Throughout 840 trade-and-metro rankings, the prevalence of national chains spans from accounting for half of all citations in the moving sector to virtually none in five other fields.
SACRAMENTO, CA, UNITED STATES, August 31, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — SACRAMENTO, Calif., August 28, 2026 — In an analysis of 840 local-service rankings spanning 21 professions across 40 U.S. metro regions, artificial intelligence helpers cited an average of 9.2 enterprises per field, yet funneled 56.2% of total recommendations to just three companies, as reported by MentionedOn in a dataset released today.
Notable statistics:
• Top three receive 56.2% of mentions: Within any given field and metro region, the three most frequently cited businesses claimed the majority of all recommendations, leaving a fourth-place contender with a mere sliver of the spotlight.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
• Single top business captures 24.7% of mentions: The most frequently named enterprise took roughly one-quarter of every recommendation available in its trade and metro.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
• Average of 9.2 businesses named (median 10): Assistants listed a constrained set per trade and metro instead of canvassing the local market.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
• 54 brands represent 17.9% of all mentions: National brands—defined as those appearing in at least ten of the 40 metros—composed a small portion of overall citations.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
• Two brands present in all 40 metros: Only two names in the entire study, Two Men and a Truck and Terminix, were cited in every one of the surveyed metro areas.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
• Movers 51%, pest control 42%, accountants 37%, versus 0% in five trades: Chain dominance is not a universal feature of AI local search. It is concentrated in a handful of professions, while others were almost entirely composed of independent businesses.
Data source: MentionedOn leaderboard dataset, 840 reports as of 2026-08-22
What truly matters for a solitary business owner is the level of concentration, not the presence of chains. When an AI assistant responds to a query such as "who is the best plumber in Sacramento," it does not generate a full directory. Instead, it compiles a brief list, and that list is heavily skewed toward its top entries. Being ranked fourth in a given field yields only a small portion of the visibility that being first provides.
The pattern for national brands proved far more inconsistent than anticipated. Within the moving category, 51% of all recommendations were directed to brands that surfaced in at least ten of the examined metro areas, while pest control saw 42% of mentions go to such brands. Two Men and a Truck and Terminix were the sole entities in the entire dataset to appear in every single one of the 40 metros.
In five of the 21 trades examined, that proportion was virtually zero. Fields such as HVAC, law, veterinary care, real estate, and medical spas received responses dominated by independent local enterprises. For a proprietor in any of these sectors, the competitive landscape is wide open. In contrast, for those in moving or pest control, nearly half of the recommendation capacity is already claimed before any local market dynamics are factored in.
Overall, the AI assistants cited 5,552 unique businesses across the entire dataset, underscoring that these systems are not merely parroting the biggest advertiser in each category. Instead, they generate a concise, targeted, and highly concentrated response, and the specific businesses that appear within that response vary dramatically by trade.
"Business owners often wonder if AI is aware of their existence. The more pertinent inquiry is whether AI places them among the top three names, because beyond that point the distinction between being mentioned and being overlooked becomes negligible," stated John Arndt, Founder of MentionedOn.
Methodology
MentionedOn creates a publicly accessible ranking for every pairing of 21 local-service professions and 40 U.S. metro regions by posing five category-specific queries to two AI assistants and then recording the business names each suggests. The statistics above are drawn from the most recent leaderboard for each trade and metro as of 2026-08-22, encompassing 840 leaderboards and 8,400 assistant responses, originating from a dataset that started on 2026-06-18. "National brand" is defined as a name appearing in at least ten of the 40 metros; no external brand list was used. The 21 trades and 40 metros were chosen by MentionedOn and do not constitute a random sample of U.S. local businesses, so shares should be interpreted as descriptive of this corpus rather than as national estimates. Mention counts measure how often a name was recommended, not revenue, quality, or customer satisfaction.
More information: https://mentioned-on.com/top
John Arndt
MentionedOn
hello@mentioned-on.com
