MarTech reported a Steady Demand finding that should end a certain kind of sales call: Gemini and ChatGPT agreed on the same top local business 4.2 percent of the time.

“Business websites dominate Gemini’s local AI citations — and the engines still do not agree.”

— MarTech, covering Steady Demand

Four point two percent is not a rounding error. It is two systems asked a local question and walking away with different firms. Agencies will hear that number and prescribe more blog posts. More posts will not make two models share a memory.

The 4.2 percent is not a content problem

Gemini and ChatGPT read different slices of the web. They refresh on different clocks. They collapse similar names differently. A plumber on Oak Street and a plumber on Oak Avenue are close enough for a language model to blur and far enough for a customer to sue.

When two engines cannot name the same plumber, the missing asset is not another adjective on the homepage. It is a public object both of them can fetch: one legal name, one website, one phone, one place or service area, dated.

Ben Fisher and Steady Demand own their method. MarTech owns the write-up. This desk owns only the identity line the 4.2 percent exposes.

Why local queries drift first

National brands at least have press, filings, and a distinctive string. A local trades firm often has a name that exists in forty cities, a Facebook page that still lists last year’s van wrap, and a website that changed themes twice. The model is being asked to pick a winner from a pile of near-matches.

Grounding drift is what that pile looks like in production. One engine cites the Google profile. One cites a directory that was last edited in 2019. Neither is “wrong” in the way a math test is wrong. Both failed to resolve a single entity.

What we will not claim

A public file will not force Gemini and ChatGPT to publish the same shortlist. Those products do not share an index. Anyone selling “we will get you number one in every AI” is selling a story the 4.2 percent already disproves.

The file will stop them from inventing a second phone number for the same van. That is the job. Ranking theater is someone else’s brochure.

If you run a local firm, read the MarTech piece for the measurement. Then publish one set of facts both engines can fetch. Measure agreement after that — not before.