When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity to recommend a private dentist in Manchester, which practices actually get named? We measured it — and the answer is sobering for almost everyone.
We asked the three assistants the 16 questions real patients ask (“best private dentist in Manchester”, “who’s good for implants”, “is X taking new patients”) and scored each practice 0–100 on how often AI recognises and recommendsit — not merely whether its name appears. For this research batch we ran the whole set twice, on 11 June, and averaged the two; a business’s own scan is a single pass, and the methodology page says so. Twelve practices were measured. Here’s what we found.
The leader scored 65. Half the field scored under 48.
In the June 2026 scan, top of the table was Gartside Street Dental Lounge at 65/100— the only one of the twelve to break 60. Behind it: City Centre Dental & Implant Clinic (53), Ringway Dental (51), Manchester Dental (50). The median across those twelve was 47.5, and the bottom of the field sat at 40. In other words, the most AI-visible of the twelve was only moderately visible — and most were closer to invisible.
No private dentist in Manchester is the clear answer when AI is asked to recommend one. The category is wide open.
You can be the answer on one assistant and missing on another
The per-engine numbers were the most revealing part. In that June 2026 scan, Gartside Street scored 79 on ChatGPT, 65 on Perplexity and only 51 on Gemini— a strong answer for some patients, a weak one for others, depending purely on which assistant they happen to use. Visibility isn’t one number; it’s different on every engine, and most practices have no idea where they stand on any of them.
Why this matters now
45% of consumers used an AI assistant to find a local business in 2026 (BrightLocal), and ChatGPT recommends only around 1.2% of business locations when asked (SOCi, across 350k locations). In June 2026 a score of 65 put you top of the twelve; a score in the 40s means that when a patient asks AI for a dentist, you’re simply not in the conversation — and the practice down the road is.
See the full ranked table and per-engine scores on the Manchester Private Dentists AI Visibility Index, and read exactly how we measure — the method is public, and it’s a snapshot for June 2026, so scores will move as practices fix their data.