# AI hallucination about companies, measured across 90 chats | Illia BizTech > Ten companies, 90 conversations with ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. 43 claims absent from the companies own sites, 23 unprompted mentions. Source: https://illia-biztech.de/en/blog/ki-halluzination-ueber-unternehmen 1. [Home](/en) 2. [Resources](/en/blog) 3. Ten companies, 90 AI conversations and 43 claims no company website makes ![Businessman on the phone in front of a network of connected profile icons with question marks over a city skyline](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_cover_430d84612f.png) ![Portrait of Illia Belichenko, technical specialist at Illia BizTech](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/small_Illia_Belichenko_author_81f88864f0.png) By: Illia Belichenko September 10, 2026 # Ten companies, 90 AI conversations and 43 claims no company website makes We tested ten companies in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, Cottbus and Frankfurt am Main over 90 conversations with ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Mode. In 43 of those conversations a system stated something about the company under test that its own website does not say anywhere. A system named the company unprompted 23 times. The conversations ran in August and September 2026\. The companies are not named. ## What is an AI hallucination about a company? An AI hallucination is a statement a system makes with the same confidence as a sourced fact, although no source for it exists. In this test the invented statements covered what the companies do, which jobs they take on, and who works there. An invented statement is built the same way as a checked one, sounds equally matter-of-fact, and sits in the middle of an answer that is otherwise correct. A reader has nothing to go on. ## How often does an AI name a company unprompted? 23 times in 90 conversations. In the remaining 67 the company under test never came up, and a system named other providers and steered the enquirer towards them. The number says very little about any single company, because sector, competition and a firm's age move every result. It only becomes useful one company at a time, read alongside the transcripts it came from. ## How was the test built? Three buyer profiles were written for each company, drawn from its sector and the languages its customers speak. Nine conversations came out of them, three with each system, and the company's name was never spoken. The [AI visibility report](/en/ki-sichtbarkeitsbericht) works the same way for a single business. ## What did the systems invent? The same three kinds of statement kept coming back across the 43 cases. One company was told it lacked a qualification it holds. Another had limits attributed to it that do not exist. In some answers a person appeared who had never worked at the firm. In several of the qualification cases a single sentence on the company's site could be read two ways, and the answer followed the wrong reading. ## Why does an AI name a managing director who never worked there? An ambiguous sentence on a website does not explain this case. You cannot accidentally imply a person's name, so the name has to come from somewhere else. One explanation suggests itself. A similarly named firm leaves a trail of its own online, and so does a person with the same surname. A system then merges that trail with the company's. The forum has [the case of a Dresden property manager](/en/forum/die-ki-antwort-vermischt-uns-mit-drei-anderen-hausverwaltungen-in-und-um-dresden-eine-davon-existiert-gar-nicht-mehr) that an AI answer mixed up with three other firms, one of which had already closed. ## Where do the invented limits come from? Where little can be found about a company, answers start to resemble what is usual in the sector. That quickly turns into a hint that the firm is second choice for certain jobs. Such sentences do real damage, because they sound like advice. Whoever reads one does not call, and never says why. ## Why does the company never find out? If one of these conversations sends somebody to another provider, that person never shows up in the company's own numbers. No form is filled in, no phone rings, and nobody mentions the first conversation to the next provider. Illia Belichenko, who runs Illia BizTech, puts the finding this way. > These conversations produce no click and no line in any report. 43 times an AI claimed something you will not find on the company's own website. The same blind spot works the other way round when [a blog stops bringing clicks while ChatGPT keeps quoting it](/en/forum/unser-blog-bringt-kaum-noch-klicks-chatgpt-zitiert-uns-aber-sollen-wir-weiterschreiben). ## What does fixing your own website change? The first move worth making is a clearer sentence exactly where a system went wrong. It does not work at once, and it does not work the same on every system, because they draw on sources of different ages. A second point is easy to miss. When a website, a Google Business Profile and a social account carry different statements, a system decides which one to believe. Reconcile the channels before rewriting any text. A shop in the forum corrected its wrong AI description once, and [the wrong description came back](/en/forum/wir-haben-die-falsche-ki-beschreibung-unseres-ladens-in-dresden-schon-einmal-korrigiert-jetzt-steht-dort-wieder-etwas-anderes). ## How do you check this yourself? Three steps are enough for a rough reading, and each takes a few minutes. * Put a typical customer question from your sector to ChatGPT without naming yourself, and note which providers come up and what reasons the answer gives for them. * Then ask about your own company and write down every statement the system makes about you. * Compare each of those statements with your website and mark everything that is not there. What you mark is, for your own firm, what this test met 43 times. Does this only affect ChatGPT? How long does it take for a website change to reach AI answers? Does a check like this need access to our systems? How long does a full check take? Anyone who wants to know what is being said about their business has to measure it. Illia BizTech runs it as an [AI visibility check for a single business](/en/ki-sichtbarkeitsbericht), for ten companies as readily as for one. **Share** [ ![Close-up of a human eye with a digital iris graphic and falling streaks of light code](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_cover_2_1_02f1c76add.png) Previous Post 40,500 searches for the AI Mode term. Almost nobody asks how to get in](/en/blog/ki-modus-google-nachfrage-deutschland) [ ![Phone filming a vertical video in a workshop](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_tiktok_fuer_b2b_sinnvoll_53e7f79cdd.png) Next Post TikTok for B2B in Germany. Is it worth starting](/en/blog/tiktok-fuer-b2b-sinnvoll) ![Portrait of Illia Belichenko, technical specialist at Illia BizTech](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/small_Illia_Belichenko_author_81f88864f0.png) ##### Illia Belichenko Illia is responsible for the technical side of Illia BizTech: website development, website updates, forms, integrations, automation and technical support. He works on connecting websites, content, advertising and internal workflows so they work together without creating unnecessary manual work. ##### Recent Posts [![Close-up of a human eye with a digital iris graphic and falling streaks of light code](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_cover_2_1_02f1c76add.png)](/en/blog/ki-modus-google-nachfrage-deutschland) #### [40,500 searches for the AI Mode term. Almost nobody asks how to get in](/en/blog/ki-modus-google-nachfrage-deutschland) September 10, 2026 [](/en/blog/ki-modus-google-nachfrage-deutschland) [![Phone filming a vertical video in a workshop](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_tiktok_fuer_b2b_sinnvoll_53e7f79cdd.png)](/en/blog/tiktok-fuer-b2b-sinnvoll) #### [TikTok for B2B in Germany. Is it worth starting](/en/blog/tiktok-fuer-b2b-sinnvoll) September 8, 2026 [](/en/blog/tiktok-fuer-b2b-sinnvoll) [![lokale-seo-signale-ohne-ladengeschaeft](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/medium_lokale_seo_signale_ohne_ladengeschaeft_dd38bd06c8.png)](/en/blog/lokale-seo-signale-ohne-ladengeschaeft) #### [Local visibility without a storefront. What matters beyond the Google profile](/en/blog/lokale-seo-signale-ohne-ladengeschaeft) September 7, 2026 [](/en/blog/lokale-seo-signale-ohne-ladengeschaeft) An AI hallucination about a company is a claim about its services, the jobs it takes on or its people, for which no source exists. A test produced 43 such claims across ten companies and 90 conversations with ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Google AI Mode. They read like verified statements, and a reader cannot tell the two apart. An AI hallucination can be checked from outside. A typical customer question that leaves your name out shows which providers a system names on its own. A second question about your own company shows what it claims. Whatever your website does not say is the material for your next round of edits.