Why Only 8% of Security Companies Get Recommended by AI
We checked 1,882 U.S. alarm and security companies against ChatGPT's recommendations. Only 151 ever get named. Here's what separates them from the 92% who are invisible.
Watch the 40-second breakdown above.
We ran a benchmark this July: 1,882 U.S. security and alarm companies, checked one by one against ChatGPT's recommendations. The question was simple — when someone asks ChatGPT who to call for home security, does your company ever get named?
The answer, for most dealers, is no.
The Numbers
Only 151 of the 1,882 companies we checked — that's 8% — ever got recommended by name. The remaining 92% never came up at all. Not on the first answer, not on a follow-up, not buried in a list. Invisible.
That's not a small gap. That's the difference between being the obvious answer and not existing at all in a conversation that's happening right now, every day, in more households.
Why This Matters More Than It Used To
A homeowner with a false alarm at 2 a.m., a family shopping for a new system, someone whose old provider just got bought out — more of them are asking Google and ChatGPT before they ever call a dealer. If your company isn't part of that answer, you're not losing the sale. You never entered the running.
This isn't about being the biggest name in your market. Plenty of small, local dealers made the 8%. Plenty of well-known regional players didn't. So what actually separated them?
What the 8% Have in Common
Three things showed up again and again in the companies that did get recommended:
Real reviews, consistently. Not a pile of five-stars from 2019 and nothing since. Steady, recent, honest reviews that show the business is active and trusted right now.
Listed where AI actually looks. The directories, profiles, and citations that feed these answers need your business listed correctly and consistently. Gaps and mismatches make it harder for AI to vouch for you with confidence.
A website AI can actually read. Clear service pages, plain descriptions of what you do and where you do it, no walls of jargon or flash that hide the basics. If a system can't easily tell what you offer, it won't recommend you.
None of this is a trick. It's closer to the fundamentals dealers already know matter for humans — reviews, presence, clarity — except now an AI system is reading them too, and deciding who to mention.
Where You Stand
We publish an ongoing public leaderboard of these results at mostrecommendedhomesecurity.com, so any dealer can see who's showing up in their market and who isn't.
If you want to know exactly where your own company stands — whether ChatGPT and Google ever name you, and what's holding you back if they don't — we built a free check for that. It takes a few minutes: aisecurityedge.com/audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did you check whether a company gets recommended by ChatGPT?
We asked ChatGPT common questions a homeowner would ask, like who to call for home security or alarm monitoring in a given area, and recorded whether each of the 1,882 companies in our list was ever named in the responses.
Is this the same as ranking high on Google?
Not exactly. Traditional Google rankings and AI recommendations overlap but aren't identical — a company can rank well in search results and still never get mentioned by name when someone asks ChatGPT directly. That's part of why so many dealers are surprised by where they land.
Can a small, local dealer really make the 8%?
Yes. Company size didn't determine who got recommended — real, recent reviews and a clear, readable web presence mattered more than being a big regional or national name.
What can I do if I'm in the 92%?
Start with the fundamentals: keep your reviews current, make sure your listings are accurate everywhere, and make sure your website clearly explains your services in plain language. The free check at aisecurityedge.com/audit will show you specifically what's missing for your business.