How we measure who AI recommends

These rankings aren't opinions, votes, or paid placements. They are a record of what AI actually answered when we asked it — the same way a real customer would — who to call.

The five steps, in plain language

1. 1

   We ask the questions real customers ask.

   In each metro we asked leading AI assistants for a security company 4 different ways — everyday phrasings like "Who is the best home security company in my city?", "I want a security system installed at my house. Who should I hire?", and "What is the most recommended local alarm company?". We asked separately about home security companies and, in most metros, fire alarm & fire protection companies. No trick prompts, no leading questions. Across 34 metros and both company types, that came to 240 checks for this edition.

2. 2

   We record every company it names.

   Each answer gets logged exactly as given. We then match every recommendation against the 2,463 U.S. security companies in our dataset. Each business the AI names is credited to exactly one company — and when we can't tell for certain which local company it meant, no one gets the credit. No company is ever double-counted.

3. 3

   We publish the count, not a number one.

   We tested this. Running the identical questions on the identical list a second time, the same day, changed which company came out on top in more than a third of markets — and in most markets the top spot was already shared by two to five of them. What did NOT move was the count: a company named in most checks was named in most checks again. So the page shows how many of the 4 checks named each one. Companies with the same count are shown together, alphabetically, because the measurement does not separate them.

4. 4

   Named once doesn't make the list.

   Companies named in exactly one check reappeared less than half the time when we re-ran the same questions. That is a coin flip, not a recommendation, so we keep the data and don't publish the name. Two mentions came back 86% of the time; four came back every time. Each metro page shows only the companies AI named more than once. We never publish a bottom list and never name who didn't make it.

5. 5

   We re-run it quarterly.

   The same benchmark, the same way, every quarter. Companies that improve their AI visibility can appear in the next edition — and the run date is printed on every page. This edition: July 2026.

This edition

What this is — and what it isn't

Being on this list means AI recommended that company when we asked, in this edition, in that metro. It is a measurement of AI visibility — not a judgment of the quality of anyone's work, and not a claim that unlisted companies are worse at what they do. AI answers also change over time, which is exactly why we re-measure quarterly and date every edition.