How ChatGPT decides which interior designer to name

ChatGPT names the studios it can read about. In our test of 60 answers from ChatGPT and Perplexity, which we asked for a short list, every answer named between 3 and 10 interior design studios, about 5 on average. Their sources included studios' own sites, directories, design lists and magazines, and none was Instagram. Asked again, ChatGPT changed about half its names.

We can't see inside ChatGPT. But we can see what it names, how it describes each studio and which pages it cites. That tells a studio most of what it needs to know.

What did we ask?

On 22 October 2026 we asked three questions a client might type, in five cities: Amsterdam, London, Milan, New York and Paris.

• "Who are the best interior designers in Amsterdam?"
• "Recommend a high-end modern interior designer in Amsterdam."
• "Amsterdam interior designer for a full home renovation."

Each question went to ChatGPT, with web search on, and to Perplexity. We ran every city twice. That makes 60 answers. To each question we added one instruction: "Answer briefly, as a short ranked list of studio names with one line each." So the length of these answers, and partly the number of names, come from how we asked. Without that instruction, in a later check about web designers for interior studios, answers ran longer but still named only a handful of firms. Google's AI answers were not part of this test. Our method page explains how we run checks like this.

It names a few studios, not a page of links

Every one of the 60 answers named studios. The shortest named 3 and the longest 10, with 5.2 on average.

A search on Google gives a client pages to compare. An AI answer gives them a shortlist. If a studio is not on it, the client may never look further. Our article on whether AI answers still send visitors looks at what happens after the answer.

It says what each studio does

We asked for one line per studio, so the answers described each one in a few words. We looked closer at this for five well-known designers. "Residential" appeared in 46 of the 60 answers, "high-end" in 42 and "hospitality" in 25.

Those words have to come from somewhere. If your own site never says in plain words that you design private homes, or hotels, or that you work at the top of the market, an AI assistant has to guess, or take the words from someone else's page.

It reads lists, directories and magazines

ChatGPT cited 63 pages across its 30 answers. Perplexity looked at 240 that we kept and cited at least 80 of them. Houzz was the page it looked at most, 48 times, but it cited Houzz at least 6 times. What the two cited most were studios' own sites, lists of designers on design blogs, directories, and magazines such as House & Garden and Elle Decor. Not one of the 303 sources, cited or looked at, was Instagram.

This matches what others have found for local businesses in general. BrightLocal's study of local AI answers¹ found that businesses' own websites make up 42 percent of all the citations in local AI answers.

For a studio, this means two places matter: its own website, and the handful of directories, lists and magazines that write about interior designers in its city. Instagram can hold beautiful work, but these answers did not read it.

Ask again, and the names change

When we asked ChatGPT the same question twice in the same city, about half the names were different the second time. Perplexity was steadier and kept most of its names. And the two barely agreed with each other: for the same question, they shared fewer than one in ten names.

So there is no fixed "position" in an AI answer, the way there is on Google. A studio is named in some answers and not in others. The useful number is how often it is named across many runs, which is what we report each month.

What can a studio change?

What these answers read points to what a studio can do: make it easy for those pages, and its own site, to say clearly who it is.

1. One clear sentence on the home page. Who the studio is, where it works and what kind of projects it does, in plain words.
2. A page for every project. The place, the year, the scope and what was done, written as text. Our guide to photographing and ordering a project shows the order of the pictures.
3. The city and the area written out. "Interior designer in Milan, working across Lombardy and Switzerland" can be read. A map pin cannot.
4. The same name and description everywhere. Your site, Houzz, directories and your Instagram bio should say the same thing.
5. Listed correctly where the answers look. Check the directories and design lists for your city, and make sure the studio is there with the right details.
6. Short answers to the questions clients ask. A page of real questions and answers gives an assistant something to quote.

None of this guarantees a place in an answer. No one can honestly promise that. But it gives AI assistants the words they need to name you, and it helps the clients who visit your site at the same time. We looked at what did and did not explain it across 224 studios in why a studio doesn't come up in ChatGPT.

How do you see what ChatGPT says about your studio?

Ask it the questions your clients would ask, in your city, twice. Note who it names and which pages it cites. Or run the free AI check: it asks ChatGPT and Perplexity what your clients ask, live, and shows you whether your studio comes up, and who is named instead.