Who AI recommends for plumbers in Dallas, and which sources it cites
We asked Perplexity and Gemini 10 questions a homeowner in Dallas would ask, three times each (60 answers, October 1, 2026). Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electric was named most: in 14 of 20 question checks. 47 plumbers were named on at least one check. The most-cited site was angi.com, in 35 of 60 answers. ChatGPT was not measured in this edition.
By Matt Turley60 answers696 citations10 questionsPerplexity and GeminiChatGPT not measured
A check is one question on one AI tool, asked three times. A plumber counts on a check when it was named in at least 2 of the three answers. Perplexity and Gemini together make 20 checks.
plumbers in Dallas named by majority, October 2026 (top 15 of 47)
#
Business
Checks named (of 20)
Perplexity (of 10)
Gemini (of 10)
Answers naming it (of 60)
1
Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electric
14
7
7
40
2
Milestone Electric, A/C, & Plumbing
10
3
7
28
3
Berkeys Plumbing, A/C & Electrical
10
5
5
25
4
Dallas Plumbing & Air Conditioning
8
3
5
26
5
Roto-Rooter
8
5
3
24
6
Mother Modern Plumbing
8
3
5
23
7
Workman Plumbing
6
5
1
21
8
billyGO
5
2
3
14
9
Metro-Flow Plumbing
4
0
4
15
10
Blue Moon Plumbing
4
0
4
14
11
Legacy Plumbing
4
0
4
14
12
AugerPros Plumbing and Drain LLC
4
0
4
11
13
Harmony Plumbing
3
1
2
9
14
ASTAR DFW
3
1
2
7
15
Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Dallas
3
3
0
11
Small sample, read it as a snapshot: 10 questions, two AI tools, three runs each, on October 1, 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 plumber missing here was simply not named in most runs of these answers.
Table 2 · By AI tool
Perplexity and Gemini only partly agree
18 of the 47 plumbers 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
29
Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electric (7 of 10 questions, 70.0%)
15.5
Gemini gemini-2.5-flash
30
36
Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electric (7 of 10 questions, 70.0%)
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.
angi.comDirectories and review sites35 58.3%
bakerbrothersplumbing.comCompany websites35 58.3%
bestpickreports.comDirectories and review sites35 58.3%
rotorooter.comCompany websites33 55.0%
consumeraffairs.comDirectories and review sites29 48.3%
callmother.comCompany websites28 46.7%
mrrooter.comCompany websites28 46.7%
callmilestone.comCompany websites26 43.3%
thumbtack.comDirectories and review sites25 41.7%
berkeys.comCompany websites23 38.3%
bbb.orgDirectories and review sites19 31.7%
reddit.comReddit, forums, social and video17 28.3%
billygo.comCompany websites14 23.3%
bluemoonplumbingdfw.comBest-of lists and comparisons14 23.3%
homeadvisor.comDirectories and review sites13 21.7%
Answers citing each site, by AI tool
Site
Type
Perplexity (of 30)
Gemini (of 30)
angi.com
Directories and review sites
21
14
bakerbrothersplumbing.com
Company websites
20
15
bestpickreports.com
Directories and review sites
18
17
rotorooter.com
Company websites
24
9
consumeraffairs.com
Directories and review sites
19
10
callmother.com
Company websites
20
8
mrrooter.com
Company websites
27
1
callmilestone.com
Company websites
7
19
thumbtack.com
Directories and review sites
21
4
berkeys.com
Company websites
14
9
bbb.org
Directories and review sites
19
0
reddit.com
Reddit, forums, social and video
9
8
billygo.com
Company websites
6
8
bluemoonplumbingdfw.com
Best-of lists and comparisons
0
14
homeadvisor.com
Directories and review sites
6
7
What to do with it
If you run a plumber in Dallas
Your customers already ask these AI tools who to call. The answers above are what they get back. The plumbers 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.
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.
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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 1, 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.