Being interested in what actually shows up when you ask ChatGPT for local results, we like to do the occasional spot check.

For instance, what do plumbers in Bath have to do to appear in ChatGPT results?

Like all great ideas, I shelved it for a solid six months before having a midlife crisis.

And now I’m here to put my own experience and assumptions aside to show you the REAL results.

Side note: get it? Plumbers in Bath? 🛁

sorry. moving on.

Discovery phase: let’s ask ChatGPT what it thinks 💬

In this study, I want to find out who appears at the top of ChatGPT for a simple query that any local consumer might ask:

”Please recommend a local plumber in Bath who can fix my bath taps”

Once I have this information, I’m curious to see if the results vary when compared to Microsoft Copilot – another AI assistant.

With this information, I want to compare the results to Google, and get an idea of WHY each AI tool chose to recommend them.

(Note: I will ask each AI why they chose the businesses, but I’m more curious as to what I can physically see. Do they use schemas, FAQs, make lots of content, et cetera).

For each aspect, I want to go in with an open mind. I know what should work, but I’m curious to see whether my ideas are challenged by the reality in front of me.

Anyway, I got to searching around and doing some research, and found out some… interesting things.

Ready to see the results? 🥁

Kudos and congrats to Ace Energy! Whether you meant it or not, you made it to the very top of ChatGPT 🎉

Note: this query was conducted on 16/07/2025. Results may now be different if you are reading in the future

Analysis phase: what about Copilot/Google? 🤔

As ChatGPT holds a large share of current market share, Ace Energy can consider this a BIG win for their AI SEO.

But there are other players in the space. Do they show up in other AI searches?

Microsoft Copilot

Well, well. Congrats to Purely Plumbing for winning airtime on Copilot!

For context, ChatGPT and Copilot use different AI models to create search results.

Because of this, we can see very different responses for the same query.

In fact, Ace Energy came fourth in these results – invisible without scrolling!

Google Search

Now, the typical way a consumer uses Google is different to AI assistants.

Where we’d write long-tail questions like our examples above, we instead want to use shorter, keyword focused queries in Google to get authentic results.

For this, I decided to use the following:

”plumber in bath to fix broken taps”

A sponsored ad? ugh.

Congrats to Bristol-based MPW Group Ltd for appearing at the top – the first organic result goes to Able Group, who appeared halfway down the first page.

Learning phase: how is this even possible? 👀

Right off the bat, there are a few things that local brands can take from these results:

• Google strongly favours brands who pay for advertising spots. Not ideal for small brands with small budgets.
• For now, all AI traffic is organically decided (but this will change soon).
• The brands selected by Copilot and Google had a lot of positive reviews (100+ Google/Bing reviews each).

Copilot didn’t seem to favour Google/Bing reviews as much as the other two.

That said, it definitely factored their 400+ Trustpilot reviews in its decision. That alone is HUGE, and a huge kudos needs to go to them for this!

What else can we learn? I decided to review their website and digital footprint to see if they had any clear and obvious advantage:

Analysis: Ace Energy Plumbing

All in all, I think their SEO game is solid!

Their homepage lists their services, and includes a range of subpages to further expand on each of those services.

When I look at the plumbing page, I very clearly see tap repairs everywhere.

‘Sinks, basins, baths & taps’. ‘Tap replacements’. ‘Outside taps and drains’.

The word “tap” appears six times on just this one page.

They also have their own blog, which appears to be updated regularly, and has been since as far back as 2015(!).

They also use not one, not two, but TEN different schemas on their homepage, covering information about their company and the elements on the webpage.

Interestingly, none of the schemas are a LocalBusiness schema, and the website lacks any form of FAQ and related schema.

Both of these are quick wins that will give them a boost across all AI search tools.

Aside from this, they lack some basic things – header elements, no socials, a few backline but nothing extraordinary.

They’re in Yelp, have a couple of blog posts written about them, and appear in a few directories.

Not bad, but more of the same along with some guest posts and some newspaper articles would beef up their authority.

All fixable problems that, if done now, would gently boost their chances of appearing in Microsoft Copilot AI search results.

