88.4% of the Local Businesses ChatGPT Recommends Aren't in Google's Map Pack

A dentist has spent two years climbing into Google's map pack, the box of three businesses Google shows on a map above the regular results. A patient new to town asks ChatGPT for the best dentist nearby. The answer names five practices; the dentist is not one of them, and neither are the other two in the map pack.

That matters because the map pack has been the main target of local SEO for years. If ChatGPT builds its own shortlist, a top-three Maps ranking no longer guarantees being seen by customers who ask an AI assistant. It also works the other way: a business outside the map pack can still be named.

88.4% of the businesses ChatGPT recommends are outside Google's map pack, and 17.5% are not in Google Maps' top 100 at all. For Gemini, the figure is 84.4%. ChatGPT does often include the business Google ranks first, in 45.9% of searches, but most of its picks come from further down.

On September 23, 2026 we asked ChatGPT for the best businesses in 20 local services, from restaurants and dentists to locksmiths and house cleaners, in 79 US cities. ChatGPT answered with lists of businesses, 17,464 recommendations in all. For the same service and city we compared them with the top 100 Google Maps results, collected through a licensed data provider.

We found each recommended business in the Google Maps results and recorded its position. Positions 1 to 3 count as the map pack, the three businesses Google shows in the map box on its search results page. A business not found in the top 100 counts as outside the top 100.

11.6% of ChatGPT's picks rank in the Google Maps top three. Most sit much further down: 18.3% rank 4th to 10th, 16% rank 11th to 20th and 21.7% rank 21st to 50th. 17.5% are not in Google Maps' top 100 at all.

ChatGPT does not ignore Google's top result: it names the Maps number-one business in 45.9% of city and service searches. It simply adds many more businesses from further down, drawing on reviews, directories and websites rather than Google's ranking. Gemini behaves the same way, with 84.4% of its recommendations outside the map pack.

The overlap depends on the service. 3% of the restaurants ChatGPT recommends are in the map pack, and 47.7% are not in Google Maps' top 100 at all. Real estate agents (4.8% in the map pack) and dentists (7.4%) also overlap little.

Restaurants and real estate agents are covered heavily by food guides, local media and agent directories, so ChatGPT has many sources beyond Google Maps to draw on. House cleaning services overlap most, with 19% of picks in the map pack, followed by locksmiths at 16.5% and emergency plumbers at 16.4%: trades with fewer outside sources, where Google's own listings carry more weight.

In the 29 smaller cities, 20.1% of ChatGPT's recommendations are in the map pack and 12.3% are outside the top 100. In the 50 large cities, 7.6% are in the map pack and 20% are outside the top 100. A ChatGPT pick in a smaller city is more than twice as likely to be one of Google's top three.

With fewer businesses in each service, ChatGPT and Google Maps land on the same ones more often. In a large city with hundreds of dentists, the two have far more room to disagree.

Do not assume your Google Maps ranking carries into ChatGPT. Ask ChatGPT for the best businesses in your service and city and see where you land. A business in position 15 on Maps can be named while the map pack is skipped.

Work on the signals ChatGPT reads beyond Google Maps: reviews on Google and other sites, a clear website that names your services and city, and listings on the directories it cites, such as Expertise.com, Birdeye and Angi. If you already hold a map pack spot, protect it, but do not treat it as your AI visibility.

Suff Digital's local seo packages cover both your Google Maps ranking and the listings and reviews AI assistants read.

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