Who does AI recommend for HVAC companies in Houston?

In our October 2026 check, Perplexity and Gemini named Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical (10 of 20 checks), Air Tech of Houston AC & Plumbing (9 of 20 checks) and All Star A/C & Heating (9 of 20 checks) most often across 10 buyer questions asked three times each.

Do Perplexity and Gemini recommend the same HVAC companies?

Only partly. 13 of the 60 HVAC companies named were named by both. Perplexity named Air Tech of Houston AC & Plumbing most (4 of 10 questions); Gemini named Chill Brothers most (8 of 10 questions).

Which websites does AI cite for HVAC companies in Houston?

The most-cited sites were consumeraffairs.com (34 of 60 answers), bestpickreports.com (29 of 60 answers) and aireserv.com (27 of 60 answers). Of all 704 citations, 53.4% went to company websites, 31.5% to directories and review sites and 11.1% to best-of lists.

Was ChatGPT measured?

Not measured in this edition: our OpenAI API credit was at $0 when the answers were collected, so no ChatGPT number is shown or estimated.

How was this measured?

We asked Perplexity and Gemini the same 10 buyer questions through their APIs, three times each (October 2, 2026). A heating and air company counts as named when its name is written in the answer itself in at least 2 of the 3 runs; a link alone does not count. Every answer and citation is published as JSON.

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Original research · October 2, 2026

Who AI recommends for HVAC in Houston, and which sources it cites

We asked Perplexity and Gemini 10 questions a homeowner in Houston would ask, three times each (60 answers, October 2, 2026). Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical was named most: in 10 of 20 question checks. 60 HVAC companies were named on at least one check. The most-cited site was consumeraffairs.com, in 34 of 60 answers. ChatGPT was not measured in this edition.

By Matt Turley60 answers704 citations10 questionsPerplexity and GeminiChatGPT not measured

Every answer as JSON ↓How we measured it Cite this

Table 1 · Who gets named

The HVAC companies AI named

A check is one question on one AI tool, asked three times. A heating and air company counts on a check when it was named in at least 2 of the three answers. Perplexity and Gemini together make 20 checks.

HVAC companies in Houston named by majority, October 2026 (top 15 of 60)
#	Business	Checks named (of 20)	Perplexity (of 10)	Gemini (of 10)	Answers naming it (of 60)
1	Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical	10	3	7	27
2	Air Tech of Houston AC & Plumbing	9	4	5	26
3	All Star A/C & Heating	9	2	7	24
4	One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating	8	2	6	23
5	Chill Brothers	8	0	8	22
6	68 Degrees HVAC	7	0	7	18
7	Aire Serv	6	4	2	18
8	Universal Home Experts	6	0	6	17
9	Majestic Air Conditioning	6	0	6	16
10	Adams Air Conditioning	5	2	3	14
11	Vibrant Mechanical	5	0	5	14
12	Brown Air Conditioning & Heating	5	0	5	12
13	Champion & Nash HVAC	4	1	3	14
14	Lee Thompson Co.	4	2	2	13
15	Air Star Now	4	4	0	15

Small sample, read it as a snapshot: 10 questions, two AI tools, three runs each, on October 2, 2026. A lead of one or two checks is within the run-to-run noise. This says nothing about the quality of anyone's work, and a heating and air company missing here was simply not named in most runs of these answers.

Table 2 · By AI tool

Perplexity and Gemini only partly agree

13 of the 60 HVAC companies named were named by both tools. The rest were named by one tool only.

Each AI tool on the same 10 questions
AI tool	Answers	Named by majority	Named most	Citations per answer
Perplexity sonar	30	32	Air Tech of Houston AC & Plumbing (4 of 10 questions, 40.0%)	16.0
Gemini gemini-2.5-flash	30	41	Chill Brothers (8 of 10 questions, 80.0%)	7.5
ChatGPT	Not measured in this edition

Chart · Source types

What the answers read before they name anyone

Every site an answer cited, counted once per answer and sorted by type with the same rules as our September study of AI answer sources.

