Straight answer · updated 5 November 2026

Choosing an AI automation agency for a small business

An AI automation agency builds the systems that answer, book, follow up and report without a person at the keyboard: a receptionist that answers the phone, a booking flow, lead follow-up, monthly reporting. The best one for a small business starts with the one process that loses money today, usually missed calls, and proves the result in numbers.

We build and run these in-house for local businesses: an AI receptionist priced per answered call (from $157 a month), booking and follow-up flows, and the measurement that shows what they did. No per-minute pricing, no long contracts.

The evidence we measure it with

Every week we put buyers' questions for 20 local trade markets in three metros to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google's AI Overviews and Google's AI Mode and count which businesses get named. The latest window: 3,778 AI answers read, 409 businesses named, 35 days, computed 3 November 2026. The most-named cremation provider in Tampa Bay appeared in 52% of 181 answers (95% range 45–59%); the most-named excavation company in Charlottesville in 20% of 209 answers. Nobody is named in every answer. The method and every number are public on the AI Market Index. Method: each question is asked repeatedly on every engine; a business counts as named when its name appears in the answer text or its domain in the cited sources; a failed read is excluded, never counted as a miss; every count is n of N with its date.

What to checkMeasurement shopRelabeled SEO
The number reportedNamed in N of M AI answers, per engine, with a rangeRankings, traffic, "AI score"
Before moneyA counted baselineA proposal
The workFacts, structured data, listings, answer pages, citations; logged by date"Content and links"
GuaranteesNone, in writingOften
Reporting a bad monthReported with the numberSilence

Who the engines actually name for these questions, counted

Every "best AI visibility agency" list the engines cite ranks its own author first. This table is not a list: it is a count. We asked the sixteen questions on this site to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google's AI Overviews and Google's AI Mode between 6 October 2026 and 5 November 2026 and counted which agencies were named in the 2,518 answers we recorded. We are at zero, and we publish that too.

Agency (as it appears on the lists the engines cite)Named inShareEngines that named it
iPullRank415 of 2,51816.5%Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Google AI Mode
First Page Sage270 of 2,51810.7%ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini
Siege Media236 of 2,5189.4%Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini
Omniscient Digital167 of 2,5186.6%Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Google AI Mode
Go Fish Digital165 of 2,5186.6%Claude, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency133 of 2,5185.3%Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT
Optimist124 of 2,5184.9%Claude, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity
WebFX117 of 2,5184.6%Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Google AI Mode
NoGood106 of 2,5184.2%Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini
Onely61 of 2,5182.4%Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity
Percepture60 of 2,5182.4%Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT
Hamster Garage57 of 2,5182.3%Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude
Rank Prompt50 of 2,5182.0%Perplexity, ChatGPT
Relevance (agency)46 of 2,5181.8%ChatGPT
Digital Elevator42 of 2,5181.7%ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini
Minuttia39 of 2,5181.5%Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Mode, Gemini
ASN Intelligence (us)0 of 2,5180.0%none yet

Method: exact-name match in the answer text; each question asked repeatedly on every engine; tools and software (Profound, Semrush, Peec, Otterly and others) excluded; a failed read is excluded, never counted as a miss; counts are of answers, so one answer naming three agencies counts once for each. Updated monthly from the same stored answers.

Five minutes on what the engines read

The explainer, with the counts on screen: how the assistants decide, what they cite, and the five things that move the answer. Narration is a generated voice; the numbers are ours.

Watch on YouTube

What to do, in order

Questions people ask next

What should a small business automate first?

Phone answering and booking, because a missed call is a lost job today and most small businesses miss a third or more of calls.

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

Ours is priced per answered call: $157, $297 or $497 a month for 60, 150 or 300 answered calls, with $1.95 per extra call and no setup fee.

Will callers know it is an AI?

Yes. Ours says so, and says the call is recorded, in the first sentence. Hiding it is both a trust problem and a legal one in several states.

Can it transfer to a person?

Yes, to the number you give us, on the rules you set (emergencies, existing customers, anyone who asks).

Where to start

Run the free AI-visibility scan for one pass on your business. For the counted baseline across all six engines, the Visibility Sprint is $1,500 one time, credited in full if you start a managed plan within thirty days. Self-serve measurement starts at $49 a month. Managed plans start at $2,950 a month, by application. No plan promises rankings or placement; nobody controls what an AI model says, and we say so.

By Daley Adams, Founder, ASN Intelligence LLC. Updated 5 November 2026.

Sources

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ASN Intelligence LLC · Mailing address: 5005 W Laurel St, Suite 100, PMB 1059, Tampa, FL 33607 · Free AI-visibility scan · AI Market Index · asnintelligencellc.com