Check a salon's Instagram, says Gemini. Don't trust a photographer's

Short answer: the same engine gives opposite advice about the same platform, depending on the trade. Asked for the best hair and beauty salons, Gemini tells the customer to look at the salon's Instagram before booking in 122 of its 142 answers: "Check their Instagram: This is the most important step." Asked for the best wedding photographers, it warns the couple against judging on Instagram in 89 of its 113 answers: "Instagram is a highlight reel." It never once warns against a salon's Instagram. ChatGPT, asked the same questions, mentions Instagram in 2 of its 141 salon answers and never warns against it. What the engine says about Instagram is what the customer does next: open the feed, or ask for something the feed does not show.

For the salon, the feed is the portfolio. For the photographer, it is the highlight reel.

What was measured

Six studies asked in English: the United States (collected September 13, 2026), the United Kingdom (July 31) and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore (October 16). The same buyer questions ("What are the best hair salons in Perth?") were put to ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Gemini through their APIs, without web search and without any location; the British study also asked Perplexity. We removed the cities answered for another place of the same name, which leaves 4,519 answers. "Salons" are the hair salons of five studies and the hairdressers and beauty salons of the British one; "photographers" are wedding photographers, in all six. In every answer we classed each sentence that names Instagram: it sends the customer to the account ("check their Instagram", "search the salon's tag on Instagram"), it warns against judging on it ("not just their Instagram", "Every photographer puts their best 5-10 photos on Instagram"), or it does something else (an agency that sells Instagram ads, an "Instagram-worthy" salon). An answer can do both. The classifier was tested on sentences before any count, then corrected twice after reading what it got wrong: "Don't just look at their website; look at their Instagram feed" pushes toward Instagram, and "highlights" is also a hair colour technique. In the final pass, 50 sentences drawn at random from the two largest classes and all 33 sentences in which Gemini sends a couple to a photographer's Instagram were read: all were correctly classed. On September 30 we saw the same engine set the bar for a rating: the AI does not give your rating. It sets the bar at 4.5.

One platform, two verdicts, in every country

For a salon, Gemini treats the feed as the proof: "In 2024, a salon's Instagram is their portfolio", "look up the salon's Instagram page and search their tagged photos". For a wedding photographer, it treats the same feed as the thing to see past: "Never book based solely on an Instagram feed", "Anyone can post 20 great photos on Instagram, but a full gallery will show you how they handle the ceremony". The split holds in each of the six countries (table below). It is not a refusal of Instagram: in 30 photographer answers Gemini also suggests looking at the feed, 13 of them in the same answer as the warning, usually to judge a style before asking for a full gallery. In the other trades (16 or 17 per study), Instagram barely exists: 46 of 1,760 Gemini answers mention it, mostly in the lists of marketing agencies that sell it. ChatGPT mentions Instagram in 25 of its 115 photographer answers, almost always as a place to go and look ("Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are great for discovering photographers"), and never warns against it. Perplexity, asked only in the British study, mentions it once in 78 answers about these two trades.

What it means if you are the business

If you run a salon, the answer sends your next customer to your Instagram before they book, and tells them to look at the tagged photos, on real clients. Make that visit work: an account under the name the customer will search, linked from your website, recent work, and the stylist's name on each result. If you are a wedding photographer, the answer tells the couple your feed is a highlight reel and to ask for a full gallery. Do not wait to be asked: put one or two complete weddings, ceremony to last dance, on your own site, where the couple can open them without writing to you. The engine has already told them what to look for. Nothing here guarantees being named.

What this does not prove

• These are the models' answers through their APIs, without web search and without the user's location: the way our audit asks. Gemini with search, or in its app, may answer differently.
• We measured what the answer tells the customer to do, not which businesses it names: nothing here shows that a better Instagram or a published gallery gets a business into the list.
• The classifier was checked by reading samples, not every sentence; a sentence written in an unusual way can be misclassed.
• Each question was asked once, between July and October 2026; the advice may change with the model.