Personal injury law shows the clearest category-level AI suppression of local firms in the cohort. Scores range 43–48 across cities — all Mid tier, all reasonable — yet zero citations. AI engines consistently surface national brands (Morgan & Morgan, Watts Guerra) for broad PI queries. This is category-level AI behavior, not a structural gap individual businesses can bridge with schema optimization alone.
National brands
National PI firms dominate AI results — local firms are structurally excluded from broad queries
For queries like "best personal injury lawyer Chicago/Houston/Atlanta," AI engines consistently surface national PI brands. Local firms with scores of 43–48 are not appearing. This differs from other categories where individual businesses can close the gap with structured data. PI law may require a different AI strategy: targeting hyper-local and case-type-specific queries rather than competing on broad PI terms.
Avvo
Legal directory activation (Avvo, Martindale-Hubbell, FindLaw) remains the primary structural gap
While national brands dominate broad PI queries, the citation gap still centers on legal directory absence. None of the three audited PI firms have complete Avvo, Martindale-Hubbell, and FindLaw profiles. These directories are the foundation AI engines use to verify attorney identity — even if national brands dominate broad queries, directory presence is required for any AI citation opportunity.
Paradox
The Atlanta PI firm is Georgia's largest advertiser — and not cited by any AI engine
The Atlanta PI firm audited is one of the largest personal injury advertisers in Georgia with significant TV and billboard presence. AI citation and advertising reach are independent systems. AI engines cite based on citation source coverage, structured schema, and entity verification — none of which advertising spend directly generates.
Niche
Hyper-local and case-type queries may be more achievable than broad PI terms
Broad "best personal injury lawyer [city]" queries are dominated by national brands. Hyper-local queries ("personal injury lawyer [neighborhood]") and case-type queries ("truck accident lawyer Chicago") may be more achievable for local firms — narrower queries where national brands have less pre-existing AI citation infrastructure.