Avante AI Visibility Index: How AI Recommends Local Businesses

What websites are cited when AI recommends local businesses?

Short answerIn Avante's study, about half of the 1,128 citations (49.6%) pointed to individual business websites. The rest were spread across publishers and best-of lists (11.6%), industry directories (9.8%), review platforms (8.2%), Reddit (7.2%), real-estate portals (5.9%), and social and video platforms (5.6%).

We sorted all 528 cited websites into two groups. A third-party source is a website that covers many businesses. An individual business website belongs to one business. The split came out almost even.

Does Reddit influence AI recommendations?

Short answerReddit was the most-cited single website in Avante's study and was cited in 53 of 60 recommendation answers. That shows Reddit threads were regularly among the sources behind a Perplexity recommendation. It does not show that posting on Reddit causes a business to be recommended.

Reddit received 81 citations and appeared in 79 of the 120 answers. It was cited in 53 of 60 recommendation answers (88%) and in 26 of 60 listing answers (43%). In other words, Reddit showed up about twice as often when the question asked for a judgment as when it asked for a list.

Reddit ranked in the top three sources in all six industries, and first in two of them: restaurants (20 citations) and HVAC (19). All 81 Reddit citations were individual discussion threads, and nearly all came from city communities such as r/tampa, r/houston, and r/phoenix, where residents ask each other for recommendations.

Outside research points the same direction for Perplexity and shows how platform-specific this is. Tinuiti, with Profound reported that Reddit made up 24% of Perplexity citations in January 2026 across commercial prompts in nine categories (Tracking AI Platform Citation Patterns in 2026, March 24, 2026). That study used a different prompt set, so its percentage is not comparable to ours. Promptwatchreported that Reddit's share of ChatGPT Search citations fell from 3.8% to 0.5% in mid-August 2026, and describes the size of that drop as provisional (Reddit Citations Are Dropping in ChatGPT, August 18, 2026).

Avante does not recommend manufactured posts or mentions. What the data supports is knowing whether community discussions are among the sources for your market, and what they say.

Does Yelp influence AI recommendations?

Short answerYelp was the second most-cited website in Avante's study, with 75 of 1,128 citations. Its presence depended heavily on industry: it led for med spas and was close to the top for dentists and HVAC, but it was cited once across all personal injury law queries.

Yelp received 75 citations and appeared in 75 of the 120 answers: 40 listing answers and 35 recommendation answers. By industry, Yelp received 19 citations for med spas, 18 for HVAC, 17 for dentists, 12 for real estate, 8 for restaurants, and 1 for personal injury law.

Of the 75 Yelp citations, 72 were category search pages for a city and 3 were individual business profiles. A citation to a category page tells us the platform was consulted. It does not tell us that any one profile earned the recommendation.

Do reviews influence AI recommendations?

Short answerReview platforms were a visible part of the source mix: 92 of 1,128 citations (8.2%) went to review platforms such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. The study did not test whether a higher rating or a larger number of reviews changes who gets recommended, so Avante does not claim that it does.

Review platforms in the data were Yelp (75), TripAdvisor (10), ConsumerAffairs (5), the Better Business Bureau (1), and one dental ratings site (1). Industry directories that also carry reviews, such as Zocdoc and Angi, are counted under directories.

No Google-owned page, including Google Business Profile and Google reviews, appears among the 1,128 cited URLs, so this study cannot measure their role. That is a limit of the method, not evidence that they are unimportant.

Platform-specific findings

This edition tested one platform, so every Avante figure on this page is a Perplexity figure. We do not have our own cross-platform data to publish yet.

What sources does Perplexity use for local business recommendations?

Short answerIn Avante's study, Perplexity cited 528 different websites across 120 local queries. About half of its citations (49.6%) went to individual business websites. The most-cited single websites were reddit.com (81 citations), yelp.com (75), instagram.com (28), and facebook.com (22), followed by industry directories and portals that changed with the industry.

This is the one platform question Avante can answer from its own data. The full breakdown is in the source tables above, and the per-industry leaders are in the industry table.

Where does ChatGPT get information about local businesses?

Short answerAvante's Index measured Perplexity, not ChatGPT, so this cannot be answered from our own data. OpenAI states that ChatGPT search works with outside search providers, ranks results using multiple factors, and does not guarantee placement. Outside research indicates its mix of sources differs from other AI platforms and can change quickly.

OpenAI's own documentation is the most direct source. It says that ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers and links to Microsoft's privacy statement as one of them. It says ChatGPT may share a user's location with third-party providers that supply local information such as nearby business listings, and that restaurant availability may come from OpenTable, Resy, or Yelp. On how results are chosen, it says: “ChatGPT ranks search results using multiple factors intended to help users find relevant, reliable information. Placement is not guaranteed.” To make a website eligible, the site must allow OpenAI's crawler, OAI-SearchBot (Searching the web with ChatGPT, OpenAI Help Center, read September 27, 2026).

The table below is outside research, shown so readers are not left without an answer. None of it is Avante data, each study used its own prompts and definitions, and the percentages cannot be compared with each other or with ours.