On 18 September 2026 I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode for the best accountants, solicitors, recruitment agencies, IT support companies, architects and estate agents in Suffolk: 4 ways a buyer phrases it, 10 times each, per engine. Then I matched every firm named against every firm Google Maps lists in the county. Of 1,253 firms, 291 were recommended at least once. 962, or 77%, were never named, by any engine, in any of the 720 answers.
Suffolk AI search, sector by sector
What the named firms have in common
I went through the top and bottom of every table by hand. Three things separate the firms that come up from the ones that never do, and none of them is the size of the firm.
- Review volume, not rating. Named firms average 30, 67, 133, 25, 9, 201 Google reviews across the six sectors; the unnamed ones average 2, 9, 10, 5, 2, 37. A 4.9 with eleven reviews loses to a 4.6 with two hundred.
- A listing in the one directory the engine trusts. ChatGPT does not browse Suffolk. It reads Agency Central for recruiters, the ICAEW register for accountants, the Legal 500 for solicitors, RIBA Suffolk for architects, GetAgent for estate agents and an IT support directory for IT firms. A few firms it recommends have no Google Business Profile at all. They are in the directory, so they exist.
- A first sentence that says what and where. The named firms’ sites open with “accountants in Bury St Edmunds”. The invisible ones open with “bespoke financial solutions”. An engine can repeat the first. It cannot do anything with the second.
Those three things are the job. Reviews, the right directory, and a first sentence with a place in it are what SEO and GEO work goes on, and none of them needs a bigger firm.
The directories that decide
Every engine cites what it read. Summed across all 6 sectors, these are the sources behind the answers. Google’s own Maps links are left out of the table. AI Mode and Gemini lean on them constantly, which is the point.
| Engine | Most-cited sources, all sectors |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | agencycentral.co.uk · 242ribasuffolk.com · 103getagent.co.uk · 101legal500.com · 83itsupport.directory · 83westviewit.co.uk · 82 |
| Gemini | corbel.co.uk · 103ellisons.com · 92lawandlegal.co.uk · 87estatepropertyagents.co.uk · 86agile-ts.net · 74getagent.co.uk · 72 |
| Google AI Mode | corbel.co.uk · 92compasspoint.co.uk · 79lucidsystems.co.uk · 78agencycentral.co.uk · 72plan-it.co.uk · 68legal500.com · 63 |
The six sectors
Each block is 120 answers: 4 phrasings, 10 repeats, three engines. “Firms named” counts a firm once however many times it came up. The bars are the share of answers in which the firm was named.
Accountants
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 48 of 291 (17%) | 33% | find.icaew.comthebestof.co.ukgoodcompanies.co.ukabbeygateaccountancy.co.uk |
| Gemini | 29 of 291 (10%) | 51% | larking-gowen.co.ukscruttonbland.co.uklovewell-blake.co.ukmooregreen.co.uk |
| Google AI Mode | 24 of 291 (8%) | 57% | lovewell-blake.co.ukaccountantsup.co.uklarking-gowen.co.ukukaccountingfirms.co.uk |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named accountants average 30 Google reviews; the rest average 2.
Solicitors
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 35 of 148 (24%) | 32% | legal500.comlawstreet.co.ukreviewsolicitors.co.uklawandlegal.co.uk |
| Gemini | 22 of 148 (15%) | 63% | ellisons.comlawandlegal.co.ukprettys.co.ukattwells.com |
| Google AI Mode | 23 of 148 (16%) | 59% | legal500.comreviewsolicitors.co.ukbirketts.co.uksolicitorsup.co.uk |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named solicitors average 67 Google reviews; the rest average 9.
Recruitment agencies
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 32 of 228 (14%) | 35% | agencycentral.co.ukemploymentrecruitment.co.ukyell.comredsector.co.uk |
| Gemini | 16 of 228 (7%) | 69% | cremrecruitment.co.ukemploymentrecruitment.co.ukcareerhive.co.ukcvscreen.co.uk |
| Google AI Mode | 31 of 228 (14%) | 51% | compasspoint.co.ukagencycentral.co.ukuk.linkedin.commartin-salter.com |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named recruitment agencies average 133 Google reviews; the rest average 10.
