Original research · San Antonio

Who AI Recommends in San Antonio: 8 Industries, English vs Spanish (2026)

By Mindgap Editor · Published October 31, 2026 · MindGap Technologies, San Antonio, TX

More people now ask an AI assistant to recommend a plumber, a dentist or a med spa. We wanted to know which San Antonio businesses those assistants actually name, whether the answer changes in Spanish, and how it compares with Google Maps. So we asked ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same question about eight local industries, in English and Spanish, three times each: 144 answers in total.

The short version:

• About one in three AI recommendations (243 of 760 named slots) matched a business in Google Maps' top 20 for the same search.
• In every industry, 11 to 19 of the Google Maps top 20 were never named in any of 18 answers.
• Perplexity returned nearly the same list run after run. ChatGPT and Gemini reshuffled.
• Spanish answers named a different set of businesses (English/Spanish overlap 0.13 to 0.40).
• The assistants picked businesses named on web pages: "best of" lists, directories, local press, practitioner directories and the businesses' own sites.

What we asked and how

Prompts. English: "Who are the best [plumbers] in San Antonio, TX? Recommend 5 by name." Spanish: "¿Cuáles son los mejores [plomeros] en San Antonio, Texas? Recomiéndame 5 por nombre."

Industries. Plumbers, AC repair companies, dentists, med spas, roofing companies, auto repair shops, chiropractors and family law attorneys.

Engines. ChatGPT (gpt-5.4-mini), Perplexity (Sonar) and Gemini (gemini-3.6-flash), each with web search turned on, queried through DataForSEO's AI Optimization API. Every prompt ran three times per engine: 9 answers per industry per language, 72 per language. Answers were collected on October 30–31, 2026.

Google comparison. For each industry we pulled the top 20 Google Maps (Places) results for "[industry] in San Antonio, TX" and matched AI-named businesses to them by their distinctive name words. We also checked whether Google showed an AI Overview or a local map pack for "best [industry] san antonio". On October 31 we re-ran two industries (med spas and AC repair, 18 answers each) with a separate tool as a cross-check.

Finding 1: AI picks are not the Google Maps leaders

Across both languages, 243 of 760 business slots in the AI answers (32%) matched a business in the Maps top 20. Most of the Maps top 20 had 50 or more Google reviews (all 20 in five of the eight industries), yet in each industry 11 to 19 of them were never named in any of the 18 answers.

The professional categories score lowest partly because the assistants name people, not practices. In English, 33 of 50 dentist slots and 29 of 51 chiropractor slots were individual practitioners ("Dr. …"), and family law answers mostly named individual attorneys. Those names rarely match a practice's Maps listing.

Finding 2: engines disagree, and two of them reshuffle

We measured how much each engine's list changed between its three runs (overlap of the named set: 1.0 means the same names every time, 0 means none in common).

Nine English answers per industry (45 slots) produced between 15 and 38 different business names. A few businesses were named almost every time: Stadia Medical Spa and Rhino Roofers were named in all 9 English answers for their industry, and George Plumbing in 8 of 9 in both English and Spanish. In the October 31 cross-check, Stadia was named in 17 of 18 med spa answers, and Goettl (12 of 18), Jon Wayne Service Company (11) and Cowboy's Air Conditioning & Heating (10) led AC repair.

Finding 3: Spanish gets a different list

Asking the same question in Spanish changed who was recommended. Overlap between the English and Spanish sets of named businesses ranged from 0.13 (dentists) to 0.40 (plumbers).

Example: Goettl was named in 4 of 9 English AC repair answers and 8 of 9 Spanish ones. Leaders also move between days: Stadia went from 9 of 9 English and 6 of 9 Spanish answers on October 30 to 8 of 9 and 9 of 9 in the October 31 check, which used slightly different wording ("medical spas").

Finding 4: where the AI gets its picks

ChatGPT and Gemini report the web searches they ran. Of their 96 answers, 95 included a "best [industry]" search; 27 also searched Yelp, 11 BBB and 8 Angi. The assistants then named whoever kept appearing on the pages they read. The sites cited or retrieved most often:

The October 31 AC repair check (18 answers) shows the same mix: consumeraffairs.com in 15 answers, bestinhood.com 11, mysanantonio.com 10, reddit.com 9, forbes.com 8, plus two businesses' own websites, honeycombair.com (6) and cowboysac.com (5). Med spa answers leaned on niche directories (medspascout.com and medicalspalocator.com, 10 of 18 each) and mysanantonio.com (10). Spanish answers about doctors and lawyers also cited healthgrades.com (5), superlawyers.com (4) and avvo.com (4).

Finding 5: Google AI Overviews were rare here

For these searches, the map pack still did the heavy lifting on Google.

What this means for a local business

• A strong Maps ranking does not carry over on its own. Most well-reviewed Maps leaders were never named.
• Check more than once. A single screenshot proves little. Ask several engines, several times, and count how often you are named.
• Check in Spanish too if you serve Spanish-speaking customers. The list is different.
• Be named on the pages the AI reads: complete, accurate listings (Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yelp, BBB, Angi, Thumbtack), legitimate "best of" lists for your industry, local press, and, for doctors and lawyers, individual practitioner profiles.
• Give your own site a page that answers the question: what you do, where, for whom, in plain text, in English and Spanish if you serve both.
• Be wary of shortcuts. The assistants found their picks through ordinary web search: lists, directories, press and business websites. Nothing in this data points to special files such as llms.txt or "AI schema". And nobody can promise a rank in an AI answer.

Method and limitations

• AI answers are non-deterministic. Three runs per engine is a small sample; treat the numbers as shares, not ranks.
• One city, one industry list, collected over two days. Results will drift.
• We queried the engines through an API with no user history or location. A person using the ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini apps may see personalized answers.
• Business names were extracted automatically; a few slots are headings misread as names. Matching to Maps used distinctive name words, so all-generic names and practitioners listed under a practice may be missed.
• "Maps top 20" is the Google Places text search result for the industry, not any one person's Maps view.
• Perplexity counts include pages it retrieved, not only pages it linked. Gemini's citations that point to Google redirect links were left out because the underlying site is not shown.

About this study

This research was done by MindGap Technologies, a small studio in San Antonio, Texas. We run AI visibility checks for San Antonio and Bexar County businesses, in English and Spanish: how often ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI name you versus your competitors, and which sources they used. See AI visibility checks for San Antonio businesses, or email diego@mindgap.tech. Press and researchers are welcome to cite these figures with a link to this page.