For an accountant, AI repeats national firms. For a hotel, never

Short answer: it depends on your trade. Asked for the best accountants in a Canadian, Australian or New Zealand city, ChatGPT and Gemini repeat 51 names across our cities; 43 of them are firms they also name in at least three cities of the same country. In Canada, MNP, Deloitte and KPMG come back in all 9 cities we asked about. Recruiters (100 of 124) and insurance brokers (48 of 64) look the same. For hotels the count is 0 of 118, for restaurants 0 of 76, for marketing agencies 0 of 44: every name the assistant repeats is local. A local accountant is not competing with the firm down the street for a place in the answer. It is competing with the national firm that the answer names in every city.

For some trades, the answer to "the best in my city" is the same in every city.

What was measured

Our studies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, collected on October 16, 2026: buyer questions such as "What are the best accountants in Calgary?", put to ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Gemini through their APIs, without web search and without any location, 4 answers per trade and city (two questions, two engines), in 9 Canadian, 9 Australian and 5 New Zealand cities: 1,575 answers. Towns that share their name with another place were removed, as explained in our previous edition. For each trade and city we kept the businesses named in at least 2 of the 4 answers, the names the assistant repeats. A repeated name counts as national when the same trade brings it up, in any answer, in at least 3 cities of the same country. Each city keeps its ten most-cited names, so a firm's presence in a city can be undercounted, never overcounted. We left out 13 repeated names too generic to be the same business from one city to the next ("A1 Driving School", "The Cutting Room"), and trades with fewer than 15 repeated names. Singapore is not in this count: its "cities" are neighbourhoods of a single city. On October 15 we counted national networks in all recommendations, repeated or not, in other countries: half the recruiters AI names are national networks. This edition looks only at the names the assistant repeats.

Three trades get national names; the rest get the city

The split is sharp, and it follows how each trade is organised. Accounting, recruitment and insurance broking have firms with an office in every city, and the answers reflect that. In Canada, MNP, Deloitte and KPMG are named for accountants in all 9 cities and Grant Thornton in 8; Randstad comes back for recruiters in all 9. In Australia, Hays and Randstad come back for recruiters in all 9 cities, Gallagher for insurance brokers in 8. In New Zealand, Aon and Crombie Lockwood are named for brokers in all 5 cities. The few local names that hold are worth reading: Hood Sweeney for accountants in Hobart, Mackay Bailey in Auckland, Strathearn Insurance Brokers in Perth, Rothbury and Runacres in Wellington, Billyard Insurance Group and Jones DesLauriers in Toronto. Some of the remaining "local" names are offices of a national network listed under their city ("BDO Auckland", "BDO Wellington"), which is why the national share is a floor. Hotels, restaurants, bakeries and marketing agencies are the reverse: not one name the assistant repeats comes back in three cities. Lawyers sit in between, and differ by country: none of the 18 in Canada is national, 7 of the 17 in Australia are (Allens, Herbert Smith Freehills, King & Wood Mallesons).

What it means if you are the business

If you are a local accountant, broker or recruiter, the firm you compete with for a place in the answer is probably the national network, not your neighbour. Its name is everywhere; yours has to be tied to something it cannot claim. Write your city and the clients you specialise in, in plain words, on the pages that describe what you do: "accountant for farms in the Waikato", "strata insurance broker in Perth". Seek local mentions that name you with the city: the local paper, the chamber of commerce, professional bodies. If you are a hotel, a restaurant or an agency, the answer is local, and so is your competition: the businesses named are your neighbours, and what they have written about themselves is what you are compared with. In both cases, check what the assistant answers for your trade and city before you decide. 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. The apps may answer differently.
• One pass, on October 16, 2026: 4 answers per trade and city, 2 per engine. Each figure moves by one answer at a time.
• Each city keeps its ten most-cited names, and offices of one network are counted separately, so the national share is a floor.
• A name that comes back in three cities is counted as one firm. For the national networks named here it is; we removed the generic names where it may not be.
• Some names given for "insurance broker" are insurers rather than brokers (Intact, Tower): we count what the assistant answered.