IT support companies
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 30 of 135 (22%) | 38% | itsupport.directorywestviewit.co.ukplan-it.co.uklucidsystems.co.uk |
| Gemini | 17 of 135 (13%) | 75% | corbel.co.ukagile-ts.neticshelp.co.ukresponsiveit.co.uk |
| Google AI Mode | 18 of 135 (13%) | 75% | corbel.co.uklucidsystems.co.ukplan-it.co.ukagile-ts.net |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named IT support companies average 25 Google reviews; the rest average 5.
Architects
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 48 of 160 (30%) | 27% | ribasuffolk.comribaj.comriba.orgscottmortimer.co.uk |
| Gemini | 21 of 160 (13%) | 50% | houzz.co.ukwk-architects.co.ukmullinsdowse.co.ukscottmortimer.co.uk |
| Google AI Mode | 29 of 160 (18%) | 58% | beecharchitects.comwk-architects.co.ukhouzz.co.ukriba.org |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named architects average 9 Google reviews; the rest average 2.
Estate agents
| Engine | Firms named | Top five’s share | Reads most |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 41 of 291 (14%) | 33% | getagent.co.ukrightmove.co.ukonthemarket.comhelloagent.com |
| Gemini | 32 of 291 (11%) | 49% | estatepropertyagents.co.ukgetagent.co.ukrightmove.co.uksavills.co.uk |
| Google AI Mode | 45 of 291 (16%) | 32% | getagent.co.ukmarkewin.co.ukstarkingsandwatson.co.ukdavidburr.co.uk |
Who gets named
Share of answers in which the firm was named. Named estate agents average 201 Google reviews; the rest average 37.
Suffolk AI search: common questions
How many Suffolk businesses does AI search recommend?
291 of 1,253 firms with a Google listing were named at least once in 720 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, across accountants, solicitors, recruitment agencies, IT support companies, architects and estate agents. The other 962, or 77%, never came up.
Which Suffolk sectors are most visible in AI search?
Architects: 33% of them were named at least once. The least visible were recruitment agencies, at 18%.
Do ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode recommend the same Suffolk firms?
Only partly. Of the 291 Suffolk firms named by any engine, 86 were named by all three. Each engine reads different sources, so a firm can be well known to one and missing from the others.
How can a Suffolk business get recommended by AI search?
From this data: more Google reviews (the count matters more than the rating), a listing in the directory the engine trusts for your sector, and a website whose first sentence says what you do and where.
Method
- The denominator. Every Google Maps listing in each sector’s categories within the county, pulled through DataForSEO’s Business Listings data, filtered to Suffolk postcodes, wrong categories and permanently closed listings removed. Firms with more than one office are grouped by website, so Kerseys is one firm, not several.
- The prompts. “Best X in Suffolk”, “recommend an X in Suffolk”, “X near Ipswich”, “who are the top X in Suffolk”. Each run 10 times per engine, logged out, UK location, because the answer changes between runs and one run proves nothing.
- The engines. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, collected through DataForSEO’s scrapers on the date above. ChatGPT with web search on.
- A mention is the firm’s name, or its website, in the answer. Being cited as a source is counted separately. Matching was automatic, then checked by hand at the top and bottom of every table.
- What it cannot tell you. It is one day’s snapshot and the engines move. Firms without a Google listing are not in the count. The list of firms that were not named is deliberately not published.
The per-firm data is available to journalists and trade bodies on request: [email protected]. If you cite the study, link to this page. I will re-run it quarterly and keep the URL.
The same study, same sectors and same questions, for Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, and East Anglia as a whole. The same study for Suffolk’s plumbers, electricians, builders, roofers, landscapers and kitchen fitters is Suffolk tradespeople in AI search.