AI search
We asked 5 AI tools who to hire in Iowa City. They named 97 businesses and agreed on 4.
We asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overview 17 questions about Iowa City plumbers, HVAC companies and remodelers. Here’s who they named, where they disagreed, and what the most-named businesses have in common.
By The Leadsure team7 min read
On the evening of November 10, 2026, we asked five AI tools the questions a homeowner in Iowa City would ask: who’s the best plumber, who can fix a furnace today, who should redo a bathroom. Across 82 answers, the tools named 97 different businesses. When we asked for the best in each trade, every tool agreed on only four.
What we asked
We asked 17 questions about three trades: plumbers, HVAC companies and remodelers. Each trade got the same kinds of question:
- Best: “best plumber in iowa city”
- Urgent: “emergency plumber in Iowa City open now”
- A specific job: “water heater replacement Iowa City”
- A problem, in plain words: “My basement drain is backing up in Iowa City. Who should I call?”
- Trust: “most trusted plumber in Iowa City”
- The next town over: “best plumber in Coralville”
Each question went to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and we recorded Google’s AI Overview whenever one appeared. That gave us 82 answers and 422 mentions of a business.
This is a snapshot, not a ranking. Each tool answered each question once, and AI answers change from one run to the next. Being named by an AI tool also isn’t a measure of how good a business is. The method and its limits are at the end, with the full data.
The four businesses every tool agreed on
| Named by every tool for “best” | Trade | Across all Iowa City questions | Google reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ackerman Plumbing | Plumber | 16 of 24 answers | 154 |
| Davis Heating & Air Conditioning | HVAC | 20 of 23 answers | 36 |
| Brandt Heating & Air Conditioning | HVAC | 20 of 23 answers | 339 |
| Liberty Home Pros | Remodeler | 17 of 20 answers | 32 |
After those four, agreement fell away quickly. For “best plumber in iowa city”, four tools named 12 plumbers between them, and only one other plumber appeared in more than two answers.
Each trade has its own page with the full table:
- Which Iowa City plumbers AI tools recommend
- Which Iowa City HVAC companies AI tools recommend
- Which Iowa City remodelers AI tools recommend
Review count didn’t decide who got named
Most owners assume the business with the most reviews wins. In these answers it often didn’t.
| Topic | Davis Heating & Air Conditioning | Harris Boyz Heating and Air Conditioning |
|---|---|---|
| Google reviews | 36 | About 1,200 |
| Google rating | 4.9 | 5.0 |
| Iowa City address on its listing | Yes | Not shown |
| Named in Iowa City HVAC answers | 20 of 23 | 7 of 23 |
The same thing happened in the other trades. Liberty Home Pros was named in 17 of 20 remodeling answers with 32 reviews. Several companies with hundreds of reviews, based in nearby towns, were named in only a handful of answers, or in none.
Review count did matter for one kind of question. When we asked for the “most trusted” HVAC company, Harris Boyz was the first name in three of five answers.
A few miles changed the answer
Coralville borders Iowa City. Asking the same “best” question about Coralville gave very different lists, and how different depended on the trade.
| Trade | Iowa City leader | That leader, for Coralville | Named most for Coralville |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remodelers | Liberty Home Pros | 1 of 5 answers | Quality Home Repair, 5 of 5 |
| HVAC | Davis and Brandt | 1 of 5 and 0 of 5 | Harris Boyz, 4 of 5 |
| Plumbers | Ackerman Plumbing | 5 of 5 answers | Ackerman Plumbing, 5 of 5 |
- Remodelers: the top four for Coralville all have Coralville addresses. Quality Home Repair was named by every tool with 17 Google reviews.
- Plumbers: Ackerman has an Iowa City address and was still named by all five tools. Its website has a page titled “Plumbers in Coralville, IA”, which was the first regular result on Google.
- HVAC: the two Iowa City leaders almost disappeared, and a company with about 1,200 reviews led.
“Open now” changed the answer
For “best plumber in iowa city”, Ackerman Plumbing was the first name in every answer. For “emergency plumber in Iowa City open now”, it appeared in two of five.
The businesses that led the emergency answers were all listed as open 24 hours on Google. One of them, Nelson & Sons, was named by four of five tools for the emergency question and by none for “best plumber”.
Ackerman’s Google profile showed weekday hours, while its website has a page for 24/7 emergency service. Three tools left it out. Perplexity, which cited the website, put it first, and Google’s AI Overview showed both sets of hours side by side.
HVAC showed the same pattern. For “furnace repair in Iowa City today”, one of the two companies listed as open 24 hours was the first name in every answer.
Describing a problem changed it again
When we stopped naming a trade and described a problem, the tools picked specialists.
For “My basement drain is backing up in Iowa City. Who should I call?”, no tool named Ackerman. The businesses named most have “sewer” or “drain” in their names: A1 Sewer Service (four of five answers), Hawkeye Sewer & Drain and City Sewer Service (three each).
Remodelers saw something similar. For a kitchen question, a company whose Google category is “Kitchen remodeler” moved up, and a showroom that sells fixtures was named by four of five tools.
