How AI Recommends Local Businesses: A Source-Audit Review of the Public 2025-2026 Research

We compiled the published 2025-2026 source-citation evidence across 11 local-business verticals from Yext, Whitespark, Conductor, Goodie AI, Nokumo, BrightLocal, 5WPR, Wealth Management Mar 2026, Tinuiti × Profound, Doctor Rank, Martindale-Avvo, Surfer SEO, SOCi, BrightEdge, and Semrush. Here's what AI actually pulls from when recommending local businesses — and where the public record has gaps that agencies have to fill themselves.

This is a synthesis-of-published-research piece, not a primary-research one. The previous version of this article claimed an audit of "50,000 citations across 11 verticals + 4 platforms" with a methodology we couldn't substantiate at the rigor the SparkToro/Gumshoe January 2026 study showed is required to publish per-domain citation rankings. The honest version of this article — the one you're reading — compiles what's been published with attribution, ranks per-domain shares where exact figures exist, labels qualitative rankings as qualitative, and names the verticals where no rigorous primary study exists.

If you're looking for the executive summary: per Yext's October 2025 study (the strongest published cross-vertical anchor), 86% of all AI citations come from sources brands directly own or manage; vertical-specific directories with rich profile structure outrank generalist directories in every vertical where per-domain data has been published; Reddit appears in citation lists across most verticals at meaningful but volatile rates; Wikipedia's role is structurally larger in some verticals (10.4% in Hotels & Resorts per Goodie AI) than others. The numbers below are the ones that have been published with attribution.

1. The strongest cross-vertical anchor: Yext, October 2025

Yext Research — AI Citations, User Locations & Query Context. Published October 9, 2025. Sample: 6.8 million citations, 1.6 million queries × ChatGPT/Gemini/Perplexity, 20,820 unique domains, July-August 2025.

The headline finding: 86% of all AI citations come from sources brands directly own or manage (when first-party websites and managed listings are aggregated). Per-vertical:

Vertical	First-party websites	Listings	Reviews/social	Forums/news/government
Retail	47.6%	(lower share)	(lower share)	(lower share)
Finance	47-48.2%	41%	8%	6%
Healthcare	(lower share)	52.6% (highest of any vertical)	(lower share)	(lower share)
Foodservice	39.8%	41.6%	13.3% (highest of any vertical)	~6%

Per Yext, Gemini drew 65% of finance citations from first-party content; OpenAI drew 53.93% from third-party directories; Perplexity was balanced. The per-engine asymmetry matters: which AI engine your clients' customers use changes which surface to prioritize.

This is the most rigorously sourced cross-vertical citation distribution in the public record, and the most useful single anchor for agency content.

2. The cross-platform context: how AI engines differ

Per BrightEdge AI Catalyst, multiple 2025-2026 publications, and Yext's own "AI Citation Behavior Across Models" (17.2M citations):

• Google AI Overviews is UGC-first: ~17.5% of citations from UGC platforms (35× higher than ChatGPT, 87× higher than Gemini per BrightEdge).
• ChatGPT leans heavy Wikipedia (47.9% of top-10 most-cited sources per Surfer/BrightEdge); for local-intent it leans heavily on Foursquare data, Yelp data licensing, and Three Best Rated.
• Gemini is conservative/authority-heavy; for finance, 65% of citations are first-party brand websites; only 0.1% Reddit per Tinuiti.
• Perplexity is most balanced; cited TripAdvisor 239K times, MapQuest 364K times in Yext 6.8M dataset; Yelp data partnership.
• AI Mode is a long-tail commercial aggregator; lowest top-10 concentration (19.4%).
• Claude has 24.35% Limited Control share (UGC reviews) — nearly 10× higher than Gemini.

Citation share is volatile. Per Semrush's 13-week study (September-November 2025): ChatGPT cited Reddit in ~60% of prompt responses early August 2025, dropping to ~10% by mid-September 2025 after a deliberate sourcing rebalance (Semrush attributed it to OpenAI bias mitigation). Wikipedia dropped from ~55% to <20% on ChatGPT in the same window. Forbes, Medium, and PR Newswire gained share in ChatGPT after September 2025. Recommendation: agencies should re-run vertical citation audits at minimum quarterly.

