How We Build the AI Answer Competition Index and Every County Figure
Every number on our GEO county pages comes from public U.S. Census Bureau data and is calculated the same way for every county. This page lays out the definitions, the weights and what the figures cannot tell you.
The index
What the AI Answer Competition Index Measures
The index asks one question: in the kinds of business that people ask an assistant to recommend, how many established competitors share each county's residents, compared with other counties? It counts businesses. It does not count AI mentions, searches or questions asked.
Step 1, categories. We use eleven advice-led categories, identified by NAICS code: law offices (541110), dentists (621210), physicians offices (621111), real estate agents and brokers (531210), insurance agencies and brokerages (524210), accounting and CPA firms (541211), residential remodelers (236118), plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (238220), roofing contractors (238160), electrical contractors (238210) and general automotive repair (811111). Restaurants, beauty salons, janitorial services and landscaping are in our Census data but are left out of this index and these tables.
Step 2, established locations. From the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (2022) we take employer establishments in each category and subtract those in the size class of fewer than five employees. What remains are established locations, with five or more employees. We divide by the county's 2023 population estimate to get established locations per 10,000 residents.
Step 3, percentile. Within each category we rank every U.S. county with 20,000 or more residents (1,822 counties) and record the share of those counties with a strictly lower density. The base score is the simple average of the eleven category percentiles.
Step 4, the blend. The final index is 75% base score, 15% the percentile of the share of advice-led locations with 20 or more employees, and 10% the percentile of the number of places with 2,500 or more residents. City-type markets (independent cities, the New York boroughs and Washington, DC) have no meaningful count of places, so their blend drops that part and reweights the other two. The result runs from 0 to 100, and a score near 50 is a typical county. Counties under 20,000 residents are not scored because per-resident densities are too unstable at that size.
Other figures
How the Other Numbers Are Calculated
- Crowding versus a typical county: a category's established locations per 10,000 residents divided by the median of that category across the 1,822 counties. 1.0x is typical.
- Change since 2017: percentage change in all employer establishments, of any size, between the 2017 and 2022 County Business Patterns (in one category, in the eleven combined, or in all industries). The 2017 data used here does not separate established locations from very small ones, so the change columns cover every size.
- Locations with 20 or more employees: establishments in the Census size classes of 20 employees and up; the share is that count divided by all establishments in the eleven categories.
- Share with five or more employees: the established locations in the eleven categories divided by all establishments in them.
- Residents outside any named place: the Census Bureau's population estimate minus the residents of all named places (cities, towns and census-designated places) in the county, as a share of the county. Townships and similar local governments that are not named places are counted here.
- Places with 2,500 or more residents: named cities, towns and census-designated places in the county (the part inside the county where a city spans two) at or above 2,500 residents in the Census Bureau's latest estimates.
- New-home permits: housing units authorized by building permits, from the Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey, per 10,000 residents for 2025, plus a same-months comparison for the current year.
- Look-alike markets: for the 400 markets we cover, the six nearest on a standardized mix of population (log), income (log), the index, the share of locations with 20 or more employees, growth in advice-led locations, the share of established locations and the places percentile.
- Percentile bars on each page: the share of the 1,822 counties with a lower value (or, where we say "slower" or "lower", the share with a higher one).
Sources
Where the Data Comes From
- U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates, Vintage 2023 (county and place totals)
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2022 and 2017
- U.S. Census Bureau, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, 2023 (median household income)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (county annual and year-to-date files)
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 Gazetteer (county centers, used for distances)
Limits
What These Numbers Cannot Tell You
- They say nothing about AI behavior. The index is a headcount of established businesses. It does not show how often people ask an assistant about a category, which businesses an engine names, or how any engine chooses among them. We do not publish AI mention counts, citations or visibility scores on these pages.
- They are not search volumes. We use no keyword volumes, traffic estimates or ranking promises, and nobody can promise a mention in an AI answer.
- They are not our results. No client account data and no GetPhound client results appear on these pages, because every business and market differs.
- Establishments are not websites. Some counted businesses have no website, and sole proprietors without employees are not in County Business Patterns at all.
- Connecticut is different. The Census Bureau replaced Connecticut's eight counties with nine planning regions in its newest files, but people still use the old county names. For Connecticut we use the historic counties with 2021 population, income and business counts (compared with 2017) and leave out permits. Pages say so.
- Data has a lag. Business counts are from 2022 and population from 2023. We show the year beside each figure and rebuild when the Census Bureau releases new files.
Found a mistake? Email hello@getphound.com and we will check it against the source.
Get in Touch
Want These Numbers Applied to Your Business?
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