It's a frustrating problem because it's invisible. Nobody calls to tell you ChatGPT recommended someone else.
How do AI assistants decide which HVAC companies to name?
They don't all decide the same way, and that's the first thing to understand.
Google's lane. AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on Google's core ranking systems and can include local business information from Business Profiles (Google Search Central, July 10, 2026). Your profile, reviews, categories and website health carry straight over.
The independent lane. OpenAI says ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers and may turn a "near me" question into a location query, using an example of rewriting a restaurant request into "top restaurants San Francisco" (OpenAI Help Center). So "AC repair near me" from a phone in Kirkwood can become something like "best AC repair St. Louis." Whatever ranks and gets mentioned for that rewritten search shapes the answer.
That's why a company can sit in Google's map pack and still never get named by ChatGPT, or the reverse. Whitespark's Darren Shaw made the same point in the 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report: Business Profile details that matter to Google's AI are invisible to ChatGPT (Whitespark, November 6, 2025).
How do you test it? The five-prompt log
Pick five questions a St. Louis homeowner would actually ask:
- "Who's the best AC repair company in St. Louis?"
- "Emergency furnace repair near Kirkwood tonight"
- "Heat pump installation companies in St. Louis County with good reviews"
- "Who services Trane and Carrier units in South County?"
- "How much does a new AC unit cost in St. Louis, and who should I call?"
Run all five in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode. For each answer, write down every company named and every source cited. Do it from the same browser, logged out, once a week for four weeks. Answers shift constantly, so one screenshot proves nothing; a month of logs shows a pattern.
The cited sources are the gold. If Perplexity keeps citing the same local best-of list, a neighborhood news site and two directories, those are the pages you need to be on.
Gap 1: Can the assistants read your website?
Check this before anything else, because it's the fastest fix with the biggest swing.
OpenAI says sites that block its OAI-SearchBot crawler won't appear in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI). Perplexity says PerplexityBot is how sites get surfaced in its results (Perplexity). Some website builders and security plugins block these bots by default. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look.
Then check rendering. Vercel and MERJ found none of the major AI crawlers executed JavaScript in their December 2024 analysis (Vercel). If your service page text only appears after scripts run, these crawlers may receive a blank page. View the page source and search for a sentence from your AC repair page. No sentence, no citation.
Gap 2: Does the rest of the web talk about you?
Whitespark's 2026 survey ranked presence on expert-curated best-of lists as the number one factor for AI search visibility, with prominence on industry sites, citations in news and association pages, and third-party reviews close behind. In St. Louis, that points to a fairly specific to-do list:
- Local best-of and "top HVAC" lists that assistants already cite in your prompt log.
- Suburban chamber of commerce directories in the areas you serve: Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Chesterfield, Florissant, Ballwin and the rest.
- Equipment manufacturer dealer locators, if you're an authorized dealer.
- Trade association member directories.
- Reviews on more than Google. BrightLocal found consumers now use an average of six review sites, and that use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local recommendations jumped from 6% to 45% in a year (BrightLocal, February 11, 2026).
Google warns that chasing inauthentic mentions isn't worth it. Earn real ones.
Gap 3: Are you losing Google's own lane?
For AI Overviews and AI Mode, the usual local factors apply: correct primary category, complete services, real hours, steady recent reviews and a website with a dedicated page for each service. Our HVAC AI citation strategy covers the page structure, and where AI gets local answers maps the sources by engine. One setting to confirm: Google says a site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console to be eligible at all.
What changed for one St. Louis HVAC company?
STL Air Pros, a St. Louis HVAC company and LeadValets client, went from roughly two calls a month to more than 111 in about eight months while we ran Business Profile, website and citation work together. We don't pretend that number came from AI answers alone; it came from fixing every lane at once. That's the point. AI visibility for a local HVAC company isn't a separate project bolted onto local SEO.
How should you measure progress?
Three sources, checked monthly rather than weekly:
- Search Console's Generative AI performance report, rolled out to all sites on August 31, 2026, for impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- Referral visits from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai in your analytics.
- Your five-prompt log, with named companies and cited sources.
And the one that pays the bills: new-customer calls by source.
Your next five moves
- Check robots.txt for anything blocking Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot.
- View the source of your AC repair and furnace repair pages and confirm the text is there.
- Run the five-prompt log and list every source the assistants cite.
- Get listed or mentioned on the three cited sources where you're missing.
- Confirm your site is included in generative AI features in Search Console.
Run the five-prompt test this week and keep the log for four weeks. By week four you'll know exactly which sources the assistants trust in St. Louis, and which ones you're missing from. If you want help reading it, our St. Louis HVAC marketing page explains how we work.
Frequently asked questions
Why does ChatGPT recommend HVAC companies that are out of my area?
ChatGPT rewrites location questions into searches and pulls from what its search partners and crawlers return. If out-of-area companies dominate the lists and directories for your city, they get named. Earning mentions on the sources it cites for your area changes that.
Does ChatGPT use my Google reviews?
ChatGPT doesn't read your Google Business Profile the way Google's own AI does. It relies on its crawler, its search partners and the pages they return, which may include review sites. Reviews on several platforms help in both lanes.
Should I block AI crawlers from my HVAC website?
Not if you want to be recommended. Blocking OAI-SearchBot removes you from ChatGPT search answers, according to OpenAI. You can block training crawlers like GPTBot separately while still allowing the search crawlers.
How long until AI assistants start recommending my HVAC company?
There's no set timeline. Crawler access fixes can show up within weeks of the bots revisiting, while earning third-party mentions takes months. Track monthly, not daily, because answers change constantly.
Does it matter which St. Louis suburb my shop is in?
For Google's map pack and AI Mode, location matters a lot because distance is a core local factor. For ChatGPT and Perplexity, what the web says about you for each area matters more, which is why area-specific pages and local mentions help.
About the author
Jonathan Floyd is the Founder and President of LeadValets and the creator of the Search Authority Flywheel, the framework his team uses to build local visibility across Google Business Profile, Google Maps, and AI search.
LeadValets is based in St. Louis and works with HVAC, plumbing and electrical contractors across the metro, so the suburbs, prompts and sources in this article come from the market his team works in every day.
He will also tell you when local search isn't going to move your numbers. That's a shorter conversation than most agencies are willing to have.
Connect on LinkedIn | jfloyd@leadvalets.com | 314-561-7101 | leadvalets.com
Written with AI as the framework: written, edited, developed and fact-checked by Jonathan Floyd.