Original research
What the AI assistants say when a homeowner asks for a contractor
The same five-question test, run on roofers, HVAC companies, plumbers and electricians. The headline numbers, the method and the data, in one place and free to cite.
Since August 2026 we have been running the same test on local contractors: five questions a homeowner would ask, put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, twenty answers per company. One study is published so far, 260 answers in all, every one of them downloadable. This page keeps the headline numbers in one place so you can cite them without reading three articles.
- 260
- AI answers read across the published studies, 20 per company
- 12 of 13
- roofing companies never had their own website linked, August 2026
The studies
| Study | Sample | Own site linked | Named in answers | Most-cited source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 roofing companies, August 2026 | 13 roofers across 11 states and one national franchise, mixed Google rankings | 1 of 13 ever had its own site linked | not scored by name; links only | BBB and directories; a shingle manufacturer named 45 times |
The HVAC edition publishes October 7, 2026, and this page updates the same day.
Numbers you can cite
- In August 2026, 12 of 13 roofing companies tested never had their own website linked in any of 20 AI answers; across all 260 answers there was one link to a tested company's site. Roofing study
- A shingle manufacturer was among the names given most often for 9 of the 13 roofing companies, 45 mentions in all. Roofing study
- A Tampa roofer ranking for 2,647 Google keywords, 72 in the top 10, scored zero of five on AI links to its own site. Roofing study
How the studies are run
Five buyer prompts per company, written by a third-party visibility-testing tool from what the company's website says, each put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity through the tool's API: fresh sessions, no account history, no location set, the smaller tier of each model (gpt-4o-mini, Perplexity sonar, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, Claude Haiku 4.5). Two scores: linked, of 5, the prompts where at least one assistant linked the company's own site, and named, of 20, the answers in which the company's name appears at all. From the HVAC study on, companies are the first company site in Google's organic results for "[trade] [city]" in 13 metros, so every company already holds the first page. Each study runs once, on one day; the answers shift from day to day, the shape does not.
Every study publishes a summary CSV (one row per company) and an answer-level CSV (one row per answer, with the prompt, the model, whether the company was linked and named, the brands named and the sources cited). Lead marketplaces are shown as one label and never named; marketing firms that appear as sources are withheld. The August study's answer-level file covers 5 of 13 companies, the only records that survive; the later studies are complete.
Use the data
Everything here is free to quote, chart or republish under CC BY 4.0 with credit to Riptide Growth and a link to the study. Downloads: Roofing summary; the answer-level files are linked from each study's data appendix. If you want a figure we have not published, or the test run on a company, ask and we will send what we have.
Where does your company land?
We run the same five-question test on your business, free, and send you every answer word for word.
Or call (254) 640-7180. Fixed scope, written price, everything in your name.