Finding
On 14 September 2026 Whito asked ChatGPT and Google Gemini for a trustworthy local firm across eight Manchester trades. Of 99 businesses named, only five were named by both engines, and nearly a third of the names checked had no active Companies House match.
Source: Whito, whito.co.uk/research/ai-engines-local-recommendations. Free to quote with a link to this page.
Last Updated on September 15, 2026
AI local search · Manchester · collected 14 September 2026
On one day we asked ChatGPT and Google Gemini the same plain question in eight trades: who is a trustworthy tradesperson or professional in Manchester. Between them the two engines named 99 different businesses. Only 5 of those 99 were named by both engines.
The finding, in five lines
- Two engines, one city, one day. Of 99 businesses named, only 5 were named by both.
- On six of the eight questions the two engines did not share a single name.
- Of the 77 names we could check on Companies House, 69 per cent matched an active company. Nearly a third did not.
- 82 per cent of recommendations came with a star rating. A third were a flat 5.0. Just under half were lifted from a widget, not checked.
- ChatGPT ended 10 of its answers with a paid advert. Copilot could not be included: it now sits behind a sign in wall.
That is the finding. Two of the most used AI tools in the country, asked the same question on the same day about the same city, mostly hand back different businesses.
Being named by one engine is close to a coin toss for being named by the other.
01How little they overlap
Each bar is the number of different businesses the two engines named for that trade in Manchester. The solid green marks how many of those names both engines picked. On five of the eight trades, that green is a sliver or nothing at all.
named by both
shared first pick
02A name is not proof
Of the 99 businesses named, we could check 77 against the Companies House public register and reach a clear answer. Just over two thirds matched a company that is active today. Nearly a third could not be matched to an active company: 23 had no matching company on the register at all, and one traded under a name whose company is dissolved.
Ratings did most of the persuading. Across every answer we collected, 82 per cent of businesses arrived with a star rating attached. A third of those ratings were a flat 5.0. And 45 per cent of the ratings were not a figure the engine had checked and stated. They were lifted straight from a Google or map card dropped into the answer.
A few named firms would not survive a two minute look at the register.
Gemini put it at the top of a cleaning list it called trustworthy. The card beside the name showed one star out of five.
Named by Gemini in a trustworthy Manchester estate agent list, at 2.3 stars, with two other branches below four stars in the same list.
Gemini gave it 5.0 stars. The name matches a company set up in May 2025 at the same Hulme address as an identically named company dissolved in December 2023.
ChatGPT’s first electrician pick. Active, but on the day we looked its accounts and confirmation statement were both overdue at Companies House.
ChatGPT’s plumber pick. The company has since been renamed to a property services firm. The plumbing name it handed over is a former name.
A question asking for a trustworthy local dentist ended with a paid advert for a dental tourism package: twenty crowns, six nights, transfers.
03What this means for a UK owner
Two things follow, and neither needs a marketing budget.
If you are a small firm hoping to be named by AI, there is no single list to get onto. The engines do not share one view of who is good in your town, so chasing a place in one engine’s answer is chasing a target the next engine ignores.
If you are a customer, a name in an AI answer is not proof. It is not proof the business is trading today, not proof the company behind the trading name still exists, and not proof the star rating was checked rather than borrowed. The engines are reading the same public web you can read. The one thing they mostly skip is the free register that tells you whether the company is real and current.
The practical step is the same for both. Take the name, search it on the Companies House register, and confirm the company is active before you spend anything. It is free and it takes two minutes. On this evidence, it is the check the engines are least likely to have done for you.
Method, in brief
We asked each engine one fixed question per trade, worded the same every time, through the ordinary consumer chat site rather than a developer interface. We logged the raw answer, every business named, the order it was named in, any rating shown and where that rating came from, and any platform or register the engine cited. We then searched each unique business name on the Companies House register and recorded whether it matched an active company, a dissolved one, or nothing.
Microsoft Copilot could not be included. Its consumer site now sits behind a sign in wall and an account form, so we could not collect it under the same conditions on the day. It is recorded as not collected, not substituted.
Limits
This is a dated snapshot from one day, not a league table. AI answers change day to day and from account to account. “Trustworthy” is the word we put in the question, not a Whito verdict on any firm. Companies House does not cover sole traders, so a firm with no matching company may still be a real, honest business trading under a person’s name. A rating or a platform badge is not proof the work was good. The cross engine and register figures are for Manchester, the town we covered on both engines across all eight trades.
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