AI Rival Report: Who ChatGPT Recommends Instead

What does AI Rival Report do?

AI Rival Report shows which local businesses ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI Overview / AI Mode skip when someone asks "best HVAC company in Richmond, VA" (or any niche and city), and which rival they recommend instead. Each skipped business becomes a ready-to-sell prospect: a one-page AI visibility report, the owner's LinkedIn, and outreach copy your agency can send today.

Give it a city and a niche. It pulls the Google Maps list, asks every AI engine the same question, and compares the answers against the list:

• Prospect = a well-reviewed business (default 4.0+ stars, 10+ reviews) that no AI engine named, while a rival was named.
• Rival = the business the AI engines named most often (ties broken by review count).
• Report = what each AI said, which sites it cited, where the prospect is missing, and the fixes that usually move AI answers.

Why use AI Rival Report?

AI answers are the new top-3 map pack, and most local businesses have no idea they are invisible there. "ChatGPT recommends your competitor Woodfin, not you" is the strongest cold-outreach opener an SEO or GEO agency can have, because the owner can check it in ten seconds.

• SEO / GEO / AEO agencies: fill your pipeline with businesses that have a visible, provable problem you fix.
• AI-search consultants: hand prospects a free report that does the selling.
• Freelancers starting an AI business: a weekly list of warm prospects in any niche and city.

What data does it return?

Field	Example
business, website, phone, rating, reviews	TechMasters LLC, 4.8★
rival, rival_named_in	Woodfin - Your Home Team (chatgpt, perplexity, gemini)
business_named_in	(empty: named by no engine)
rival_quote	the AI's own sentence about the rival
cited_domains	sites the AI engines cited (Yelp, Angi, BBB, local news...)
dm_name, dm_title, dm_linkedin	owner / president from LinkedIn
linkedin_note, linkedin_message, email_subject, email_body, followup	outreach copy
report_url	the Markdown report in the run's key-value store

The key-value store also holds SUMMARY, VISIBILITY (every business x engine mention count) and AUTOSEND_PROMPT: a ready-to-paste prompt for Claude in Chrome or ChatGPT in Chrome that sends the LinkedIn outreach for you, fully automatically.

How to use AI Rival Report

1. Enter a City (e.g. Richmond, VA) and a Niche (presets: hvac, plumber, electrician, roofing, dentist, med-spa, pi-lawyer, chiropractor, auto-repair, moving, pest-control, landscaping, pool, garage-door, foundation, water-damage; or any free text).
2. Optional: add your agency name, your name and your offer so the outreach is signed.
3. Run. A 40-business city takes 2-4 minutes.
4. Download prospects as CSV/Excel/JSON, open each report from report_url, and paste AUTOSEND_PROMPT into Claude in Chrome or ChatGPT in Chrome to send.

How much does it cost?

$1 per market scan + $0.75 per prospect report. The $1 scan fee is charged once per run (one city + niche). Reports are only charged for prospects: businesses the AI skipped while naming a rival. Example: a city with 10 skipped businesses = $8.50. Set Max prospects or your run's max charge to cap the bill; the Actor stops before paying for sub-runs it can't charge for.

The Actor runs Google Maps and AI-answer scrapers on your Apify account. These sub-runs are typically $0.30-$1.20 per city (estimate shown in the log before anything runs) and are capped by the spend cap inputs.

Input

See the Input tab. Only City and Niche are required. Advanced inputs let you ask custom prompts, choose engines, ask each prompt several times (AI answers vary), set a do-not-contact list, and replay finished datasets for free re-analysis.

Output

One dataset row per prospect (Overview view shows the key columns). Example:

{
  "business": "TechMasters LLC",
  "website": "http://www.techmastersva.com/",
  "phone": "(804) 361-6071",
  "address": "4112 Forest Cir, Richmond, VA 23225",
  "rating": 4.9,
  "reviews": 98,
  "maps_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=TechMasters%20LLC&query_place_id=ChIJ_ZeAUGptsYkRdE9X3z_XBe4",
  "city": "Richmond, VA",
  "niche": "HVAC company",
  "ai_prompt": "best HVAC company in Richmond, VA",
  "rival": "Woodfin - Your Home Team",
  "rival_rating": 4.9,
  "rival_reviews": 11720,
  "rival_website": "https://askwoodfin.com/",
  "business_short": "TechMasters LLC",
  "rival_short": "Woodfin",
  "rival_named_in": "ChatGPT 1/1, Perplexity 1/1, Gemini 0/1, Google AI Mode 1/1",
  "business_named_in": "ChatGPT 0/1, Perplexity 0/1, Gemini 0/1, Google AI Mode 0/1",
  "engines_asked": "ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode",
  "rival_engines": [
    "chatgpt",
    "perplexity",
    "ai_mode"
  ],
  "others_named": [
    "Bradley Mechanical",
    "Michael & Son Services",
    "Automatic Climate HVAC & Air Conditioning",
    "Air Repair Inc"
  ],
  "rival_quote": "Woodfin – Your Home Team and Automatic Climate HVAC at the top of my list for Richmond, VA. However, there are several excellent alternatives depending on whether you need a repair, replacement, or a…",
  "rival_quote_engine": "ChatGPT",
  "cited_domains": "google.com, jamesriverair.com, automaticclimate.com, bradleymechanical.com, carrier.com, aireserv.com, woodfin.com, rivercityheatingair.com",
  "business_site_cited": false,
  "checked_at": "2026-11-03T09:41-05:00",
  "dm_source_query": "site:linkedin.com/in \"techmasters\" Richmond owner OR founder OR president OR partner",
  "dm_name": "Joey Smith",
  "dm_first_name": "Joey",
  "dm_title": "President",
  "dm_linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-smith-3980701b8",
  "dm_confidence": "high",
  "linkedin_note": "Hi Joey, I asked ChatGPT for the best HVAC company in Richmond and it recommended Woodfin, not TechMasters LLC. I put what 6 AI assistants said into a 1-page report. Want it?",
  "email_subject": "ChatGPT and TechMasters LLC",
  "report_key": "report-techmasters-llc"
}

Tips

• Run the same city weekly: AI answers drift, and "you dropped out of ChatGPT this week" is a great follow-up.
• Ask 2-3 prompts ("best", "most trusted", "emergency") to catch more skipped businesses.
• Some engines (Copilot, AI Overview) don't answer every query; the report only counts engines that answered.

FAQ

Is the AI answer real? Yes. Answers are collected live from each engine through Apify's Google Search Scraper AI modes, and quoted verbatim in each report.

Why is the owner missing for some prospects? The owner lookup only accepts a LinkedIn profile whose headline names the business in the same area, so it prefers blank over wrong.

Can I white-label the report? Yes. Reports are Markdown with your agency name; convert to PDF or paste into your own template.

Support: open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.