On August 28, 2026, Kodec ran the exact question a homeowner asks an AI assistant — “I need a good HVAC company in New Braunfels TX for an AC repair. Who do people actually recommend, and what should I look for to pick a good one?” — through ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, and published what came back. This is that capture: the named companies, the cited sources, and what it means if your name isn’t in the list.
Two Engines, Two Different Shortlists
Sticking to the companies each engine presented as a recommendation with its own rating or summary, ChatGPT surfaced five and Google AI Mode surfaced four. The overlap is exactly one: Climate Express Heating & Air LLC. ChatGPT’s five were Aire Serv of New Braunfels–Canyon Lake, Comfy Air AC and Furnace Repair, Classic Services Air Conditioning & Heating, Komfort Kings Heating and Air Conditioning LLC, and Climate Express Heating & Air LLC. Google AI Mode’s four were Meyer Heating & A/C, Climate Express Heating & Air LLC, Legacy Home Services, and Classic Air Conditioning and Heating. So Aire Serv, Comfy Air, Classic Services Air Conditioning & Heating, and Komfort Kings appear only on ChatGPT’s side, while Meyer, Legacy, and Classic Air Conditioning and Heating appear only on Google’s side. A homeowner asking the same sentence to two different assistants gets two different shortlists — and don’t confuse the two Classic companies; they’re separate businesses, and each engine picked a different one.
Review volume splits along the same line. ChatGPT’s Aire Serv entry carries 11 reviews in its cited source; Comfy Air AC and Furnace Repair carries 254. Google AI Mode’s Legacy Home Services shows 2.8K reviews, and Classic Air Conditioning and Heating shows 571. The two engines are pulling from different layers of reputation data.
ChatGPT’s full answer also dropped seven more names into one group bullet — RB Mechanical Solutions, HVAC Pros Heating & A/C LLC, Cool Controls Htg. & A/C, Relentless Cooling & Heating LLC, Hill Country Mechanical & Electrical Services, Classic Services, and 7K Mechanical, Inc. — all pulled from a Forbes Home Improvement roundup. They get listed, but they don’t get the individualized treatment the five above do. That’s a structural quirk of this capture: one national roundup is doing a lot of work inside ChatGPT’s New Braunfels answer.
What Each Engine Actually Read
ChatGPT leaned on eight cited source URLs across seven domains: angi.com, reviews.birdeye.com, bestprosintown.com, forbes.com, komfortkingsac.com, bbb.org, and newbraunfelsacguide.com (two URLs). That’s a directory-and-review stack — Angi, Birdeye, Best Pros in Town, Forbes Home Improvement, the BBB — plus Komfort Kings’ own reviews page and a local AC guide that supplied the licensing criteria. Google AI Mode cited seven sources, all proxied through google.com links: the thread “HVAC : r/Newbraunfels - Reddit,” Google Business Profile data labeled “Frequently Recommended Local Companies,” business-profile pages for Meyer Heating & A/C, Climate Express Heating & Air LLC, and Classic Air Conditioning and Heating, a page called “What to Look for in a Good HVAC Tech,” and a business page named “Family-Owned HVAC Experts - Same-Day Service Available.” The Reddit thread’s visible snippet carries a comment marked “2y ago” recommending Meyer and Legacy.
No New Braunfels journalism shows up in either source set — no local paper, no city publication, no community news outlet. The layer the AI reads is entirely aggregators, directories, a national roundup, Reddit, company pages, and the engines’ own Business Profile data. This time there were no junk sources either: no travel site, no out-of-market HVAC company page, no national installer listing. The source-failure mode that shows up in other markets didn’t happen here.
The AI Box Repeats What It Reads
The AI box doesn’t know who showed up on time or who actually fixed the leak; it reads what other pages say — a 4.9 on Birdeye, an A+ at the BBB, a Reddit comment from two years ago — and repeats it as a recommendation. Neither engine in this capture verified a single workmanship claim.
What This Means for a New Braunfels HVAC Owner
For a New Braunfels HVAC owner, the research window ends inside that answer. When a homeowner asks the same question tomorrow and your name isn’t in the response, the call has already gone to one of the companies above. That absence isn’t a verdict on your workmanship — it’s a visibility gap in the exact layer where decisions are now being made.
of independent HVAC/plumbing contractors have effectively zero AI citation share in their own metro
5W HVAC & Plumbing AI Visibility Index 2026
of consumers use AI to find local services, up from ~6% a year prior
BrightLocal 2026 Consumer Review
One HVAC Site We Tracked Through the Same Window
The closest outcome data we have comes from a Bay Area HVAC contractor’s site we tracked through the same window. After a navigation fix, new area pages, and consistent business-identity reinforcement — not link-buying, not a content blitz — daily impressions went from roughly 206 to roughly 2,038, a +421% rebound. AI-referred sessions engaged at about 50% versus 24.1% for non-AI traffic, a 2.08× lift. The honest caveat: that’s 4 AI sessions versus 399 non-AI sessions in 30 days — tiny volume, so treat the engagement ratio as directional. The pattern, though, was consistent: the work wasn’t chasing the AI. It was making the business’s identity legible and consistent across the sources the AI cross-checks.