Nicolas Sitter
AGENTIC|

What AI searches when asked for hotels in San Francisco

Before answering a hotel question with web search, an AI assistant rewrites it into one or more searches. These are the searches it actually ran for 19 traveller prompts about San Francisco, captured week after week, not autocomplete suggestions.

ChatGPT
349
answers, 1.4 searches each, Jan 2026 to Nov 2026
Grok
295
answers, 5.6 searches each, Jan 2026 to Apr 2026
Gemini
88
answers, 1.8 searches each, Jan 2026 to Feb 2026

Explore by prompt

Percentages are shares of answers. Grok and Gemini were captured on an earlier prompt set, so most current prompts only have ChatGPT.

Best hotels
Luxury
Budget
Families
Couples
Business
Solo
Amenity
Neighbourhood or landmark
Older prompts
Prompt
“best hotels in San Francisco”
Answers captured
20
Searches per answer
1.3
Searched the prompt as written
25%
Captured
4 May 2026 to 2 Nov 2026

The searches ChatGPT ran

Most frequent first. “×3” means the same search appeared in three separate answers.

  1. best hotels in San Francisco luxury boutique 2026×3
  2. best hotels in San Francisco×3
  3. best hotels San Francisco luxury boutique 2026×2
  4. best hotels San Francisco×2
  5. best hotels in San Francisco 2026 neighborhoods luxury boutique top rated×1
  6. best hotels in San Francisco 2026 luxury boutique neighborhoods reviews×1
  7. best hotels in San Francisco California luxury boutique neighborhoods 2026×1
  8. top rated hotels×1
  9. best hotels×1
  10. best luxury hotels×1
  11. best hotels San Francisco luxury Four Seasons Ritz-Carlton Palace Hotel 2026×1
  12. best hotels in San Francisco 2026 top luxury boutique San Francisco hotels×1
  13. best hotels in San Francisco 2026 top hotels San Francisco luxury boutique hotels San Francisco×1
  14. best hotels in San Francisco luxury hotel rankings 2025×1
  15. Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco address official website×1

Showing 15 of 19 distinct searches.

Words it added to the prompt

luxury70%boutique60%202655%top20%neighborhoods15%carlton10%four10%rated10%ritz10%seasons10%20255%address5%california5%fairmont5%official5%palace5%rankings5%reviews5%website5%

Places and names it added

No capitalised name added in two or more answers.

Hotel topics in what it added

All San Francisco prompts together

Share of answers whose searches added each topic, counting only words that were not already in the prompt.

What a San Francisco hotel page can cover

The topics ChatGPT adds most often here, with what a page can do about each. These are editorial suggestions drawn from the searches, not a measured ranking effect.

  1. Best / top24% of answers

    The engine is looking for lists. Being on the editorial and booking-site lists matters as much as your own page.

  2. Hotel class or style19% of answers

    State your class and style plainly (five-star, boutique, historic) in text and in schema.

  3. A year15% of answers

    Say what is current: this year’s renovations, prices and openings, with dates on the page.

  4. Neighbourhood and location12% of answers

    Name your neighbourhood and what is walkable from it, in words, not only on a map.

  5. Guides and media9% of answers

    The engine is reading travel guides. Earning mentions there feeds the answer more than your own copy.

Which hotels get named? The answers behind these searches are tracked in the AI Hotel Landscape for San Francisco.

How the searches were captured and cleaned, and what is left out: method and limits. ChatGPT data runs to Nov 2026.