Can real estate agents rank #1 in ChatGPT?
No. Jason Pantana explains that ChatGPT has no permanent #1 spot. Ask it the same question twice and the recommended agents can change, and a BrightLocal study found only 23% average overlap between repeated sets of ChatGPT local recommendations. Your goal is to appear in the answer as often as possible and to measure how often you show up compared to your competitors.
You can’t rank #1 in ChatGPT, so stop chasing a spot that doesn’t exist. Your target is frequency: how often your name lands in ChatGPT’s answer when someone asks for an agent in your market, and how often a competitor’s name lands there instead.
This matters because the habits you built on Google don’t carry over. For 20 years, agents treated Google like a ranking. You searched, it returned a list, and you worked to move up that list. Now buyers and sellers are asking AI who to hire, and the way buyers use ChatGPT to search for homes and agents looks very different from typing a few keywords into a search bar.
If you judge your AI visibility by whether you were #1 on a single try, you’ll get a misleading answer every time.
Why do ChatGPT’s agent recommendations change every time?
ChatGPT builds a fresh answer each time you ask, so the names it recommends can shift even when your question is word-for-word the same. As Jason Pantana puts it, “Generative AI isn’t that kind of scoreboard.”
The BrightLocal research behind his point is large. It analyzed more than 200,000 local AI searches across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Google’s AI Overviews. Repeat searches overlapped only 20% to 33% on average: 23% for ChatGPT, 21% for AI Mode, and 33% for AI Overviews. A business that showed up once appeared again in only about half of the later attempts.
None of this makes AI visibility meaningless. Pantana’s point is that it changes how you measure it.
How should you measure AI visibility instead of rankings?
Count how often you appear across many relevant answers, and compare that to your competitors. Pantana frames the shift this way: instead of asking, “Did I rank number one?” ask, “Out of a hundred relevant recommendations, how often am I in the answer, and how often are my competitors?”
| Google ranking mindset | AI recommendation mindset | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A list of results | An answer that can change on every ask |
| What you’re tracking | A position | A probability |
| The question you ask | “Did I rank number one?” | “How often am I in the answer, and how often are my competitors?” |
In practice, that looks like this:
- Choose the questions a buyer or seller in your market would ask when looking for an agent.
- Ask each question many times, not once.
- Count how often your name appears.
- Count how often each competitor’s name appears.
- Compare your share to theirs and watch how it moves over time.
Jason’s summary is worth remembering: “A ranking is a position. A recommendation is a probability. Your job is to become the name that keeps coming up.”
What makes you the agent AI keeps recommending?
You become recommendable by strengthening the signals AI draws from: your website, your content, your reviews, and your reputation across the web.
Your website carries real weight here. In the BrightLocal research, business websites made up 93% of the unique domains used as sources and 42% of all AI citations. If your site is thin or out of date, you’re giving AI less to work with. One practical approach is to answer your clients’ common questions in YouTube videos and blog posts so ChatGPT can find you.
Expect some inconsistency even when you do this well. The same research found that 71% to 80% of businesses appeared in half the attempts or fewer. The aim is to raise how often you appear, and that’s something you can track.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does ChatGPT recommend different agents when you ask the same question?
ChatGPT doesn’t keep a fixed list the way traditional Google results do. Each answer is generated fresh, so the names can change even when the question is identical. A BrightLocal study found only 23% average overlap between repeated sets of ChatGPT local recommendations.
Is AI visibility worth tracking if the results keep changing?
Yes. Jason Pantana says the changing results don’t make AI visibility meaningless. They change how you measure it, from a single position to how often you appear.
How do you measure whether ChatGPT recommends you?
Look at many relevant recommendations instead of one search. Ask how often you appear in the answer out of a hundred, and how often your competitors do. That share is your real visibility.
Does your website still matter for AI search?
Yes. In the BrightLocal research, business websites accounted for 42% of the AI citations studied. Your website, content, reviews, and reputation across the web all shape whether AI recommends you.
Find Out How Often AI Recommends You
Buyers and sellers are already asking AI who to hire, and you can’t grow your share of those answers if you don’t know where you stand. Radar, part of AiM Automations, tells you whether your name comes up when somebody asks ChatGPT, or whichever AI they use, who the best agent in your town is, or whether the agent down the street comes up instead. Check how often AI recommends you with Radar.