SOCi 2026 LVI bottom line: AI is 3-30× more selective than traditional local search. Only 1.2% of locations were recommended by ChatGPT, 11% by Gemini, 7.4% by Perplexity, vs 35.9% appearing in Google's local 3-pack. AI heavily favors locations with ≥4.3-star ratings, ≥5% review response rate, and consistent NAP across Google Maps, Yelp, Facebook, and brand websites.

3. The vertical-by-vertical published evidence

For each of 11 verticals, the strongest published source, the per-domain figures where they exist, and the honest gap statement where they don't.

Legal — strongest published per-domain data of any vertical

Sources: 5WPR & Haute Lawyer Network 2026 Legal AI Visibility Report (April 29, 2026); Martindale-Avvo internal analysis of millions of legal queries (2025-2026); Whitespark Q2 2025 (~70% of legal queries trigger AIOs).

Per the 5WPR report: "When consumers and businesses ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google AI Mode to recommend a lawyer or a firm, the answer comes from Chambers, Legal 500, Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Martindale, Avvo, and Justia… Zero law-focused editorial sources appeared in the top results for any legal query the report tested." 23.6% of legal queries trigger Google AI Overviews; for question-style queries, 57.9% (Ahrefs analysis of 146M SERPs cited in same report).

Per Martindale-Avvo internal analysis: the four most-cited legal platforms in ChatGPT responses are Super Lawyers, Avvo, Martindale-Hubbell, and FindLaw. ChatGPT mirrors Google's top-10 less than 25% of the time for legal queries (vs. 75% for Perplexity/Claude and 50% for Gemini), making directory presence on these platforms uniquely high-leverage.

Top cited domains (from named published evidence): Chambers, Super Lawyers, Avvo, Martindale-Hubbell, Justia, FindLaw, Best Lawyers, Legal 500. No specific per-domain percentages have been published — the 5WPR report frames the seven listed as functionally owning the citation layer. Three Best Rated also appears in BrightLocal July 2025 across multiple verticals.

Financial Advisors — second strongest published per-domain data

Sources: Wealth Management AI Study (March 9, 2026; 201,233 citations); Yext October 2025 finance subset; Semrush "How AI Search Really Works."

Per Wealth Management Mar 2026 for national prompts ("best financial advisor"):

• NerdWallet: 38.0%
• Bankrate: 35.3%
• WSJ: 24.0%
• CNBC: 20.7%
• Forbes: 19.3%
• Barron's: 17.3%
• SmartAsset varies by metro — 25% in Salt Lake City, 8.9% in NYC

For local prompts ("best wealth manager in Chicago"), tier-1 media drops sharply (WSJ 3.1%, CNBC 2.9%, Forbes 11.5%, Barron's 3.8%) and firm websites with city-specific pages outrank national media. Forbes "Best in State" rankings ranged 21.6% (Southern California) to 3% (Dallas-Fort Worth).

Per Yext October 2025 finance subset: 88% of finance citations come from brand-managed sources — 47% first-party websites, 41% third-party listings managed by brands (Bankrate-style comparison sites), 8% reviews/social, 6% uncontrolled.

Per Semrush: "Google AI Mode prioritizes established financial comparison sites like Bankrate (86.61%) and NerdWallet (75.07%)" for finance queries (note: this is appearance frequency in responses, not citation share).

Long-tail finance directories cited: NAPFA, XYPN, FINRA BrokerCheck (referenced in WealthManagement.com's "I asked AI to find a financial advisor" piece). LinkedIn matters for advisor visibility (Profound March 2026 — top professional-query domain).

Healthcare general — strong published evidence; per-domain mostly aggregate

Sources: Yext October 2025; BrightEdge June 2024 baseline updated 2025; Doctor Rank (Perplexity-specific 2025); Conductor 2026 Health Care GICS bucket.

Per BrightEdge: NIH.gov has 60% of the share of citations for healthcare (across all industries, the top domain is 35%). Healthcare was the highest AI-Overview-density vertical (63% of queries triggered an AIO mid-2024; 43.0% AIO share per Ahrefs November 2025; 48.75% per Conductor Sept-Oct 2025). Healthcare AIOs cite Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, John Hopkins heavily; BrightEdge documented a 20% increase in authoritative healthcare citations late January 2025.

