Ask ChatGPT for the best plumber in Miami. There is a good chance it will not name a single real one.
A new study from Evoke Strategy found that 94% of the Florida businesses it tested never appeared in AI search results. The gap spans industries and platforms, and Miami is one of the cities included.
How the Study Worked
Evoke Strategy benchmarked 28,488 businesses across nine Florida cities, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The study spanned 18 industries, from HVAC and roofing to dentists and personal injury law. Researchers tested three buyer-style questions across four AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
That produced 12 searches per industry per city, and 1,944 searches statewide. Just 1,676 businesses, or 5.9%, showed up in even one of those searches. Nearly two-thirds of the businesses that did appear showed up in only one or two searches out of 12 run for their category.
"AI search is still new and evolving incredibly quickly, so it's not surprising that businesses have gaps in how and where they appear," said Devon Vocke, Evoke Strategy co-founder.
A Miami-Specific Study Found an Even Bigger Gap
Separate research focused only on Miami-Dade points to the same conclusion. The gap there was even steeper. AEOGeoAI is a Miami AI search visibility research firm. It tested 515 Miami-Dade businesses across health, legal and real estate against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
That study used a stricter bar. A business had to be named directly in an AI-generated answer, not just have its category or a competitor mentioned nearby. Under that standard, only two of the 515 businesses tested were genuinely cited by name.
Disclosure: AEOGeoAI is owned by this publication's founder. Its findings are included here because they measure the same underlying problem in the same market. The method is different and more conservative.
The two studies used different questions, platforms and thresholds. They do not produce the same number, and neither should be read as a precise measure of the other.
But both point the same direction. The overwhelming majority of small and mid-size businesses in Florida, Miami included, are effectively invisible in AI search. That holds true whenever someone asks for a local recommendation.
Why One Appearance Isn't Enough
Vocke says visibility in a single search does not mean a business has solved the problem. A company might get named once and still be invisible everywhere else a customer might ask.
"The bigger question is whether your company is repeatedly discoverable across the different questions customers are asking and the different AI platforms they're using," Vocke said.
Evoke Strategy also found that visibility rarely carries across platforms. Few businesses that appeared in one AI tool's results showed up consistently across all four tested.
What It Means for Miami Businesses
For Miami's small and mid-size businesses, the pattern points to a structural gap, not a one-off glitch. Being findable on Google no longer guarantees being findable when a customer asks an AI assistant instead.
Both studies describe a snapshot, not a fixed ranking, and results can shift as the platforms change. For now, most Miami businesses tested in either study simply were not there when asked.