Both tools704 citations

53%32%11%

Perplexity480 citations · 16.0 per answer

52%38%

Gemini224 citations · 7.5 per answer

57%18%17%

Company websites Directories and review sites Best-of lists and comparisons Reddit, forums, social and video News, docs and reference

Table 3 · Top cited sites

The 15 sites cited most

Counted as answers citing the site at least once, out of 60. These are the pages to be on.

consumeraffairs.comDirectories and review sites34 56.7%

bestpickreports.comDirectories and review sites29 48.3%

aireserv.comCompany websites27 45.0%

expertise.comDirectories and review sites22 36.7%

thechillbrothers.comBest-of lists and comparisons22 36.7%

thumbtack.comDirectories and review sites21 35.0%

abacusplumbing.netCompany websites20 33.3%

adams-air.comCompany websites17 28.3%

championandnash.comCompany websites17 28.3%

diamondcertified.orgCompany websites17 28.3%

bbb.orgDirectories and review sites15 25.0%

bestinhood.comDirectories and review sites15 25.0%

chron.comBest-of lists and comparisons15 25.0%

forbes.comNews, docs and reference15 25.0%

homedepot.comCompany websites15 25.0%

Answers citing each site, by AI tool
Site	Type	Perplexity (of 30)	Gemini (of 30)
consumeraffairs.com	Directories and review sites	24	10
bestpickreports.com	Directories and review sites	12	17
aireserv.com	Company websites	21	6
expertise.com	Directories and review sites	21	1
thechillbrothers.com	Best-of lists and comparisons	0	22
thumbtack.com	Directories and review sites	21	0
abacusplumbing.net	Company websites	9	11
adams-air.com	Company websites	9	8
championandnash.com	Company websites	6	11
diamondcertified.org	Company websites	3	14
bbb.org	Directories and review sites	15	0
bestinhood.com	Directories and review sites	15	0
chron.com	Best-of lists and comparisons	15	0
forbes.com	News, docs and reference	8	7
homedepot.com	Company websites	15	0

What to do with it

If you run a heating and air company in Houston

Your customers already ask these AI tools who to call. The answers above are what they get back. The HVAC companies named are the ones whose names show up on the sites the AI reads: the directories, review sites and best-of lists in Table 3, plus their own websites.

So start with the sites in Table 3. Make sure you are listed on the directories and review sites there, with your name written the same way everywhere. Find out who wrote the best-of lists and whether you belong on them. Then make your own site say plainly what you do, where you work and why people pick you, in the words a homeowner uses.

Do not judge from one answer. The names move from run to run, which is why every check here is three runs and a name only counts when it shows up in most of them.

See your own business

Are you one of the HVAC companies AI names?

This page covers the whole city. The AI Answer Check runs the same test on your own business: the questions your customers ask, three runs each on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, whether you are named, who is named instead, and the three fixes worth the most. I read every report before it goes out.

AI Answer Check, $299 →Or book a 20-minute call

Method

How we measured it

The 10 questions (frozen for this edition)

best HVAC company in Houston
who is the best AC repair company in Houston
who should I call for AC replacement in Houston TX
top rated heating and air conditioning company in Houston
emergency AC repair in Houston, who should I call
best company to install a new HVAC system in Houston
best furnace and heating repair company in Houston
affordable HVAC company in Houston with good reviews
family owned AC company in Houston
recommend an honest AC company in Houston that won't upsell me

AI tools

Perplexity: Perplexity API, sonar model, live web search; cited URLs from the citations field. 30 answers.
Gemini: Google Vertex AI, gemini-2.5-flash with Google Search grounding; cited URLs from grounding chunks. 30 answers.
ChatGPT: Not measured in this edition: our OpenAI API credit was at $0 when the answers were collected, so no ChatGPT number is shown or estimated.

These are the APIs, not the consumer apps. Nobody was signed in and there was no system prompt: the question was the whole input. Each question went to each tool three times on October 2, 2026.

Who counts as named

A list of the businesses the answers recommend was built first by reading every answer. Then each answer was checked for each name in its text, with links and citation chips removed, so a cited link alone never counts. Spelling variants count as one name: curly or straight apostrophes, hyphen variants, and “&” or “and”. A name counts on a question and tool when it appears in at least 2 of the three runs. Directories, review sites and platforms are never ranked.

Sources

A citation is a URL the API itself returns as a source (Perplexity's citations list, Gemini's grounding sources resolved from Google's redirect links). Each site counts once per answer. Source types come from a written rulebook, not a person reading every page, so some pages land in the wrong group, mostly between company sites, blogs and lists.

Data

Every run, with its timestamp, tool, model, question, full answer text and citations, is in the JSON file for this page (60 of 60 answers stored in full). Questions with ChatGPT, and more cities, come in the next edition. Part of the Who AI recommends, 2026 series, with electrical work in Dallas, HVAC in Dallas, plumbing in Dallas, plumbing in Houston, roofing in Dallas and AI chatbots for websites.