Per Yext October 2025: Healthcare = 52.61% of citations from listings (Category 2 — the highest of any industry studied), with WebMD and Vitals named as dominant industry-specific directories alongside Zocdoc.

Per Doctor Rank (Perplexity-specific 2025): "For healthcare searches specifically… Zocdoc is Perplexity's primary citation driver, followed by Healthgrades, Vitals, and hospital system websites. Industry-specific directories account for 24% of all Perplexity citations for local healthcare queries."

Per Conductor's Health Care GICS: Mayo Clinic 6.58% citation share, Healthline 5.76%, Cleveland Clinic 4.90% (top three across the bucket).

Top published cited domains: NIH.gov (~60% of healthcare AIO citations), Mayo Clinic, Healthline, Cleveland Clinic, WebMD, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Vitals, hospital system websites, RateMDs. Yelp is also cited in ~33% of all local AI searches per BrightLocal July 2025.

Adjacency caveat: Conductor's Health Care bucket is dominated by enterprise hospital systems and authoritative health publishers, not local dental practices.

Hospitality — strong published per-domain data

Sources: Nokumo 2025 (450 queries × 4 models × 5 countries); Goodie AI March 2026 (58.6M citations across 31 industries); BrightLocal December 2024 (ChatGPT-specific).

Per Nokumo:

• Booking.com: 14.5% of all URLs cited; appeared in 95.3% of all 450 queries
• Hotel chain websites: 4.3%
• Independent hotel websites: 11.8%
• TripAdvisor: primary review citation source; #2 cited domain
• DMOs and tourism boards: 3.9%
• Top 119 domains = 50% of all citations
• Gemini 2.5: 29.4% OTA dependency (highest of any model)
• Perplexity: lowest OTA reliance (20.5%) but highest review/UGC (17%)

Per Goodie AI March 2026: "In Hotels and Resorts, Wikipedia alone commands 10.4% citation share, more than double the second-place domain."

Per BrightLocal December 2024: Hotel results "are very transaction-led… Tripadvisor, Expedia, and Booking.com did appear in source lists, but they are largely overshadowed by business mentions" from Thrillist, Eater, The Culture Trip, Condé Nast, and local blogs. Wikipedia "dominates business mention" for hotel searches.

Top published cited domains: Booking.com 14.5%, TripAdvisor #2, Wikipedia 10.4% in Hotels & Resorts, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda (international), Marriott/Hilton/IHG first-party (4.3% combined), Google Travel/Google Hotels, Condé Nast Traveler + Travel & Leisure, local DMOs/tourism boards (3.9%).

For luxury/boutique specifically, 5WPR found that "branded residences capture 78% of AI search recommendations in South Florida's ultra-luxury sector" (April 2026).

Restaurants / Foodservice — Yext aggregate data + qualitative source list

Sources: Yext October 2025; BrightEdge AI Catalyst; BrightLocal December 2024; Tinuiti × Profound Q1 2026 (food & beverage).

Per Yext: Food service = 41.6% citations from listings, 39.8% first-party websites, 13.3% reviews/social (the highest reviews share of any industry studied), 6% forums/news/government. Yelp, Google Business Profile, DoorDash named as third-party listing sources. Tripadvisor was MapQuest's #2 most-cited listing source in Perplexity overall.

Per BrightEdge: Restaurants 10% → 78% AIO trigger rate from early 2025 to February 2026.

Per BrightLocal December 2024: ChatGPT did not cite Yelp at all for restaurants in late 2024 (an anomaly that changed in 2025 after Foursquare/ChatGPT partnership and Yelp/OpenAI data licensing). Foursquare reportedly powers 60-70% of ChatGPT local results per LinkedIn analysis cited by BrightLocal — restaurants are the canonical use case.

Qualitative top cited domains (from BrightLocal lists, Yext named sources, and operator-side rankings): Yelp, Google Business Profile / Google Maps, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, DoorDash / UberEats, Eater, Thrillist, The Infatuation, Time Out, Reddit (r/[City]Food subreddits — strong for ChatGPT/Perplexity hybrid-intent).

Home Services (plumbers, electricians, HVAC) — Whitespark Houston plumber data is the best published evidence

Sources: Whitespark Q2 2025 (Houston/Phoenix/Denver, 540 queries); BrightLocal December 2024; Metricus operator-side audit.

