Will Gemini recommend my new business, or only the established ones? (Malaysia)

Gemini can recommend a new business, not only the established ones. In our Malaysian test through Google's Gemini API, it searched the web before almost every answer and named four of six businesses that had opened in recent months. The two it missed were both cafés.

A reader of our Gemini and ChatGPT comparison asked a fair question. If Gemini often answers without searching, does it fall back on older, better-known names? When we put this article's title to ChatGPT on 20 October 2026, one of its answers leaned the same way: "established businesses may have an advantage".

Does Gemini recommend a new business when customers ask for one nearby?

Gemini recommended a new business in four of the six areas we tested: a gym, a hair salon and two clinics. We asked about each trade and area six times, in the way customers type, such as "I work near [a mall] in PJ. Which gym nearby would you recommend? I'd like one that's open early before work." Half the questions were chatty like that, and half were short, like "gym near [a mall] PJ".

The gym had been open only weeks. When Gemini named a new business, it usually cited that business's own website.

Does Gemini skip the web search and fall back on established businesses?

We can't yet say whether Gemini falls back on established businesses when it skips the web search, because in our Malaysian test it hardly ever skipped it. It searched before 40 of our 42 answers. Google says the model decides this itself: "If needed, the model automatically generates one or multiple search queries"¹.

That's a different picture from our earlier test, where Gemini reported no web search in 63 of 135 answers. The kind of question seems to matter:

Our reading is that Gemini searches when a question is narrow, such as one neighbourhood or one mall. It skips the search more on broad, well-trodden questions, such as the best hotels in Penang. The trade, the language and the date also differ between these rows, so treat this as a pattern, not a rule.

Both answers without a search came from one brunch question about a KL neighbourhood. Neither named the new café. But the one answer to that question that did search named mostly the same cafés, and it missed the new café too.

Why did Gemini miss the new cafés but find the new clinics, gym and salon?

Our reading is that Gemini missed the new cafés because its café searches turned up "best café" round-ups written before they opened. Seven of the ten café answers that searched cited a page with a year before 2026 in its web address (CSV). Two of its searches even asked for lists from 2024 and 2025.

The new cafés did appear in new-opening guides, and Gemini found those guides when we asked about each café by name. ChatGPT showed the same split for these two cafés: known by name, missing from recommendations.

The clinics, gym and salon had something the cafés lacked: their own website, which Gemini cited in 17 of the 20 answers that named them, far more often than ChatGPT did for the same businesses. We found no website for either café. Going by Gemini's own answers, each was also a new branch of a name already trading elsewhere, such as a salon group's new flagship. But one café was a bakery's new flagship too, so an older brand name doesn't explain the gap on its own.

Does Gemini name the established business or the new one in the same area?

In our test, Gemini named the new business more often than the older one. We compared against an older business in the same trade and city for three cases, the same three as our ChatGPT test: a café, an aesthetic clinic and a salon. Across their 18 recommendation answers, Gemini named the new business 11 times. It named the older one only once, in passing, as a salon at another mall.

That is too small to say Gemini prefers new businesses, or that it doesn't favour older ones. A related question, whether ChatGPT favours big brands over independents, depended on the trade in our earlier test.

What can't this test tell me about Gemini and new or established businesses?

• Whether answers without a search favour older businesses. Only two answers skipped the search, and our earlier test didn't record business ages.
• The Gemini app. We used Google's Gemini API with Google Search. Google says the Gemini app also uses Google Maps², which we didn't test. Google's local results weigh how well-known a business is³, so the app may treat a new business differently.
• Your trade. It's six businesses on one day, and cafés may simply face more crowded lists.

How do I get Gemini to recommend my new business, not just the established ones?

Make sure the pages Gemini searches for your area mention you, because in our test it searched almost every time.

1. Request EasyFound's free check. It shows whether ChatGPT puts you on the list for your trade and area yet, or only the shops that were there before you.
2. Put up a page for your outlet. Say what you offer, your street or mall, your hours and when you opened. Most answers that named a new business cited one like it. Crawlers can take days to find a new page, so do it in your first week.
3. Get onto the "best of" lists for your area, not just new-opening lists. For a café in, say, Bangsar or Taman Molek, that means the food guides that rank cafés by neighbourhood.
4. Keep your Google Business Profile current. For Google's local results, Google says "Prominence means how well-known a business is"³, and reviews and links feed it.

EasyFound is an AI search visibility (GEO) tool built for Malaysian businesses. In the checks our team runs, it sets Gemini's answer to your customers' question beside ChatGPT's and four other engines', so you can see which one hasn't noticed your opening yet. Start with the free check below.