A question owners ask
Why does an AI assistant name different businesses each time I ask?
An AI assistant composes a new answer each time it is asked, so the same question can name different businesses from one ask to the next. A fair check asks each question several times and reports how much the rate varies between repeats.
Each answer is written fresh.
- Each ask gets a newly written answer, not a stored list.
- The consumer app can answer differently for each person who asks.
- An answer sampled through an API, a developer connection rather than the app, can differ from what the app shows a homeowner.
So one answer, yours or a customer’s, is a single sample of what the assistant says.
How each sampled answer is labelled
Every sampled answer in a Tokino report shows its assistant, date, city and the sources it cites, with a label saying how it was sampled:
- ChatGPT answers: “collected from the app; answers can differ for each user”
- Gemini answers: “collected from the app; answers can differ for each user”
- Other answers: “sampled via API; the consumer app can differ”
A “via API” answer came through a developer connection, not the app a homeowner uses. For Claude and Perplexity it is a request to the assistant’s model. For Google AI Mode it is the search results page a data vendor’s connection returns. An app answer records what the app showed when we asked the question.
Compare a change with the variation.
A report gives your rate and how much that rate varies between repeats. The more it varies, the less a change between two scans means.
A change smaller than that variation can be chance. A change larger than it is worth a closer look, on the same questions and assistants.
When too few repeats are answered to compare, the variation shows as unavailable.
The first step is free.
Your first scan is free and needs no card. It puts the homeowner questions to each assistant, several times, and reports your rate.
Reading a change needs two scans. What repeat scans cost is on the pricing page.
One scan, then a later one.
Neither reading proves progress or decline, and neither says what caused the change.