There are two phone books now.

live in a single universe

Of 272 named businesses in the 22 local markets (Perplexity's per-market top ten counted from its saved answer text, and Google's per-market most-cited list from the published reports, non-business phrases removed), 228 (83.8%) appear in only one of the two lists and 44 appear in both (counted from the saved answer text, Sept 1 to 28, 2026). Some of the most AI-dominant businesses in the corpus sit outside Google's top-10 entirely: Arrington Roofing in Dallas, named by Perplexity on 24 days, never appears in Google's most-cited list for Dallas. Others live in both books: Google also cited the sites of All Star Movers (Pleasanton, 10 days), Reliable Heating & Air (Atlanta, 10 days) and Gates Enterprises (Denver, its site gatesroof.com, 6 days).

So what: every SEO agency on earth is still optimizing for one phone book. The second phone book has different winners, and nobody is reading it. AI answers are 3 to 5 names, not 10 blue links, second place in AI is tenth place in Google.

businesses per niche-market: the real engine ranking

Our own September recap ranked OpenAI (880) above Gemini (870) on raw totals. That was a coverage artifact, Pleasanton tracks 8 niches, Los Angeles tracks 1. Normalized per niche-market, the ranking reverses:

Gemini 21.2 · OpenAI 18.7 · Perplexity 17.8 · Google SERP 13.7 · Anthropic 1.5

So what: raw totals mislead; per niche-market counts depend on the method: counting every name, Gemini is highest; counting only names that are businesses, it is not (our recount of 2026-10-04, second check in progress). Gemini named a business on 26 September dates and on none after September 26; every Gemini run from September 27 to October 11 was quota-blocked or failed, so this describes September, not Gemini today. We are correcting our own published headline below, because the standard applies to us first.

of Claude's 114 namings are nationwide digital products

Claude's 114 total namings include 76 nationwide digital products (AI tools, courses), verified from the US-nationwide data. The remaining 38 are short-term-rental listings and traditional local services; the published per-market JSONs don't separate that split, so we print what verifies. In September 1 to 28, 2026, Claude named no business on any answer day in 7 of the 9 local markets where it was asked about roofers, HVAC techs or lawyers. Denver and Liberty, MO were the exceptions.

So what: this isn't blindness, it's architecture. Claude answers from training memory, travel, software, and has no local-service knowledge to draw on. "AI visibility" is not one thing; it depends on how each engine knows what it knows.

of top-ten slots changed between the first and second half of the month

In the 24 report markets, 68 of the 196 businesses in Perplexity's second-half top ten (Sept 15 to 28) were not in its first-half top ten (Sept 1 to 14). 67 of the 535 businesses Perplexity named in these markets held steady, meaning named on 15 or more days and on at least 70 percent of the days between their first and last naming. Late September saw fresh entrants: six Columbus tanning salons were first named in the final week (Sept 22 to 28), each on one or two days (counted from the saved answer text, Sept 1 to 28, 2026).

So what: AI visibility rotates weekly. A monthly check-up may be the wrong cadence, by the time a monthly report arrives, the winners have changed. This one is an open product question, stated as such.

Where Gemini did not answer

Gemini posts a high per niche-market count on all names, then, in September 1 to 28, 2026, Gemini returned no answered run for the Los Angeles AI-agency or Maryland consultancy questions, and named one San Francisco agency on its one answered day. OpenAI named an agency on 19 of 28 Los Angeles answer days, 4 of 28 Maryland and 11 of 28 San Francisco. We don't know why yet. The query-level data to answer it lives in the raw corpus, and we're going after it.

The other direction: 160 businesses AI names that Google's tables do not list

The gap runs both ways. 160 of 208 businesses in Perplexity’s per-market top ten (24 report markets, counted from the saved answer text, Sept 1 to 28, 2026) have no match in Google’s “Most cited” tables, including a most-named roofer (Arrington Roofing, Dallas, 24 of the 25 Perplexity answer days). AI’s darlings, invisible to the old phone book. Recomputed 2026-10-12 against the public Google tables; the Invisible 100 carries the reverse list.