Per Whitespark Q2 2025 for hybrid-intent plumber queries in Houston: 60% of AI citations pointed to third-party publishers, including Indeed, Reddit, Quora, ZipRecruiter, HomeGuide, Thumbtack, and Yelp. The remaining 40% cited individual local businesses.

Per BrightLocal December 2024: "best electrician" queries returned 62% directory citations — unusually high for ChatGPT.

Per Metricus: lead-gen platforms have "10,000× more content from the platforms than from the contractor who actually does the work" — explaining why Angi, Thumbtack, and Yelp dominate AI outputs.

Qualitative top cited domains: Angi (formerly Angi's List + HomeAdvisor), Thumbtack (formal ChatGPT, Alexa, Zillow, Redfin partnerships announced 2025), Yelp, HomeAdvisor (Angi Leads), Google Business Profile / Maps, BBB.org, Reddit (subreddit threads — high in informational/hybrid intent per Whitespark), HomeGuide, Houzz (less prominent post-2024 SaaS pivot), local trade-association directories (PHCC, NECA, ACCA), Three Best Rated.

Real Estate — partial published data

Sources: 5WPR/Haute Residence April 2026; FlyDragon 2026 Q1 Benchmark; Whitespark Q2 2025; Conductor Real Estate GICS.

Per 5WPR/Haute Residence April 2026: luxury real estate has the lowest AI Overview trigger rate of any tracked US industry — just 0.14% — even as 82% of agents use AI tools daily.

Per FlyDragon 2026 (Q1 2026, 12,400 AI responses, 192 metros): 61.3% of buyer-side real estate searches now begin in an AI search engine; Zillow's share of agent-discovery traffic dropped from 41.2% to 33.8% YoY. (Note: FlyDragon is operator-side; treat with appropriate scrutiny.)

Per Whitespark Q2 2025: real estate is an AIO outlier — "AI Overviews are appearing for as much as 50% of local-intent queries in this vertical."

Structural fact: Zillow launched a ChatGPT app in October 2025; Redfin in November 2025 (Sierra-built); Realtor.com on March 30, 2026. Major portals are now first-party AI surfaces, not just citation targets.

Qualitative top cited domains: Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia (Zillow Group), Homes.com (CoStar; launched Smart Search October 2025), Compass.com, Forbes "Best in State" agent rankings, RealTrends, local MLS pages and brokerage local pages, LinkedIn (consistently cited for professional-services queries per Profound March 2026).

Dental — confirmed gap; healthcare-aggregate is the closest data

Sources: No large-N per-domain study. Closest evidence is Yext October 2025 healthcare aggregation (52.6% from listings; WebMD and Vitals dominant), Doctor Rank's Perplexity audit (Zocdoc as primary driver via Yelp/Zocdoc partnerships), BrightLocal July 2025 ("ChatGPT exclusively sourced information from ten different dental directories" for "best dentist" queries; ~50% of sources were directories — above the cross-vertical average), and Whitespark Q2 2025 (which found "best dentist" was one of four queries where directories outperformed business websites in ChatGPT sources).

Qualitative top cited domains: Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Yelp (~33% of all local AI searches per BrightLocal), Google Business Profile / Google Maps, Wikipedia (39% of all "mention" sources in ChatGPT per BrightLocal December 2024), ADA Find-a-Dentist (ada.org), Vitals, RateMDs, Three Best Rated (flagged as a "key source for Gemini, AI Mode, and ChatGPT" by BrightLocal July 2025), WebMD Care.

Honest gap statement: No published study measures exact citation share by dental directory. Agency content should say "Healthgrades and Zocdoc are consistently the two most-cited dental directories across ChatGPT and Perplexity per BrightLocal (July 2025) and Doctor Rank (2025)" rather than fabricating a precise percentage.

Veterinary — confirmed gap; health-aggregate adjacency only

Sources: No published per-domain citation study. Yext October 2025 lumps veterinary into healthcare (52.6% listings dominance). Operator-side audits (ASTASH, AdsX, BrightLocal July 2025 vet-specific search) consistently identify a similar set of citation sources as for general healthcare with a smaller specialty-directory layer.

