry their own dates. For Newcastle, ChatGPT recommended a branch for its Outstanding rating and added, in its own words, that the latest published rating it found is from January 2021. For Bristol, AI Mode called a branch’s Outstanding rating “consistent” while its own quoted source dated that rating to February 2018. Whito’s September study of the register found this pattern is structural: the better the rating, the older it tends to be (How old are CQC ratings?).

What this means

The register mostly works here, and that is worth saying plainly. Compared with July’s electrician study, where 49% of AI-recommended firms matched an active registered company, home care shows what discovery looks like when a sector has a real register: 90 of 100 slots resolved. Regulated sectors give the engines something to stand on.

The remaining failures still matter more than their count suggests, for one reason: position. A no-match buried at position five is noise. A no-match presented as the top pick for two cities, or shared confidently by two engines, is the recommendation a family acts on. And because 29 of the 90 matched services have no website on the register, the engines fall back on franchise brands, aggregator reviews and map-widget stars, which is how a firm registered 18.7 miles away becomes a town’s “top choice”.

What to do

• Choosing care: treat any AI shortlist as names to check, never a verdict. Open each agency’s record on cqc.org.uk before you call. The data file below links every matched record.
• Running an agency: make sure your register entry carries your website and current details. Whito’s guide walks through exactly how: How to get your website onto your CQC profile page. The free Visibility Check shows what engines can read about you today.

Download the data

The full check file is published with this study: one row per recommendation slot, with the name as the engine gave it, the check result, the matched register name, postcode, local authority, whether the register holds a website for it, the CQC record link, and the adjudication note. whito-ai-home-care-check-2026-09-29.csv (100 rows). Register fields are from the CQC’s published directory, 26 August 2026 file, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0; live checks dated 29 September 2026.

Method

• One question per engine per town, asked once, verbatim, no follow-ups, 29 September 2026, from a UK connection.
• ChatGPT on a logged-in consumer account (personalisation not controlled; stated as a limit). Google AI Mode logged out with no account. Gemini on a logged-in free account, model shown 3.5 Flash-Lite.
• Every named agency matched against the CQC directory file (26 August 2026) by name and locality, including register “also known as” names. Names the file could not resolve were searched live on cqc.org.uk on 29 September 2026. Matched provider names in the data file are the register’s legal names, unedited.
• “In or near the town” means the town’s local authority, an adjoining district, or within the register search’s 10-mile radius.
• Raw answer logs are retained, with chat identifiers, for every counted answer.

Limits

• One day, ten towns, three engines, one phrasing. Other days, towns, engines and phrasings are not measured.
• Gemini covered two towns before its free tier stopped accepting sends; its eight slots are counted and the gap is stated wherever it matters.
• The 26 August register file predates collection by five weeks. Every no-match was re-checked live before being counted, so register lag does not create false no-matches; a service registered since 29 September would not be caught.
• A name match is a register result. It does not verify ownership of the office the engine described, and a no-match does not mean a business is trading unlawfully.
• ChatGPT ran logged in, so personalisation cannot be excluded for its answers. AI Mode ran with no account.
• This page reprints no provider’s current inspection rating; rating claims quoted from the answers are the engines’ claims, dated where the engines themselves dated them.

Cite this research

Whito Research (2026). Will AI recommend your home care agency? 100 AI answers checked against the CQC register. Whito, 29 September 2026. https://whito.co.uk/research/ai-home-care-recommendations-cqc-register/. Key finding: of 100 AI home care recommendation slots across 10 English towns collected on 29 September 2026, 90 matched an active CQC-registered service in or near the town, and 29 of the 90 matched services had no website recorded on the register.

Common questions

Did the AI engines recommend unregistered agencies?

Mostly no. 90 of 100 recommendation slots matched an active CQC-registered service in or near the town. For 8 slots no active registration matched the name given, and 2 more matched only branches well outside the town. A no-match is a register result: the business may trade under a different registered entity, and some introduction agencies sit outside CQC registration.

Which engine performed best against the register?

On this collection, ChatGPT matched 44 of 47 slots, Google AI Mode 39 of 45 with 2 more matched outside the town, and Gemini 7 of 8 on its two towns. ChatGPT was also the only engine that routinely cited CQC record pages, in 9 of 10 answers.

Does a match mean the agency is good?

No. The check verifies registration, never quality. Read the service’s own record and latest inspection report on cqc.org.uk before choosing care.

Why do the engines favour big franchise names?

The answers lean on what is public: brand websites, aggregator listings and map reviews. 29 of the 90 matched services have no website on the register, and where the record is thin the engines reach for the names with the largest public footprint. Home Instead appeared in 9 of the 10 towns.

Related Whito research

• The Invisible Half: 27,551 English Care Services Have No Website on the CQC Register
• How old are CQC ratings?
• The discovery layer arrived before the data did: a briefing on AI and the UK’s public registers
• AI Recommendations Have Outrun the UK Public Record

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research publisher. We publish research on how UK businesses are found, trusted and priced: what they cost to market, how their sectors work, and who actually gets recommended. Studies are free to read, every figure carries the date it was checked, and nobody pays to appear.

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