0 out of 31: We tested real local businesses in 11 cities. AI named none of them.
Since launching, we've been running the same real test across US metro areas: verify real, currently- operating local service businesses (electricians, plumbers, HVAC companies), then ask ChatGPT and Claude the exact question a customer would type — "best [category] in [city]." No cherry-picking, full raw responses saved every time. This report aggregates every result so far.
By city
| City | Metro | Businesses tested | Named by ChatGPT or Claude |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nashville | Nashville, TN | 4 | 0 |
| Antioch | Nashville, TN | 2 | 0 |
| Murfreesboro | Nashville, TN | 5 | 0 |
| Gallatin | Nashville, TN | 2 | 0 |
| Hendersonville | Nashville, TN | 3 | 0 |
| Smyrna | Nashville, TN | 1 | 0 |
| Mount Juliet | Nashville, TN | 1 | 0 |
| Springfield | Nashville, TN | 1 | 0 |
| Denver | Denver, CO | 3 | 0 |
| Charlotte | Charlotte, NC | 3 | 0 |
| Austin | Austin, TX | 6 | 0 |
The pattern holds regardless of market size
Nashville, Denver, and Charlotte are all mid-size metros. Austin is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the US, with presumably far more AI training data referencing local businesses. The result was identical everywhere: real businesses, verified in advance, never named once.
Three specific failures worth knowing about
Nashville — wrong city entirely
Asked about Antioch, TN, ChatGPT confidently named real HVAC companies — located in Antioch, California, 2,000 miles away. No hedge, no caveat.
Nashville — flat refusal
Asked about Springfield, TN (population ~19,000), Claude asked which Springfield we meant — offering Illinois, Missouri, or Massachusetts. Not Tennessee.
Austin — names that may not be real
Asked for HVAC companies, Claude listed "Schneider Mechanical" and "Coil Company" — names we could not verify as real, currently-operating Austin businesses in a follow-up search.
Methodology
Every business listed was verified as real and currently operating (active Google, Yelp, or BBB listing) before being included — we don't test against businesses we made up. Prompts are the exact phrase a customer would type, run once per unique city/category pair against live OpenAI and Anthropic APIs, no prompt engineering or leading language. "Named" means the model's response contained the business's name. Full raw model responses for every test are saved and available on request. Individual city write-ups: Nashville and Austin.
We built Voxfound to track this automatically for any business — the real questions customers would ask, checked against the real models, with an alert the moment something changes.
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