We Checked 1,882 Security Companies Against AI. Only 8% Got Recommended.
A benchmark of 1,882 U.S. alarm and security companies found only 8% ever get recommended by name when people ask Google or ChatGPT who to trust. Here's what the 8% have in common.
Watch the 40-second breakdown above.
We wanted a real answer to a question a lot of dealer owners have been quietly asking: when someone types "best security company near me" into Google or asks ChatGPT the same thing, does AI actually recommend anyone specific? So in July 2026, we ran a benchmark. We checked 1,882 real U.S. security and alarm companies against what Google and ChatGPT actually say when asked for a recommendation by name.
The results were more lopsided than we expected.
The Number That Stopped Us
Out of 1,882 companies, only 151 ever came up by name. That's 8%. The other 92% — nearly all of them — never appeared in a single AI recommendation. Not once. These aren't small, unknown outfits either. Plenty of well-established local dealers, companies with decades of good service and loyal customers, simply don't exist as far as Google and ChatGPT are concerned.
That matters more every month. People used to call three companies from a Google search and compare quotes. Now a growing number just ask an AI assistant "who's the best security company in my area" and act on whatever name comes back. If your name isn't one of the ones that comes back, you're not losing the sale — you're never entering the conversation at all.
So What Do the 8% Have in Common?
We didn't find one single trick. But the companies that consistently got recommended shared a few traits:
Real reviews, and a lot of them. Not just a star rating — actual written reviews mentioning specific things like response time, install quality, or how a tech handled a problem. AI tools lean heavily on this kind of detail when deciding who to mention by name.
Listed where AI actually looks. Being listed accurately across the directories and platforms that feed into AI answers made a measurable difference. If your business information is thin, outdated, or inconsistent across the web, AI has less to work with — and it shows.
A website AI can actually read. Some sites are built in a way that's easy for search engines and AI crawlers to understand — clear service pages, clear location info, clear proof of what you do. Others are effectively invisible to the tools trying to recommend them, even if they look fine to a human visitor.
None of this is exotic. It's the difference between being an easy "yes" for an AI system and being a blank spot on the map.
Why This Isn't Just an SEO Story
For years, dealers have competed on truck wraps, yard signs, referrals, and Google Maps rankings. Those still matter. But AI recommendations are a new front door, and right now most of the industry hasn't even shown up to it. That's exactly why the gap between the 8% and the 92% is so wide — almost nobody has been paying attention to it yet. The dealers who fix this now get a head start that's hard for competitors to close later.
See Where You Stand
We publish an ongoing, public leaderboard of how security companies rank in AI recommendations at mostrecommendedhomesecurity.com — worth a look just to see who's showing up in your area and who isn't.
If you want to know specifically where your company stands, Hometown Security offers a free AI visibility check at /audit. It takes a few minutes and tells you plainly whether Google and ChatGPT currently recommend you, and what's likely holding you back if they don't.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did you determine which companies get recommended by AI?
We asked Google and ChatGPT direct recommendation questions, the kind real customers would type or say, across many U.S. markets, then recorded which companies were actually named in the answers versus never mentioned.
Is this the same as ranking high in a normal Google search?
Not exactly. A company can rank fine in a regular search results page but still never get named when someone asks an AI tool directly for a recommendation — those are two different things AI evaluates differently.
What's the fastest thing a dealer can fix?
Getting real, detailed reviews and making sure your business listings are accurate and consistent tends to move the needle fastest, since both feed directly into what AI tools see and trust.
Does being in the 92% mean my business is doing poorly?
No — it just means AI systems don't currently have enough clear signal to recommend you by name. Plenty of well-run, respected companies fall into that 92% simply because no one has addressed their AI visibility yet.