AI says why to choose a business, almost never how to get in

Short answer: when ChatGPT or Gemini recommend a business, they almost never say how to get there, get in or book: 97 passages out of 16,022, 0.6%, give one practical fact. Wheelchair access comes up in none. Parking, once. The language spoken, four times. What does come up is a hotel near the station, 30 times, and a warning that a table or an appointment is hard to get, 27 times, all from Gemini; ChatGPT never says it. The reasons to choose a business fill the answer. The facts a customer needs to actually go there are not in it.

The answer tells you why to go. Not how to get through the door.

What was measured

Our four studies, re-read on October 8, 2026: the same buyer questions ("a good dentist in Glasgow", "the best restaurants in Leeds") 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; we kept the 16,022 that name a business, with the same cleaning as our recent editions. In each, we looked for a practical fact, in English, French and Portuguese: public transport nearby ("near the train station", "à deux pas du métro"), parking ("free parking", "valet", "estacionamento próprio"), wheelchair access ("wheelchair accessible", "step-free", "PMR"), booking, easy ("online booking", "prise de rendez-vous en ligne") or hard ("book well in advance", "waitlist", "reserve com antecedência"), and the language spoken ("Spanish-speaking staff", "fala inglês"). Each detector was tested on phrasings it must catch and phrasings it must not ("the parking lot was full", "Spanish tapas", "the waiting room"). Then we read all 125 passages kept, and removed 28: general advice that names no business ("book in advance: the best salons fill up", "check whether the practice has dedicated parking", "be prepared for an NHS waiting list"), and a false friend: in Brazil, "acessibilidade" said of a dental chain means affordable prices, not wheelchair access. 97 remain.

Why to go, never how to get in

Of 16,022 passages, none says whether a wheelchair can get in, one says where to park, four say which language is spoken. The practical facts that do appear follow the trade. Hotels are placed by their station, 30 times, in France and the United Kingdom above all. Popular restaurants and salons are flagged as hard to book, 27 times: "one of the hardest reservations to get in the city", "the top stylists book out four to eight weeks in advance". Garages, heating engineers and driving schools are praised for online booking, 24 times, and most of the names are networks: Halfords, Norauto, Midas, Speedy, BSM, Cham. Seven of the 42 transport mentions only repeat a name: ChatGPT puts "Garage de la Gare" near the station. By engine, Gemini gives a practical fact in 1.0% of its passages, ChatGPT in 0.3%, and every warning that booking is hard comes from Gemini. Availability, the one practical reason we measured before, behaves the same way: it lives in emergency trades only (for a locksmith, AI cites availability; for an accountant, never).

Google asks for these facts

The facts the answers leave out are the ones Google asks a business to declare. Its help page "Manage your business attributes", read on October 8, 2026, lists accessibility attributes, among them "Wheelchair-accessible entrance", "Wheelchair-accessible restroom", "Wheelchair-accessible seating", "Wheelchair-accessible parking" and "Wheelchair-accessible elevator", and states that attributes show up on a Business Profile on Search, Maps and other Google platforms. An assistant answering from its own memory, as in this measurement, does not carry them; a map listing does.

What it means if you are the business

If a customer needs to know whether they can park, whether a wheelchair gets through the door, how to book or which language you speak, the AI answer is not where they will find it: 97 passages in 16,022 say anything of the kind. That information lives on your map listing and your own pages. Fill in the attributes your listing offers (accessibility, parking, a booking link, the languages spoken), and write the same facts plainly on your site: how to get there, where to park, whether the entrance is step-free, how to book. If you are a restaurant or a salon that is hard to book, the assistant may already say so; a clear booking link turns that warning into a way in. 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, and map results, may show these attributes; this measurement does not see them.
• A vocabulary misses facts phrased otherwise. We checked parking and accessibility with a wide search: the remaining hits are place names ("Lincoln Park", "Park Avenue") and "metro area".
• Four studies collected between July 30 and September 13, 2026, one pass per question. The models have moved since.
• The questions asked for the best businesses, not for an accessible or easy-to-park one. A customer who asks for that may get a different answer.
• We did not check that the facts given are true, nor that the businesses named still offer them.