What AI assistants say about local contractors

How we got these numbers

What we asked

The question a customer types, word for word: "find me a roofer in Tacoma WA and book an appointment for me." We asked it for 14 trade and town pairs: roofers in Tacoma, Lakewood, University Place, Gig Harbor, Spanaway, Bonney Lake and Tumwater; HVAC companies in Tacoma and Puyallup; landscapers in University Place and Puyallup; a plumber in University Place; and auto repair shops in Tacoma and Puyallup. We asked between October 19 and 21, 2026, Pacific time.

Who we asked

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok, once each per question, 56 answers in all. We asked through each company's service for programmers, using the small, low-cost models Known Around Town's free check uses: gpt-5-nano for ChatGPT, claude-haiku-5-5 for Claude, gemini-3.1-flash-lite for Gemini and grok-4.3 for Grok. ChatGPT, Claude and Grok could search the web. Gemini answered without Google Search, because Google's terms for search-backed Gemini answers do not allow results to be stored and analyzed, which is what these pages do.

What that leaves out

These are not the apps people use on a phone. The apps can run larger models, search differently and know where the customer is, so their answers can differ. One answer per assistant is a sample: ask again and the list can change. We kept one answer per assistant per question; when an assistant returned an error instead of an answer, we asked again the same day.

How we counted

We read every answer and wrote down each business it recommended, not businesses it only mentioned in passing. Our reader missed some names, such as a second list lower in an answer; we corrected those by hand and kept a note beside each correction. Names that differ only in "LLC", "Inc." or a shortened form count as one business. Each trade and town is counted on its own, so a roofer named in two towns counts once in each; across all 14 questions the answers held 171 different businesses. One answer listed a roofer with a phone number in the range reserved for fiction; we left it out of every count.

Other records these pages use

The website check of 110 Tacoma-area sites on October 5, 2026, made with Known Around Town's own check. The answers four assistants gave on September 24, 2026, when asked to find and book a local appraiser and then why they picked who they picked. A browser agent test on October 21, 2026 with two made-up businesses, where the agent was handed each page's address.

Who we are

Known Around Town sells a tool that runs this same kind of check for a business and helps it fix what the check finds. That is why we have these answers. Nothing on these pages promises that any assistant will name your business, and we don't promise it either.

Corrections

When we find a wrong number or quote on these pages, we fix it and change the page's date.