Old St. Vital BIZ ChatGPT Visibility Research

Overview

This research examines how Old St. Vital BIZ businesses appeared in ChatGPT responses when consumers asked for local recommendations.

91 eligible businesses were tested across 574 questions. Each business received category-matched prompts designed to reflect the kinds of queries a consumer might actually ask.

This is a point-in-time benchmark collected on October 28, 2026. ChatGPT answers can change. This study measures which businesses entered the AI-generated shortlist at that moment — not future guaranteed mentions.

Key Findings

63% of Old St. Vital businesses (57 of 91) were mentioned at least once.

59% had strong visibility (appeared in multiple relevant responses), 3% had limited visibility (appeared once), and 37% were not named in any tested response.

Discovery questions (like "best florist in Winnipeg") produced a 62% mention rate. Recommendation questions (like "Who should I see for a dentist?") produced a 58% mention rate.

Category Performance

Visibility varied by category. Health, Beauty & Fitness performed best at 71%, while food & drink businesses had the lowest visibility at 58%.

These category rates show which types of Old St. Vital businesses entered ChatGPT's shortlist most consistently in this test.

Example Responses

Below are sample ChatGPT answers from the test. These examples show which Old St. Vital businesses were named — and which questions returned no Old St. Vital businesses at all.

• "pizza Winnipeg" → Santa Lucia Pizza, Tony's Master of Pizza, Little Pizza Heaven, A Little Pizza Heaven, Pizzeria Gusto, Za Pizza Bistro
• "Who should I see for pizza in Winnipeg?" → Santa Lucia Pizza, Pizzeria Gusto, A Little Pizza Heaven, Tommy's Pizzeria, The Colosseum, Red Ember Common
• "best shop in Winnipeg" → McNally Robinson Booksellers, The Bay, Out of the Blue, The Forks Market, Tergesen's, De Luca's Specialty Foods, St. Norbert Farmers' Market, EQ3, The Old House Revival Company, Mountain Equipment Co-op (no Old St. Vital business appeared)

Spotlight: "best shop in Winnipeg"

When asked "best shop in Winnipeg", ChatGPT named McNally Robinson Booksellers, The Bay, Out of the Blue.

No eligible shop in the benchmark appeared.

Methodology

Businesses were sourced from the Old St. Vital BIZ public directory. National chains, businesses without websites, and civic listings were excluded so the benchmark reflects local independent businesses.

This benchmark uses the 140 listings in the Old St. Vital BIZ directory extract on October 28, 2026. The site says 160 businesses; the extract has 140 after dedupe.

574 ChatGPT questions were asked across 298 unique prompts. Questions were matched to each business's category and pinned to Winnipeg at the city level.

Each business received approximately 6 questions. Questions were not averaged across multiple runs. This study used ChatGPT (OpenAI) on October 28, 2026.

Of the 140 listings, 23 had no website: 20 had no website listed, and 3 listed only Instagram or Loc8NearMe. Another 25 were not eligible: 19 national or multi-location chains, 5 civic or institutional listings, and 1 duplicate listing (The Riverside Craft Beer Store shares its site with the Riverside Inn). Of the 92 eligible members, 1 could not be matched to a Winnipeg Google Business Profile and was not asked (St. Vital Group was matched to the St. Vital Group of Alcoholics Anonymous at 553 St. Mary's Road). The Other row has only 2 businesses, which is under the usual 5-business minimum for a standalone category. Questions were pinned to Winnipeg at the city level and asked once each at temperature 0.2.

This is a point-in-time benchmark of the ChatGPT responses tested on October 28, 2026. This study uses the 140 listings in the Old St. Vital BIZ directory extract from that day. The site says 160 businesses. Scores are the share of scored members marked named by the study identity match, which can count a long word from the business name. 11 of the 91 scored businesses have their full name in a saved answer. ChatGPT answers can change. This is not a guarantee of future mentions, and it does not mean an unnamed business can never appear.

What This Means for BIZ Members

If a customer's shortlist is built in ChatGPT, neighbourhood independents that never appear may never get considered.

This research does not claim that appearing in ChatGPT causes a purchase, nor does it prove that an unnamed business cannot succeed. It identifies an emerging layer of local discovery that BIZ members may want to understand.

CLIXERA can walk BIZ members through these findings in a short workshop or lunch-and-learn. This page is the leave-behind — contact CLIXERA if you want to schedule a community session.