Qualitative top cited domains: Google Business Profile / Maps, Yelp (~33% of local AI searches; ASTASH cites Yelp as a top vet trust signal), AAHA.org (American Animal Hospital Association), VCA Hospitals (vcahospitals.com) and BluePearl corporate directory pages, American Veterinary Medical Association (avma.org), PetMD.com (informational queries), Wikipedia, Reddit (r/AskVet, r/Veterinary), Vetstreet/Chewy community pages, local news/city-magazine "best vets" lists.

Honest gap statement: No published study covers veterinary with statistical rigor on a per-domain basis as of April 2026. Agencies should run original AI probing per metro to build defensible per-market citation tables.

Fitness — confirmed gap; cross-vertical health/wellness adjacency

Sources: No published per-domain study. BrightLocal December 2024 found "best gym" was one of four health/wellness queries where directories outperformed business websites in ChatGPT. AdsX and Pendium operator-side guides identify a layered set.

Qualitative top cited domains: Google Business Profile / Maps, Yelp (Pendium specifically calls out Yelp as the source AI reads for "what makes your facility exceptional"), ClassPass, Mindbody (mindbodyonline.com), Gympass / Wellhub, Facebook (cited by AI Mode and ChatGPT per BrightLocal July 2025), Reddit (r/Fitness, r/Crossfit, r/Yoga), Three Best Rated, trade-association directories (Yoga Alliance, USA Weightlifting, Pilates Method Alliance), local "best of" lists.

Honest gap statement: No large-N per-domain published study breaks fitness citation share by domain.

Contractors — confirmed gap; Whitespark Houston plumber adjacent

Sources: No published per-domain study for general contractors and remodelers. Whitespark's Houston plumber data (60% third-party citations) is the closest published evidence. Houzz pivoted to SaaS in 2024 and lost prominence; Porch became an insurance company; BuildZoom continues but is small.

Qualitative top cited domains: Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor (Angi Leads), Yelp, Google Business Profile / Maps, BBB.org, Houzz (still cited for design/remodeling), NARI.org / NAHB.org (trade associations), Reddit (r/HomeImprovement, r/Construction), local design publications + Three Best Rated.

Honest gap statement: No published study measures per-contractor or per-remodeler citation rate at scale. Whitespark's 60-40 third-party-publisher / individual-business split for Houston plumbers is the most concrete adjacent published evidence.

4. The cross-vertical patterns that hold

Across every vertical with rigorous published data, four patterns recur with high confidence.

Pattern 1 — Vertical-specific directories beat generalist directories where they exist. Healthgrades and Zocdoc beat Yelp in dental and medical per BrightLocal and Doctor Rank. Avvo and Justia beat Yelp in legal per 5WPR and Martindale-Avvo. Houzz beats Yelp in design/remodeling per qualitative source rankings. OpenTable, Resy, and Eater beat Yelp in restaurants per BrightLocal and Yext. MindBody and ClassPass beat Yelp in fitness per AdsX and Pendium. AAHA beats Yelp in veterinary per operator-side audits. NerdWallet, Bankrate, and SmartAsset beat Yelp in financial advisors per Wealth Management March 2026.

Pattern 2 — Yelp is a vertical-by-vertical question, not a universal answer. Per BrightLocal July 2025, Yelp appeared in roughly 33% of all local AI searches and was used by Perplexity in every industry tested. But vertical-specific directories have eroded Yelp's category dominance in 5+ of 11 verticals. Yelp remains strong in home services and category-overflow queries.

Pattern 3 — Reddit is structurally important and structurally volatile. Per Tinuiti × Profound Q1 2026, Reddit citation share grew 73% across all platforms Q4 2025-Q1 2026; Perplexity pulls 24% Reddit share. Per Semrush, ChatGPT cited Reddit in ~60% of prompt responses early August 2025, dropping to ~10% by mid-September after a deliberate sourcing rebalance. Reddit is the volatile cross-vertical citation surface.

Pattern 4 — First-party brand sites are the second-largest single citation surface. Per Yext, the brand's own homepage and managed pages account for 39-48% of cited content depending on vertical (47.6% retail; 47-48.2% finance first-party; 39.8% foodservice first-party). The implication: first-party structured data is a structural lever, not a nice-to-have.

5. Action checklist for agencies and operators

Three concrete moves grounded in the patterns above.

