We Asked ChatGPT to Recommend a Security Company. Only 8% Made the Cut.
We checked 1,882 U.S. security and alarm companies against ChatGPT's recommendations. Only 151 ever got named. Here's what the 8% had in common.
Watch the 40-second breakdown above.
In July 2026, we ran a straightforward test. We took a list of 1,882 real, active U.S. security and alarm companies — the kind of independent dealers that make up most of this industry — and we asked ChatGPT who it would recommend for home or business security, market by market.
We weren't testing a single question. We ran this across many local searches, the same kind of thing a homeowner types in when they're comparing options at 9pm on a Tuesday: "who's a good security company near me," "best home alarm company in [city]," that sort of thing.
Free, no call needed
Free: Does ChatGPT Name Your Company?
Four questions a property owner would actually type, asked today with live web search. You see every company name that came back, in order, and whether yours was one of them. Four draws on one day, not a ranking. Leave your email and we will send it over, then walk you through what it found.
The Numbers Weren't Close
Out of 1,882 companies, only 151 ever got mentioned by name. That's 8%.
The other 92% — nearly every company we checked — never came up at all. Not once, not in any variation of the question. They weren't ranked low. They weren't a runner-up. They simply didn't exist as far as ChatGPT was concerned.
That's the part that should get a dealer's attention. This isn't about being the top pick out of five. It's about whether you show up in the conversation at all.
What the 8% Had in Common
We didn't find one silver bullet. But the companies that did get recommended tended to share a few traits:
Real reviews, and a lot of them. Not perfect scores — just a steady, believable pattern of real customers saying real things. AI tools lean on review platforms heavily when they're deciding who to mention.
Being listed where AI actually looks. Business directories, local listings, industry pages — the places that feed information into how tools like Google and ChatGPT understand who's legitimate in a given area.
A website AI can actually read. This one surprises people. A site can look great to a human and still be nearly invisible to an AI system if it's built in a way that's hard to crawl or doesn't clearly state what the company does and where.
None of this is exotic. It's not a trick. It's closer to basic hygiene — the kind of thing that used to matter for Google search rankings and now matters just as much, if not more, for AI recommendations.
Why This Changes the Math for Dealers
For years, local visibility meant showing up on a map or ranking on a search results page. That's still true, but there's a new gatekeeper now: people are increasingly just asking Google and ChatGPT directly, and taking whatever name comes back as trustworthy.
If your company isn't part of that 8%, you're not losing a little bit of business at the margins. You're not in the running at all for a growing number of people who skip the search results page entirely and just ask.
The good news is that this isn't fixed. The 92% aren't invisible because they're bad companies. Most of them are solid, established dealers who simply haven't built the kind of digital footprint that AI tools are trained to trust yet. That's a fixable problem, not a life sentence.
See Where You Stand
We built a public leaderboard at mostrecommendedhomesecurity.com so dealers can see how companies stack up nationally in terms of AI recommendations. It's worth a look just to see the shape of the field.
If you want to know specifically where your own company stands, AI Security Edge offers a free AI visibility check at /audit. It shows you whether ChatGPT and other AI tools currently recommend you, and if not, what's likely holding you back.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did you decide which companies to check?
We pulled a list of 1,882 active U.S. security and alarm companies, aiming for a broad mix of markets and company sizes rather than just the biggest national brands. The goal was to see how independent dealers are actually doing, not just the handful of household names.
Does this mean 92% of companies are doing something wrong?
Not exactly wrong — more like invisible. Many of these are perfectly good, established local businesses. They just haven't built the reviews, listings, and readable web presence that AI tools currently rely on to decide who to mention.
Is this only about ChatGPT?
This specific benchmark measured recommendations from ChatGPT directly. That said, similar patterns tend to show up across AI tools people use to ask for recommendations, since many of them draw on the same kinds of publicly available signals.
How can I find out if my company shows up?
The fastest way is the free AI visibility check at /audit from AI Security Edge. It tells you whether AI tools currently recommend your business and flags the specific gaps holding you back.
Free, no call needed
Free: Does ChatGPT Name Your Company?
Four questions a property owner would actually type, asked today with live web search. You see every company name that came back, in order, and whether yours was one of them. Four draws on one day, not a ranking. Leave your email and we will send it over, then walk you through what it found.