Are Clients Finding You on ChatGPT? What UK Firms Need to Know (2026)

A growing number of people in the UK are typing questions into ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of Google. When they ask for a solicitor, accountant, or mortgage adviser, AI names two or three specific firms. If your firm is not one of them, that client goes elsewhere — and you never know the enquiry existed.

This page explains how AI recommendations work, why most UK professional services firms are currently invisible, and how to check where your firm stands in under 60 seconds.

How Many People Are Using AI to Find Professional Services?

ChatGPT reached 400 million weekly active users in February 2025, according to OpenAI. Perplexity reported over 15 million daily active users in the same period. Both platforms are used heavily for local service recommendations — and usage is growing faster in professional services than almost any other category.

When TendorAI analysed AI recommendations across 12,793 UK professional services firms, fewer than 12% appeared in any AI-generated answer. The other 88% are invisible — not because they are bad firms, but because AI cannot find or verify them.

How Does ChatGPT Decide Which Firm to Recommend?

ChatGPT does not search the internet the way Google does. It cross-references multiple data sources to identify firms it can confidently name. For UK professional services, those sources are:

• Regulatory registers:The SRA register for solicitors, the FCA Financial Services Register for mortgage advisers, and ICAEW or ACCA directories for accountants. AI treats these as ground truth.
• Structured data on your website:Schema markup — code that tells AI exactly what your firm does, where it is, and what services it offers. Without this, AI cannot extract reliable information about you.
• Reviews and third-party mentions:Google reviews, ReviewSolicitors, Trustpilot, and mentions in third-party articles. AI uses these as credibility signals.
• Consistent business information:Your firm name, address, and phone number must be identical across your website, Google Business Profile, and directory listings. Inconsistencies reduce AI confidence.

Firms that have all four signals in place get recommended. Firms missing any of them are skipped — even if they have a well-designed website and decades of experience.

Why Most UK Firms Are Currently Invisible to AI

The vast majority of UK professional services websites were built for Google — designed to rank in search results through keywords, backlinks, and page speed. None of that determines AI recommendations.

TendorAI's analysis of SRA-registered solicitor firms found that 91% have no schema markup identifying them as a legal practice. Without it, ChatGPT cannot reliably extract what the firm does or verify its regulatory status — so it recommends a competitor that has the data in place.

This is not a content problem. Firms can have detailed, well-written websites and still be completely invisible to AI. The issue is structural data — and most website builders and SEO agencies do not address it.

How to Check If Your Firm Appears in AI Recommendations

The fastest way is to test it yourself. Open ChatGPT or Perplexity and ask:

If your firm does not appear — or if a competitor appears instead — your business is invisible to that channel. For a more detailed picture across six AI platforms including Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Meta AI, TendorAI's free report shows your score in 60 seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions