When AI names a dentist, at least one in five is wrong

Short answer: when ChatGPT or Gemini recommend a business, they name the person behind it in 318 passages out of 16,022, 2%: the chef, the dentist, the lawyer. For chefs the names hold up. For dentists, at least one in five does not: 33 of 162 are placeholders, a name recycled from city to city, or a practice in another city. The same dentist's name is recommended as local in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Nice. And lawyers are named in one country only: France, in 65 of 119 passages, against none of 702 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil.

A chef's name can be checked. A dentist's name, the AI sometimes makes up.

What was measured

Our four studies, re-read on October 7, 2026: the same buyer questions ("the best dentist in Bordeaux", "a good restaurant in Chicago") 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 person named as the one behind the business: a title followed by a name ("Chef Eric Ripert", "Dr. …", "Dra. …", "Maître …") or a verb of founding or running ("founded by", "helmed by", "dirigé par", "comandado pela chef"). The detector was tested on 10 phrasings it must catch and 8 it must not ("the chef's tasting menu", "Dr. Martens", "founded in 1998"). Then we read all 325 passages it kept. 7 were not a person: franchise names ("Dr. Faz Tudo", "Dr. Resolve"), a garage called "Dr. Carro", and a building once owned by Charlie Chaplin. 318 remain. We did not check each name one by one; we counted the ones that are certainly wrong.

Chefs, dentists, and lawyers in France

Almost every person named is a chef, a dentist or a lawyer. Restaurants, bakeries and hotels name the chef in 4.6% of their passages; the names are public figures, holders of Michelin stars or James Beard awards: Alain Ducasse in Paris, Helena Rizzo in São Paulo, Eric Ripert in New York, Manu Buffara in Curitiba. Dentists are named in 22.5% of theirs, and in France in 42 of 59. Lawyers are named only in France: 65 of 119 passages give a "Maître" with a first and last name, against none of 220 in the United States, 224 in the United Kingdom and 258 in Brazil, where the answer names the firm. In the 12,583 passages about every other trade, a person is named 4 times. By engine, Gemini names a person in 3.7% of its passages, ChatGPT in 1.0%.

One name in five, certainly wrong

Of the 162 dentists named, 33 are certainly wrong, four ways. Placeholders: ChatGPT lists "Dr. Jane Doe, DMD" and "Dr. John Smith, DDS" under a heading that says "Hypothetical", or gives a first name and an initial ("Dr. Pierre P."). Recycled names: Gemini recommends the same dentist's name as a local practice in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Nice, and three Brazilian dentists' names each in two or three cities; a practice cannot be the best in five cities at once. Another city: the three dentists Gemini names for Birmingham, England, practise in Birmingham, Alabama, so in the United Kingdom no dentist is actually named. The errors differ by engine: 12 of ChatGPT's 18 are placeholders, 26 of Gemini's 27 are recycled names or the wrong city. Everything else, 273 names, is plausible and unchecked: a floor of errors, not a count of truths. We do not print the names of the people concerned.

What it means if you are the business

If you run a dental practice, or a law firm in France, the assistant often answers with a person's name rather than the practice's. When the names on your pages are missing or unclear, it can fill the gap, sometimes with a name recycled from another city. Write each practitioner's full name, title, specialty and city, the same way on your site, your map listing and the directories that list you (the bar's directory for lawyers, the booking platforms for dentists), so the name it gives can be yours. If you run a restaurant, the chef's name travels with the chef's distinctions, as we saw with prizes (AI rarely cites an award. Two in five are Michelin). If you are a dentist in the United Kingdom, or a lawyer in the United States, the United Kingdom or Brazil, the answer names the practice, not the person: the practice name is what has to be consistent. 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 check names against the web.
• 273 names were not verified one by one: "plausible" does not mean "true". The 45 are a floor of errors, counted on what can be seen without an outside directory.
• A recycled name only shows when it comes back in our sample; an invented name given once is not detected.
• Four studies collected between July 30 and September 13, 2026, one pass per question. The models have moved since.
• We do not print the names of private individuals: the examples are placeholders written by the model, or public chefs.