Category data · Release 1
Who does AI actually trust, category by category?
Ten Sydney professional services categories, measured August 2026. Each page shows the three sources every AI engine cited most when buyers asked for guidance in that category, with the sample and the date published.
Before an AI assistant recommends a business, it decides which sources to trust. These pages measure that decision directly: across roughly 1,300 buying-journey prompts, we recorded every source ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews actually cited, category by category. The pattern is blunt. In most Sydney professional services categories the engines cite governments, forums and even American websites ahead of the local firms themselves.
The ten categories
| Category | ChatGPT's #1 cited source | Prompts | Engines measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| personal injury lawyers | lhd.com.au | 180 | 3 engines |
| commercial lawyers | legalclarity.org | 100 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| conveyancers | nsw.gov.au | 111 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| accountants | en.wikipedia.org | 110 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| financial advisers | moneysmart.gov.au | 115 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| mortgage brokers | consumerfinance.gov | 120 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| buyers agents | reddit.com | 110 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| recruitment agencies | indeed.com | 180 | 3 engines |
| managed IT providers | milnsbridge.com.au | 100 | ChatGPT (more engines next pass) |
| digital marketing agencies | business.qld.gov.au | 166 | 3 engines |
Three patterns across the set
- 1American sources answer Australian questions. FindLaw, NerdWallet, Zillow and even the US consumer finance regulator out-cite local firms in commercial law, mortgage broking and property, because nobody local has published the answers in citable form.
- 2Reddit is a top-three source in four categories. Where firms don't publish real prices and process, the engines cite forums where strangers do.
- 3The one category providers win is the one that publishes. Managed IT providers take the top citations in their own category, which is what every other category on this list could look like.
How this was measured
Each category runs a fixed prompt set spanning the buying journey, collected unauthenticated on a stated date. A citation is a source the engine linked in its answer. Prompts naming a specific business are excluded from citation counts, engines are reported separately and never pooled, and every page carries its sample size and collection dates. The full method, including what it can't tell you, is on the TOP Score page. These citation pages are the first release of category data; the TOP 100, which measures which businesses get named, follows on the scoreboard.
Is your business cited in its category?
A free Namecheck shows whether the engines name and cite you, with the actual answers we saw.