AI cites how long you have existed in 6% of its recommendations

Short answer: when ChatGPT or Gemini recommend a business, they mention how long it has existed in 6.2% of cases: 987 passages out of 16,022, across four countries. Gemini does it in 11.3% of its passages, ChatGPT in 3.1%. And it depends on the trade: close to three French bakeries in ten are recommended with their history, no Brazilian electrician is. When the assistant does mention age, it almost never gives a date: 42 passages out of 987. It says "an institution", "for decades", "family-owned".

Age is a reason in the bakery, and almost nowhere else.

What was measured

Our four studies, re-read on October 1, 2026: the same buyer questions ("the best bakery in Lyon", "a good plumber in Houston") 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. We cut each answer into passages (a numbered item, a heading and what follows it, a paragraph) and kept those that name a business, after removing platforms and directories (Yelp, Zillow, Avvo) and advice items ("Client reviews: check..."): 16,022 passages. In each, we looked for a mention of age in English, French and Portuguese: a founding date ("since 1888", "established in 1892"), a number of years ("over 40 years of experience"), or a word that says it ("for decades", "an institution", "family-owned", "long-standing"). The detector was tested first on 15 phrasings it must catch and 6 it must not ("a 5-year warranty", "for children aged 5"), then a sample of passages was read.

The bakery, the hotel and the letting agent

Age is not spread evenly across trades. In France, 29 of 102 bakery passages mention it, 22 of 105 for restaurants, 55 of 276 for hotels. In the United Kingdom, letting and estate agents come next, around 15%. At the other end, 0 of 222 passages about Brazilian electricians and 0 of 182 about British wedding photographers say how long the business has existed. The assistant brings up history where history is part of what the customer buys: the bread, the table, the room, the agent who knows the street.

Gemini tells the story, ChatGPT lists

The gap between the two engines holds in every country. In France, Gemini mentions age in 15.4% of its passages, ChatGPT in 3.2%; in the United States, 13.2% against 3.5%. Gemini writes longer passages about fewer businesses, and history is one of the things it fills them with, as it does with prices (AI praises a clear price more than a low one). The same split shows in who gets named at all (ChatGPT leans to chains, Gemini to independents). For comparison, the vocabulary of reputation ("well-regarded", "reviews") and of specialty ("specializes in", "expertise") appears several times more often than age, in both engines. We do not give an exact ranking between those two: their wording is too varied to count precisely.

What it means if you are the business

If you sell history, a bakery, a restaurant, a hotel, an agency that has known the town for thirty years, the assistant may use it, and it says it vaguely: "an institution", "for decades". Only 42 of 987 passages give a date. An assistant repeats what is written about you, so the year you opened is worth writing plainly and identically everywhere it can be read: your site, your map listing, the local press and guides that write about you. If you are an electrician or a wedding photographer, age almost never comes up: what the assistant says about businesses like yours is what they do and what customers say about them (what the AI reads before naming you). None of this guarantees a place in an answer; it only tells you which fact the assistant uses, in your trade, when it explains a name.

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 write differently.
• Four studies collected between July 30 and September 13, 2026, one pass per question. The models have moved since, and nothing here measures that drift.
• A passage can name several businesses, and a mention of age is then counted once for the passage, not per business. A heading such as "Personal injury" followed by three firms counts as one passage.
• Vocabulary misses reasons phrased otherwise. That is why this edition gives no share of "passages without a reason" and no fine ranking between reputation and specialty: when we read the passages our first lists classed as "no reason", most of them did give one, in words we had not counted.
• Trade figures rest on 100 to 300 passages each: clear at the top and bottom of the table, not precise to the point.