By Guest Contributor
Publication Date: 2026-10-20 07:52:00
Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad
Ask ChatGPT which roofer to call in Dallas, TX and you get a name. Ask Perplexity and you may get a different one. Ask again tomorrow and the answer can change. NameBeam, a small Wyoming company, decided to write all of it down.
Since September 1, 2026, NameBeam has asked four AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude) the same buyer questions in 46 US market-and-trade pairs, once a day. Every answer is saved, hashed and recorded. The counts are in a public file and the raw answers sit behind each market.
In the window from September 1st – October 11th, 36 of the 46 markets had two or more engines naming at least one business. In only 14 of those 36 did two or more engines pick the same business as their most named answer. The other 22 markets split. A buyer in those cities gets a different first name depending on which app they open.
Roofing shows the split most clearly… Take residential roofing in three cities. In Dallas, Perplexity named Arrington Roofing on 27 of its 37 answer days (https://namebeam.ai/data/e1/dallas-roofing.json). In Denver it named Gates Enterprises on 35 of 37. In Miami it named Extreme Roofing on 26 of 37.
ChatGPT and Claude named none of those 3 companies on any of their 40 answer days. Gemini, asked fewer times because of its quota, named them on 0 of 8, 0 of 9 and 0 of 10 days. Same city, same question, same six weeks. One engine returned a steady name. Two returned with…
