Most AI search tools build their list from the businesses AI names. ARO Index™ starts from the market. The Charleston cohort is 688 businesses audited before the census ran. In cold buyer queries, AI selected 89 of 688 (12.9%). The other 599 are in the dataset too. That denominator is the research.
Ranking tools build their universe from whatever names AI produces. ARO Index measures selection against a frozen cohort of audited businesses, so a business AI never names is still counted. How each cohort was built, including its pre-census cutoff, is disclosed on the methodology page.
Charleston Vol 1: 688 audited, 89 selected, 599 never selected in a cold buyer query (12.9% and 87.1%). Other indexes publish a denominator of answers. ARO Index publishes a denominator of businesses.
A business counts as recommended only when a model places it in its top 3 for a real buyer query, in at least 2 of 3 phrasings, per model. Being one name in a list of twenty is not a recommendation.
Local AI rankings are a real category now. Several products publish them. The question is no longer whether these datasets exist. It is which one is built like research.
| Feature | ARO Index™Market research dataset | Courtyard IndexWeekly public rankings | MentionedOnPer-business monitoring | AIVisibilityIndex.net41-city published rankings | ProfoundEnterprise brand tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cohort defined before querying The full market is enumerated first, so zero-selection businesses are in the dataset | ✓ Yes | ✕ NoUniverse built from businesses AI names | ✕ NoTracks the subscribing business | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| Published not-selected denominator Reports state how many businesses in the market were never selected | ✓ Yes | ✕ No | ✕ No | ✕ No | ✕ No |
| Versioned methodology with disclosed model access Method versions, model strings, retrieval state, and reproducible matching queries published | ✓ Yes | ~ PartialMethodology published, not versioned with reproducible queries | ~ PartialMethodology page, monitoring-oriented | ~ PartialMethodology published, not versioned, no model strings | ✕ No |
| Selection standard Counts top-3 choice, not any mention | ✓ Yes | ~ PartialShare-of-voice weighting across mentions | ~ PartialMention rate + score | ? UnclearUnclear from public info | ✕ NoMention/citation share |
| Local rankings by city and category Ranked leaderboards by city and category based on actual AI recommendation behavior | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes10 metros, 5 industries, weekly | ✓ YesCity leaderboards | ✓ Yes41 cities, 8 industries | ✕ NoNational/enterprise |
| Daily monitoring for a single business Continuous per-business alerting rather than a market-level cadence | ✕ NoMarket cadence is monthly; higher frequency is a paid research tier | ✕ No | ✓ YesDaily checks from $99/mo | ✕ NoOne-time | ✓ YesEnterprise |
*Based on each product's public site as of September 17, 2026. Corrections welcome: therese@aroindex.com
Two years ago, no one published local AI recommendation rankings. Now several products do, and that is good news. It means the question every local business is starting to ask, "does AI recommend me?", has been validated as a market.
A ranking and a market index are different instruments. A ranking starts from the names AI produces and orders them. A market index starts from the market, a frozen cohort of real businesses, and records what AI does with all of them. Only the second design can tell you the number that matters most: how many businesses AI never selects at all.
In Charleston, that number was 599 of 688 (87.1%). No dataset built from AI's own answers can contain it.
What is the difference between ARO Index and tools like Courtyard, MentionedOn, or AIVisibilityIndex.net?
Courtyard publishes weekly rankings of the businesses AI names across 10 metros. MentionedOn monitors one business's AI answers daily and publishes city leaderboards. AIVisibilityIndex.net publishes rankings in 41 cities, scored as the share of answers that name a business. All three are built from AI's outputs. ARO Index measures selection against a frozen market cohort, so businesses AI never names are measured, not missing. Different designs answer different questions.
Why does the business denominator matter?
Because "ranked #4" means something different in a market of 12 named businesses than in a market of 688 audited ones. Without a frozen cohort, a ranking cannot give a selection rate, cannot track who fell out, and cannot compare across time without survivorship bias. ARO Index cohorts are frozen snapshots with published membership rules and disclosed construction.
What is an ARO Score™?
ARO Score™ is the 0 to 100 diagnostic composite inside an ARO Report: recommendation rate (40%), position strength (20%), confidence (20%), and signal quality (20%). It explains what may be driving a business's public ARO Index Score. Full formulas and model access details are on the methodology page.
Is ARO Index a monitoring tool?
No. Monitoring tools check one business's answers daily and alert on change. MentionedOn does that well at $99/mo. ARO Index is market research infrastructure: frozen cohorts, versioned methods, published denominators, and DOI-archived reports. Agencies use both for different jobs.
Do other tools publish local AI rankings?
Yes. Several do now. What ARO Index publishes that rankings built from AI outputs cannot: the businesses AI never selects, measured against a market cohort that does not depend on what AI named.
Run a free audit and see how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity currently select, or skip, your business. No credit card. No pitch. Just the data.