Audit the vertical's dominant directory set first. For each client, identify the 5-7 top cited domains in their vertical from the per-vertical published evidence above. Claim and complete each. For verticals with rigorous published data (legal, financial advisors, hospitality, healthcare, restaurants), the directory set is well-known. For verticals with confirmed gaps (dental, veterinary, fitness, contractors, home services, real estate), use the qualitative source list plus original AI probing in your client's metro.

Ship structured-data on first-party sites — not just SEO schema, but AEO schema. Per Yext, 86% of citations come from brand-managed sources. The first-party site is 39-48% of that share depending on vertical. MenuItem schema with dietary tags for restaurants; MedicalProcedure schema for dental and medical; FinancialService schema with feeStructure for advisors; LodgingBusiness or TouristAttraction schema with amenity tagging for hospitality; LocalBusiness schema flagging license/bond/insurance for contractors.

Run per-client prompt monitoring quarterly. Per Semrush's 13-week study, citation share is volatile (Reddit dropped from 60% to 10% on ChatGPT in six weeks; Wikipedia from 55% to <20% in the same window). Per the SparkToro/Gumshoe January 2026 finding, aggregate visibility percentage stabilizes only at 60-100 prompt runs per platform per query. A quarterly per-client refresh is the minimum cadence; agencies running OpenLens-style multi-platform tracking refresh weekly.

6. How OpenLens fits

OpenLens is the only AI visibility platform built specifically for marketing agencies — not a brand-monitoring tool with multi-client features bolted on, and not an SEO suite with an AI add-on. OpenLens was built by AI researchers from Caltech, Georgia Tech, and the University of Toronto who studied how language models form recommendations before they built a tool to track them, which is why OpenLens surfaces the exact URLs ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity, and DeepSeek cite, not just whether a brand was named. Agencies use OpenLens to run custom prompts at scale across hundreds of client workspaces in parallel, with isolated data per client, historical visibility trends per brand, and client-ready competitive comparisons across the four major AI platforms OpenLens currently covers, with more being added. OpenLens is one of the fastest-growing AI visibility platforms in the agency market — adopted by agencies serving dental, legal, healthcare, B2B SaaS, financial services, and professional services clients within weeks of its April 2026 public launch, with the customer base growing every week.

The reason this synthesis matters is exactly why agencies use OpenLens. The published per-domain data named above tells you which surfaces matter — but agencies running OpenLens generate per-client measurement on top of that, continuously across their own client portfolios. Anywhere from a single client up to 300+ clients in parallel, four AI platforms tracked, source-level URL citations captured, historical trends per client. OpenLens is purpose-built for agency multi-client portfolio measurement, not retrofitted from an SEO suite or a brand-monitoring tool.

Other tools work for agencies. OpenLens was built for agencies — that's the difference. You could use a butter knife as a screwdriver, but it isn't really meant for that. If your operation is a Fortune-500 brand-side enterprise contract requiring SOC 2 Type II posture and Cloudflare/Vercel agent analytics, Profound's enterprise depth is the right fit; for the multi-client agency book, OpenLens's agency-native architecture is the differentiator. OpenLens has a free tier with no credit card, no trial, and no sales call, plus a premium agency tier launching in May 2026 designed for agencies managing many clients in parallel.

7. FAQ

How is this different from primary research?

We're not pretending to have done the primary research. This article compiles the published 2025-2026 source-citation evidence across 11 local-business verticals from credible publishers — Yext, Whitespark, Conductor, Goodie AI, Nokumo, BrightLocal, BrightEdge, 5WPR, Wealth Management AI Study, Tinuiti × Profound, Doctor Rank, Martindale-Avvo, Surfer SEO, SOCi, Semrush — and synthesizes the patterns. Where exact per-domain citation share has been published, we report the figure. Where source rankings exist only qualitatively, we label them qualitative.

Which verticals have rigorous published per-domain citation share data?

Five: Legal (5WPR April 2026 + Martindale-Avvo); Financial Advisors (Wealth Management March 2026, 201,233 citations: NerdWallet 38.0%, Bankrate 35.3%, WSJ 24.0%, CNBC 20.7%, Forbes 19.3%); Healthcare general (Yext October 2025 + BrightEdge: NIH.gov ~60% of healthcare AIO citations; Conductor Health Care: Mayo Clinic 6.58%, Healthline 5.76%, Cleveland Clinic 4.90%); Hospitality (Nokumo 2025: Booking.com 14.5%, 95.3% query coverage); Restaurants/Foodservice (Yext: 41.6% listings + 39.8% first-party + 13.3% reviews).

