NAMEBEAM The dated record of who AI names

MARKET REPORT · ST. LOUIS, MO · SEPTEMBER 2026 · DATED RECORD

Who AI Recommends in St. Louis, MO

Window, corrected 2026-10-05: this report counts September 1 to 28, 2026 (28 run days). Our Perplexity collection method changed on September 28. The full-month record (30 run days) is the September panel: /panels/st-louis-mo.html.

For 28 days we asked five AI engines the same buyer questions a St. Louis, MO customer would ask, about branding agency, digital marketing agency, healthcare marketing agency, interior painting, and wrote down every business they named. This is the dated record of what they said.

Malone Painting was named on 18 of 28 days. Most-named business in St. Louis, MO, September 2026 · full table below

Key findings

Perplexity does the naming; the other engines mostly don't.

Perplexity named 53 distinct St. Louis businesses across the 28 run days. Anthropic named zero, it answered the same buyer questions with criteria and directories instead of names. If your customers ask Perplexity, you live or die by one engine's picks.

Malone Painting is the most-recommended painter in St. Louis, by the machines.

Perplexity named Malone Painting on 18 of 28 days (Sept 1 to 22), more than any other business in the market. Kennedy Painting (15 days) and SNL Painting (14 days, named straight through the final run day) round out the painting podium.

Agencies win on Google; painters win on Perplexity.

The agency names that repeat, Think Tank, Timmermann Group, Hub & Spoke, show up both as Perplexity picks and as cited domains in Google's results (9 days each). Painters dominate Perplexity's spoken answers while Google's citations spread across agency domains.

Being named is not permanent.

Malone Painting led early but was last named September 22. SNL Painting was still being named on September 28, the final run day. The leaderboard moves month to month, which is exactly why a dated monthly receipt exists.

Most named by Perplexity

Businesses Perplexity named most often when asked St. Louis, MO buyer questions, 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-28.

BusinessNicheDays namedFirst to last
Malone Paintinginterior painting182026-09-01 to 2026-09-22
Think Tank PR + Marketing + Designdigital marketing agency172026-09-05 to 2026-09-22
Kennedy Paintinginterior painting152026-09-01 to 2026-09-21
Ad Savantsdigital marketing agency142026-09-09 to 2026-09-26
SNL Paintinginterior painting142026-09-05 to 2026-09-28
Timmermann Groupdigital marketing agency122026-09-06 to 2026-09-27
Hub & Spokebranding agency112026-09-12 to 2026-09-27
DiPasquale Paintinginterior painting62026-09-01 to 2026-09-20
HBP Painting Contractorsinterior painting62026-09-17 to 2026-09-27

Most cited in Google results

Domains Google's results cited most often on the same questions.

BusinessDomainDays citedFirst to last
Think Tank PR + Marketing + Designthinktankprm.com9
Timmermann Groupwearetg.com9
Hub & Spokehubandspokecreative.com9
Atomicdustatomicdust.com92026-09-20 to 2026-09-28
CertaPro Painterscertapro.com72026-09-20 to 2026-09-28
Dovetaildovetail-stl.com72026-09-20 to 2026-09-28
Five Star Paintingfivestarpainting.com72026-09-20 to 2026-09-28

The engines disagree

Same questions, same days, different answers. That disagreement is the point: a check that skips an engine is guessing on your behalf.

EngineDays askedDistinct businesses
Anthropic280
Gemini2823
Google SERP2844
OpenAI2831
Perplexity2853

Days asked counts the days each engine received the questions. Gemini returned no business names after September 26, so its answered days are fewer than its days asked.

Anthropic answered all 28 days and named zero businesses; it returned buying criteria and directories instead of names. Perplexity named 53 distinct businesses. If your customer asks Perplexity and you're invisible there, the other four engines don't save you.

What this means if you run a St. Louis, MO business

If you run a St. Louis business, this page is your competition's report card and yours. The engines were asked the same questions your customers ask, every day for a month, and their answers are dated above. The free 5-engine check runs the same test on your business specifically, all five engines, one dated transcript, no card.

See where your business stands on all five engines.
Free. No card. Dated transcript by email.

Run my free 5-engine check

Method

Same buyer questions asked to each engine once a day, every answer stored with its date and file hash. Counts computed from the record; nothing estimated. Dated record 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-28, 28 run days, generated 2026-09-29 03:15:47 UTC from Namebeam_E1_Dataset_LATEST.csv. 145 distinct businesses tracked across 4 niches.

Full machine-generated panel: https://markets.namebeam.ai/panels/st-louis-mo.html. NameBeam's own public record: proof.namebeam.ai. NameBeam is an educational/marketing service; AI answers change over time and no rankings, traffic, or revenue are promised.