I’d compound this with developing a system to get more reviews on Google and Bing, as they clearly lack reviews here compared to their competitors.

Curiosity phase: the “why” from the horses mouth 🐴

So I’ve laid out what I think is the best approach they can take.

But what does ChatGPT and Copilot think?

I asked both of them a simple question and compared and contrasted the results.

Here’s the prompt I used:

Why does Ace Energy Plumbing in Bath appear in my ChatGPT search, but not for the same query in Copilot?

For good measure, I made sure to include a link into the prompt, as well as the prompt I used specifically.

And here’s what each had to say:

ChatGPT

I won’t bore you with the full text, but essentially ChatGPT said that it comes down to where and how each tool searches.

ChatGPT acts more like a browser session or a crawler, and will search across any resource it can find to get a result.

Copilot prioritises specific resources, such as Microsoft’s own proprietary Bing Places and Bing Maps data, plus reputable sources like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Trustpilot.

It also mentioned that Copilot is generally more interested in structure over content. This often means that proper schemas are prioritised above the website text.

In short, Copilot is more selective about who it recommends. And while both ChatGPT and Copilot use Bing for search, Copilot is exclusively using Bing.

Microsoft Copilot

🤨.

So according to Copilot, Ace Plumbing should have appeared in the list of options.

Which, yes it did, but it came fourth.

I pressed on this, and Copilot effectively said that the other brands must have had advantages in specifics, like having more reviews, more backlinks, better content, and…

Drumroll please 🥁

SPONSORED ADS.

ugh.

I asked about this, and the response I got was… clear?

If advertisements or sponsored content ever appear here, those are provided by Microsoft Advertising and aren’t something I control or curate.

To keep things transparent: my recommendations aren’t influenced by paid promotions. So if I mention a business, product, or service in conversation, it’s based on publicly available information, not advertising relationships.

So, Copilot can’t control what’s shown in its recommendations…

But their recommendations are totally unbiased…

🫠

Taking my curiosity aside for a moment, my thoughts aligns with two scenarios:

1. Adverts may be able to appear in Copilot external to the search result (i.e. at the top of the UI).
2. Copilot actively doesn’t prioritise sponsored content when searching, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t be considered.

I believe that Copilot doesn’t filter against sponsored ads when selecting a result.

If Bing is used in a search, it’s possible a sponsored ad can be selected.

I also believe that Microsoft are trying to make sponsored content as transparent as possible for obvious ethical reasons.

Take that with a pinch of salt. Think for yourself and fine to your own conclusion.

In summary: what YOU can learn from this example 🔥

If you’re a local brand looking to land inside AI assistant search results, I have one big bit of advice for you:

Do what your competitors do, but better. If that fails, go niche.

What this looks like in practice includes:

• Getting more positive reviews
• Being in more online directories
• Getting more reputable backlinks

When I’m looking at my own platforms, I like to aim for either 100 of each, or the number of my largest competitor plus 1.

It’s hard, it’s long, and it’s competitive.

But that’s SEO. And AI SEO is no different. The only difference is that generative AI is a young industry at the time of writing.

Many businesses are getting to the top of AI results very quickly because the bar is lower than traditional SEO.

You can too, but you either need to beat your competition outright, or be so specific with your content that it matches consumer questions word for word.

That’s it. Go big or go niche. Simple.

Not easy. But simple!

Extra: 5 lessons to take on-board from this post 📝

What you’ve hopefully gathered from the examples above are a few things:

1. Reviews, directories, and backlinks. These are the holy grail for improving authority across the internet.
2. What one AI assistant shows, the other hides. Generic strategies won’t work for AI – you need to be specific for each of your target tools.
3. Basic SEO – schemas, FAQs, services, contact us, about us, blog posts – helps a lot more than you might think.
4. Sponsored ads influence results. At the very least, they funnel traffic that can boost everything else. That said…
5. Reaching the top of Google is less important to AI than specificity. If you have a page with the answer to exactly what a consumer asked for, you’ll appear in their search results.

And a final lesson to take home?

Traditional SEO sucks ☹️