Each tool reads different sources
The tools disagreed partly because they don’t read the same things.
| Tool | What its answers leaned on |
|---|---|
| Gemini | Google Business Profile data: ratings, categories and opening hours |
| Claude | Google ratings and the text of reviews, which it often quoted |
| ChatGPT | A mix of business listings, directories and the business’s own website |
| Perplexity | Directories: Houzz for remodelers, the Better Business Bureau, Locals Love Us, Nextdoor |
| Google AI Overview | Map listings for short questions; web pages and Reddit threads for longer ones |
Perplexity was the outlier. For remodelers, its list came almost entirely from Houzz, and it shared few names with the other tools.
Reddit showed up more than we expected. In four answers, Google’s AI Overview added recommendations it took from r/IowaCity threads.
The tools made mistakes
We’ve left business names out of this section, because the errors weren’t theirs.
- Wrong ratings. One tool showed a leading HVAC company at 3.1 stars from 28 reviews, citing a third-party directory. Google showed 4.7 stars from 339.
- The wrong location’s profile. Twice, Google’s AI Overview showed an Iowa City company with a rating, review count and town that appear to belong to another location with the same name.
- Phone numbers from somewhere else. Perplexity listed numbers for two HVAC companies and cited equipment manufacturers’ pages for them. They didn’t match the numbers on those companies’ Google profiles.
- The wrong trade. One tool listed a construction company first for an HVAC question.
- The wrong time. One tool said “since it’s midday” in answer to a search made in the evening, then advised on who was open.
- Thin listings. One tool named two listings that each had a single review and no website.
- Contradictions. One answer named one plumber as its top pick in the first sentence, then labelled a different one “My first choice” in the list.
Some tools also gave warnings. In a few answers, a tool told the reader to avoid a named business, based on one or two reviews. We haven’t repeated those here.
What the most-named businesses had in common
| Kind of question | What seemed to decide who got named |
|---|---|
| “Best [trade] in [town]” | An address in that town, a strong rating, and showing up in several kinds of sources |
| The next town over | An address there, or a page on the website about that town |
| “Open now”, “today” | The opening hours on the Google Business Profile |
| A specific job | Google categories, a page about that service, and reviews that mention the job |
| A problem in plain words | A name, a specialty or a page that matches the problem |
| “Most trusted” | Review count, a Better Business Bureau listing, and the word “trusted” on the website |
The four businesses every tool agreed on have one thing in common: they show up in more than one place. Ackerman, for example, has strong Google reviews, an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, mentions in local Reddit threads, and its own website on Google’s first page for most of the plumbing questions we asked.
What this means if you own a local business
You can’t control what an AI tool says, and nobody can guarantee you a recommendation. You can check the things these answers kept coming back to.
Would an AI tool name your business?
0 of 8 yes
Start with your Google profile
Hours and categories decided more of these answers than anything else, and both take minutes to fix.
Get a free audit of your siteYour free Leadsure audit includes this check for your business: what the AI tools say when someone asks for a company like yours, and what to fix first. Request your audit.
How we did this, and its limits
- When and where: every question was asked on the evening of November 10, 2026, from Iowa City.
- Tools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, plus Google’s AI Overview when one appeared. We recorded no AI Overview for three of the 17 questions.
- One run each: each tool answered each question once. AI answers vary between runs, so treat every count here as a snapshot.
- What counted: a business counted when the answer itself named it as an option. We didn’t count names that appeared only in a map panel, or businesses a tool advised against.
- Personalization: Google’s results were personalized to our location. The “open now” answers reflect an evening search.
- Known flaws: one ChatGPT answer, for “most trusted remodeler”, carried the word “bathroom” over from the previous question. One Perplexity question was worded slightly differently from the others. Two Claude answers reused an earlier chat, so we reran them in new chats and recorded the reruns.
- Ratings and review counts are as shown on Google that evening.
Leadsure offers AI search optimization, so we have an interest in this subject. No business paid to appear here, and none was told in advance.
You can download every answer as a CSV file: the question, the tool, the business and the order it was listed in. If you use it, please link to this page.
We plan to repeat these questions, with several runs per tool, so we can report how often each business is named and how much the answers move.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a ranking of the best plumbers, HVAC companies and remodelers?
No. It’s a record of which businesses five AI tools named on one evening. A business can do excellent work and not be named, and the tools sometimes named businesses for reasons that had nothing to do with quality, such as their listed hours.
Why do the AI tools disagree so much?
They read different sources. Some lean on Google Business Profile data, some on directories like Houzz or the Better Business Bureau, and some on web pages and Reddit. Different sources give different lists.
Would the answers be the same tomorrow?
Probably not exactly. AI tools give different answers to the same question from one run to the next, and their sources change. When we reran one question in a fresh chat, about half the names changed.
My business is named here. Can I share this?
Yes. Please link to this page so readers can see the method.
My business isn’t named. What should I check first?
Start with your Google Business Profile: hours, categories and address. Then ask the tools yourself, using your trade and your town, and note which sources they cite.