We Asked Five AI Assistants Who to Hire for AI

The short answer

We asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok who to hire for AI. When a question named AImpact Nexus, all 30 answers got us right. When a buyer asked without naming us, we showed up in 8 of 55. Being known is not the same as being the answer. Here is the data, and what we're doing about it.

Why I ran this on us first

We sell AI visibility. If I'm going to tell a business owner that ChatGPT is the new front door, our own front door had better pass the test.

So on October 9, I ran it. No cherry-picking, no rerunning until it looked good. This is the first pass, warts included.

What we tested and how

Five assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok.
One tool: an open-source AI-visibility tool that sends the same questions to every assistant and records every answer.
110 answers total.
Two kinds of questions. Branded questions name us: "What does AImpact Nexus do, and what does it cost?" Unbranded questions are what a buyer types before they've ever heard of us: "What's the best AI operating system for a small business?"

For every answer we checked four things. Did it mention us? Were the facts right? Did it recommend us? Did it cite a source?

What they said

When the question named us: 30 for 30

Every one of the 30 answers to a question that named AImpact Nexus knew who we are and got the facts right. Fort Wayne, Indiana. The AImpact OS from $599 a month. Implementation from $5,000.

No wrong city. No made-up pricing. No confusing us with someone else. If you already know our name, AI will tell you the truth about us.

When the buyer didn't name us: 8 of 55

Here's the part that stings. Across 55 answers to questions that didn't use our name, we came up in 8.

And being mentioned isn't being picked. Across all 110 answers, we were recommended as the pick in 2. Other firms got the rest.

The one question every assistant answered with us

One question went five for five: "What does a Managed AI Provider deliver, and which providers are suitable…"

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok all named AImpact Nexus.

I don't think that's luck. In April we named the category and wrote down what a Managed AI Provider is and does. My read: when you're the one who wrote the definition, you're the obvious name to attach to it.

Where we didn't show up at all

Three questions came back without us:

Best AI operating system for small businesses
AI agents for my company
Private AI for business data

Those are not side topics. That is what we sell. The AImpact OS is an AI operating system built for small businesses, it runs managed agents your people actually use, and it keeps your company's knowledge on a dedicated private server. Didn't matter. When a buyer asked, other firms got named.

Who cited a source: 1 of 5

Only one assistant, Perplexity, cited our website as a source. The other four cited no sources at all.

Sit with that one. For four out of five assistants, there was no link to click and no page two to scroll to. The answer was the whole experience.

What this means for your business

Being known when named is table stakes. It isn't growth.

The person who already knows your name finds you anyway: a referral, your truck, your business card, a Google search. The customer you're missing is the one asking the unbranded question, the one who doesn't know you exist yet. If the AI answers that question with three other firms, you didn't lose the deal. You were never in it.

And with most assistants citing nothing, there's no ranking to climb into. You're in the answer or you aren't.

If your customers are starting to ask AI instead of searching, here's the test I'd run this week:

Ask your branded questions. "What does [your company] do? What does it cost? Where are you?" Are the facts right?
Ask your buyers' questions, without your name. "Who's the best [what you do] in [your town]?" Are you in the answer?
Find the question you already own. Ours was the category we defined. Yours is probably the question you've answered most clearly, in writing, on your own site. Do more of that.

What we're doing about it

We didn't wait. The same day, we shipped three answer pages, one for each gap:

Each one leads with a short, direct answer, then the details: who it's for, what it costs, and the questions buyers actually ask. That's the same approach behind the one question we did win: write the clearest answer to the exact question, on our own site, in plain language.

Then we'll re-run the same test. Same five assistants. Same questions. And we'll publish whether it moved, up, flat, or down. If it didn't move, you'll read that here too.

We'll run the same test on your business

Start with our free AI Visibility Audit to see where you stand. If you want the full version, the same five assistants and branded vs unbranded questions for your business and your market, book a 30-minute call and we'll set it up.

You'll get your numbers straight, the way you just got ours.

FAQ

Which AI assistants did you test?

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok. Every assistant got the same questions, and we recorded 110 answers in total.

What is the difference between a branded and an unbranded AI question?

A branded question names your business, like "What does AImpact Nexus charge?" An unbranded question is what a buyer asks before they know you, like "Who should I hire for AI in my business?" Branded questions test whether AI knows the facts about you. Unbranded questions test whether AI recommends you.

Why does it matter that most AI assistants did not cite sources?

Because there's no click-through. In our test, four of the five assistants cited no sources at all. If you aren't named in the answer itself, the buyer never sees you. There is no second page of results to fall back on.

How do I find out whether AI recommends my business?

Ask the assistants your buyers use the questions your buyers ask, without using your name, and see who comes back. Or start with our free AI Visibility Audit and book a call for the full multi-assistant test.

Published October 9, 2026.

We Asked Five AI Assistants Who to Hire for AI in Indiana. Here's What They Said.