AI says lawyers offer free consultations. It never says which

Short answer: ChatGPT and Gemini talk about free consultations and free estimates as advice, almost never as a reason to choose a business. 182 of 3,600 answers mention one; 14 of 16,022 passages credit one to the business they name. For lawyers, one answer in four tells the buyer to book a free initial consultation (53 of 208), and none of the 821 passages naming a firm says that firm offers one. The same holds for accountants (43 answers, 0 passages) and hair salons (29 answers, 0 passages). The 14 exceptions are nearly all free quotes from locksmiths, plumbers, electricians and garages, and 13 of the 14 come from ChatGPT.

The AI tells the customer a free first meeting exists. It does not say where.

What was measured

Our four studies, re-read on October 8, 2026: the same buyer questions ("the best attorney in Denver", "a good plumber in San Diego") put to ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Gemini through their APIs, without web search, in the United States (collected September 13, 2026), the United Kingdom (July 31), France (July 30) and Brazil (August 6). 3,600 answers, cut into passages; 16,022 of them name a business, with the same cleaning as our recent editions. We looked for a free first step before buying: a free estimate, quote, consultation, diagnostic, assessment, valuation or trial lesson, in English, French and Portuguese ("free initial consultation", "devis gratuit", "consulta inicial gratuita"). Free Wi-Fi, free parking and gluten-free do not count. Then we separated two things: an offer the answer credits to the business it names, and a tip about the market ("many attorneys offer free consultations", "most of these salons offer free consultations"). The detector was tested on 16 phrasings it must catch and 18 it must not. A first pass counted 19 credits; reading them, 7 were tips. Reading every "free", "gratuit" and "grátis" in the named passages then found 2 credits the patterns had missed. All 14 that remain were read.

Advice for lawyers, accountants and salons; credit for locksmiths

Where the AI talks most about a free first step, it never credits one. Lawyers: 53 of 208 answers advise a free (or low-cost) initial consultation, in all four countries: 19 of 52 in the United States, 18 of 52 in Brazil, 9 in the United Kingdom, 7 in France. Not one of the 821 passages naming a firm says which firm offers it. Accountants: 43 answers, 0 of 820 passages. Hair and beauty salons: 29 answers advise a free consultation before a big colour change, 0 of 1,515 passages. The credits go to the trades that come to you and to garages: 13 of 3,827 passages, mostly "free quotes", 6 of them for British locksmiths (6 of 163 passages). Four of the 14 go to networks or a multi-site clinic (Norauto, Midas, AAMCO). By engine, Gemini mentions a free offer in 95 answers and credits a named business once; ChatGPT, in 87 answers and 13 times.

What it means if you are the business

If you offer a free first consultation, quote or check, the AI knows the custom of your trade but rarely says you follow it: in our answers it tells buyers to look for the offer and leaves them to find who makes it. Write the offer on your own pages as a fact about your business, in plain words a sentence can repeat: what is free, how long it lasts, what it includes, how to book it ("a free 30-minute first consultation, by phone or in person"). Use the same words on your map listing. If your consultation is not free, say what it costs: the AI praises a clear price more than a low one (AI praises a clear price more than a low one). Nothing here guarantees being named.

What this does not prove

• These are the models' answers through their APIs, without web search: the way our audit asks. Consumer apps with search switched on may read the offer on a firm's site.
• No credit is not no offer: many of the firms named may well offer a free consultation. We did not check their sites; we measured what the answer says.
• The line between a credit and a tip is read from the sentence: "many attorneys offer" is a tip, "they offer" after a named firm is a credit.
• We did not measure that writing the offer on your pages makes the AI repeat it.
• Four studies collected between July 30 and September 13, 2026, one pass per question. The models have moved since.