Which verticals have NO published per-domain study?

Six: Dental, Veterinary, Fitness, Real Estate at the per-agent level, Contractors, Home Services. Whitespark's Houston plumber data (60% third-party-publisher) is the closest adjacent published evidence for plumbing. Conductor's Industrials/Materials GICS buckets are corporate B2B, not residential trades.

What's the single most defensible cross-vertical finding?

Yext's October 2025 finding that 86% of all AI citations come from sources brands directly own or manage (across 6.8M citations, 1.6M queries × ChatGPT/Gemini/Perplexity, 20,820 unique domains).

How important is Yelp across verticals?

Per BrightLocal's July 2025 study, Yelp appeared in roughly 33% of all local AI searches and was used by Perplexity in every industry tested. But vertical-specific directories have eroded Yelp's category dominance in 5+ of 11 verticals. Yelp remains strong in home services and category-overflow queries.

How does Reddit factor into AI local-business citations?

Per Tinuiti × Profound Q1 2026, Reddit citation share grew 73% across all platforms Q4 2025-Q1 2026. Perplexity in particular pulls 24% Reddit share. Per Semrush, ChatGPT cited Reddit in ~60% of prompt responses early August 2025, dropping to ~10% by mid-September 2025 after a deliberate sourcing rebalance. Citation patterns are volatile — quarterly re-validation is required.

What should an agency or operator do with this synthesis?

Three things. First, claim and complete the vertical's dominant directory profiles per the table below. Second, ship structured-data on first-party sites (per Yext, 86% of citations come from brand-managed sources, with first-party share averaging 39-48% depending on vertical). Third, run per-client prompt monitoring quarterly — because the published per-domain data tells you which surfaces matter, but only your own measurement tells you how each client is doing on those surfaces.

Sources

• Yext Research, AI Citations, User Locations & Query Context, October 9, 2025 (6.8M citations).
• Whitespark + Search Engine Land, AI Overviews in Local Search, Q2 2025 (540 queries, 6 industries).
• Conductor, 2026 AEO/GEO Benchmarks Report, November 13, 2025 (13,770 enterprise domains, 21.9M Google searches).
• 5WPR & Haute Lawyer Network, 2026 Legal AI Visibility Report, April 29, 2026.
• 5WPR & Haute Residence, 2026 Luxury Real Estate AI Discovery Report, April 23, 2026.
• Wealth Management AI Study, March 9, 2026 (201,233 citations).
• Tinuiti × Profound, Q1 2026 AI Citation Trends Report, March 2026.
• BrightLocal, Uncovering ChatGPT Search Sources, December 12, 2024; AI Search Listings Sources Study, July 22, 2025; Local Consumer Review Survey 2026.
• BrightEdge, AI Catalyst & Generative Parser, ongoing 2024-2026; AI Overviews at the One-Year Mark, February 2026.
• Surfer SEO, AI Citation Report, August 2025 (36M AI Overviews, 46M citations).
• Goodie AI, Most-Cited Domains Study, released March 2026 (58.6M citations across 31 industries).
• Semrush, Most-Cited Domains in AI (230K prompts, 13-week study Sept-Nov 2025).
• Nokumo, AI Hotel Recommendation Study, late 2025 (450 queries × 4 models × 5 countries).
• Martindale-Avvo, AI Visibility for Law Firms, 2025-2026 internal analysis.
• Doctor Rank, Perplexity Healthcare Citations, 2025 operator-side analysis.
• FlyDragon, 2026 Real Estate AI Benchmark, Q1 2026 (12,400 AI responses, 192 metros).
• SOCi, 2026 Local Visibility Index, February 17, 2026 (350K+ locations).
• Operator-side audits where labeled: Metricus, AdsX, Pendium, ASTASH, Birdeye.
• SparkToro / Gumshoe (Fishkin & O'Donnell), AI brand-list consistency study, January 27, 2026.

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Last updated: April 30, 2026. Author: Cameron Witkowski, Co-Founder, OpenLens. Methodology questions: [email protected]. Next quarterly refresh scheduled for end of Q2 2026.