Independent research lab

How AI search sees B2B companies

AIWorthy measures what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Mode actually say about real firms, and checks every answer against the public record.

Founded and run by Heather Harreld, former brand and marketing senior director, 10-plus years driving SEO growth at billion dollar-plus enterprises,  journalist and search researcher. · Research covered in Accounting Today →

Latest · October 7, 2026
Three Doors and a Brick Wall: How AI Assistants Choose CPA Firms
Five AI assistants, 500 answers, checked against the federal record of who performs Single Audits.
Summary with chartsFull study and recordThe article
The Firm AI Recommends 78 Times
Its website is a maintenance page. Where the machines learned its name instead.
Read the Case File →
Recommended Under a Name You No Longer Have
85 answers sent buyers to retired firm names. One firm's own homepage was the source.
Read the Case File →
The AI-Visibility Playbook, Checked
Reddit, Wikipedia, FAQ schema, page speed, rankings, against 2,725 citations. One item held up.
Read the Case File →

AIWorthy Research · Published September 2026 · 2,300 responses · five platforms · corpus frozen and hashed

Corpus not published to protect the firm's anonymity.

A $4 Billion Firm, Measured in Every Market It Operates In

A national wealth management and advisory firm, 2,300 questions across twelve markets — then measured again after a collection defect was found in our own work.

Every claim checked against the firm's SEC filing rather than its own website. Six buyer questions with recommendation rates from 20.7% down to zero, a gap between what the firm marketed and what it filed, and a correction we issued against our own collection process — reversed in the firm's favor.

Read the study →
All research →

The Triangle RIA baseline, wave 2, publishes next. Its panel and screens are on the Pre-registered page.

How the research works

  • Panels are drawn from official public registers by screens published before any question is asked. Inclusion can't be requested, declined or purchased.
  • Every question is asked five times on each platform through the platforms' direct APIs, so variance is visible rather than hidden.
  • Results are reported as counts, never as rates, rankings or a composite score, and every number is read by hand before publication.
  • Corrections, including corrections to our own work, are issued as dated amendments. AIWorthy does not sell placement, rankings or content.
Full methodology →

Who's behind the lab

I covered the emergence of the internet, its growth and security, and Google itself for national publications, with my work syndicated by The New York Times and CNN. I spent more than a decade leading SEO at multi-billion-dollar organizations and served as Senior Director of Marketing Communications and Brand at RTI International. Since early 2026 I've studied AI visibility full time, on a research server and study instrument I built myself. My first CPA study was covered by Accounting Today the day it published.

I'm open to roles where AI, search research and communications meet.

About meConnect on LinkedIn