AI Already Decided Where You'll Buy Your Next Project

The retailers, marketplaces, and brands competing for the American home-improvement dollar are now researched inside the chatbox. New 5W research ranks the 25 by how often the AI engines name them.

A near-duopoly in the market — an even tighter one in the answer.

U.S. home improvement retail is one of the most concentrated categories in all of retail. Home Depot commands roughly 52% of the sector by revenue; Lowe's holds about 30%. Together the two chains account for more than 80% of home improvement store sales — a level of concentration virtually unseen elsewhere in retail.

The 5W AI Visibility Index finds that inside the AI engines, the concentration runs tighter still. Asked "where should I buy supplies for a home project" or "best home improvement store," ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's AI Overviews surface Home Depot and Lowe's first, second, and often almost exclusively. Decades of editorial coverage, reviews, and consumer consensus made the two chains the assumed answer.

But the Index also finds a clean split. "Where do I buy it" and "who do I hire" are two different questions — and two different citation surfaces. The home-services marketplaces (Angi, Thumbtack, TaskRabbit) own the hiring query; the retailers own the buying query; few brands compete across both. And one more decoupling: Lowe's leads consumer-satisfaction rankings despite Home Depot's larger share, which gives Lowe's a citation edge on "best" queries that raw market share does not. National scale and a deep content footprint win the answer — and the local operator who never built one is invisible on every surface.

"Two companies ring up more than eighty cents of every dollar spent on home improvement in America — and inside the AI engines, the concentration is even tighter. Home Depot and Lowe's own the answer to 'where do I buy it.' But 'who do I hire' is a different question, and a different citation surface — and the contractor down the street is invisible on both. National scale and a deep content footprint win the answer. The local operator who never built one is not losing the customer at the quote. They are losing them before the search even finishes."

How we measured it.

5W analyzed more than 60 common homeowner prompts across six primary sub-categories of the home improvement and home-services market, running each prompt five times per engine in clean sessions. We identified which brands AI models consistently surface, which sources feed those citations, and where the biggest gaps sit between scale and AI visibility.

Big-box home improvement

Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards.

Hardware & specialty retail

Ace Hardware, True Value, Harbor Freight, Tractor Supply, Floor & Decor.

Online home retail

Wayfair, Amazon home, Ferguson, online supply retailers.

Home-services marketplaces

Angi, Thumbtack, TaskRabbit, HomeAdvisor.

Design & project platforms

Houzz, Pinterest, Yelp home services.

Materials & paint brands

Sherwin-Williams, Behr, Benjamin Moore, and home-materials brands.

Query types tracked. Real-world prompts including "best home improvement store," "Home Depot vs Lowe's," "where to buy tools," "best place to hire a handyman," "how do I find a contractor," "best paint brand," "best site to buy furniture online," "Angi vs Thumbtack," and 50+ variations covering retail, hiring, and project-research intent.

Citation sources tracked. Retail and consumer editorial (Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, Forbes Home, This Old House, Family Handyman), satisfaction sources (J.D. Power, ACSI), homeowner communities (Reddit r/HomeImprovement, r/DIY), news coverage, and brand-owned content.

The Top 25 home brands, ranked by AI citation share.

The brands winning the AI answer.

▲ Home Depot — the Default Answer

Home Depot owns the home improvement citation surface the way it owns the market — first, by a wide margin. Roughly half the sector's revenue and decades of editorial and consumer coverage make it the assumed answer to nearly every "where to buy" query.

▲ Lowe's — Satisfaction as a Citation Edge

Lowe's is the smaller chain by share, but it leads consumer-satisfaction rankings — and AI answers to "best home improvement store" retrieve that data. Satisfaction gives Lowe's a citation advantage on "best" queries that market share alone would not.

▲ Ace Hardware — Owning "Helpful"

Ace cannot match the big boxes on scale, so it owns a different word: service. Its #2 satisfaction ranking and "helpful neighborhood hardware store" reputation give it the third citation slot on a fraction of the footprint.

▲ Angi — Owning the Hiring Query

Angi owns "who do I hire" — a query the retailers do not compete for at all. By treating contractor discovery as its own citation category, Angi captures a surface the big boxes leave entirely open.

The brands AI is leaving behind.

▼ The Local Contractor and Independent Store

Local contractors and independent hardware stores are nearly invisible in AI answers. The engines retrieve national brands with deep content footprints — and a local operator who never built one is lost before the search finishes.

▼ Regional Chains Outside Their Footprint

Menards is strong in the Midwest but barely registers nationally. AI answers default to the chains with national coverage, leaving regional players cited only inside their own geography.

▼ Brands Without a Single Owned Category

Retailers that sell a bit of everything but own no specific query — flooring, paint, tools, organization — split the remaining citations thin. The brands that win own one word; generalists below the duopoly do not.

▼ Marketplaces Squeezed by Direct Answers

As AI engines answer "how do I find a pro" with their own guidance and ratings, the services-marketplace layer faces the same disintermediation pressure seen across other categories the Index has measured.

General tips for home retail and services marketers.

1. Audit AI citation share quarterly. Project-research behavior and seasonal demand move the surface enough to require regular measurement.
2. Decide which question you answer. "Where to buy" and "who to hire" are different surfaces — build content for the one you can win.
3. Treat satisfaction data as a citation asset. J.D. Power and ACSI scores feed "best store" answers — publicize and contextualize them.
4. Own one category, not the whole aisle. Flooring, paint, tools, organization — a specific owned query out-cites a broad assortment.
5. Build deep project how-to content. As AI answers "how do I" directly, brand-owned project guidance becomes a citation engine.
6. Earn the home-editorial record. Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, Forbes Home, This Old House feed home citations disproportionately.
7. Treat homeowner communities as citation infrastructure. Reddit's r/HomeImprovement and r/DIY feed a large share of recommendation citations.
8. For local and regional players, build a national-grade content footprint. The engines reward depth — local presence alone does not earn the answer.
9. For marketplaces, deepen content beyond the listing. As engines answer "how to find a pro" directly, owned guidance and trust content protect citation share.
10. Re-audit after seasonal peaks and major retail shifts. Spring project season and competitive moves reshape the citation surface.

The project now starts in the chatbox — not the parking lot.

For decades, a home project started with a drive to the nearest big box. Today it increasingly starts with a question typed into ChatGPT, Claude, or Google's AI Overviews — what to buy, what brand, who to hire, how to do it. The citation surface has become the front of the home improvement funnel.

The Index shows what that surface rewards: national scale, decades of editorial and satisfaction coverage, a clear owned category, and a deep content footprint. It rewards the concentration that already defines the market — and amplifies it. Home Depot and Lowe's own the answer. The marketplaces own the separate hiring query. And the local operator who never built a content footprint is invisible on every surface.

AI citation share is the scoreboard. In home improvement, the brand AI names is the brand the project runs through — and that visibility is built in content and coverage, not in store count.

The Home Services & Improvement AI Visibility Index 2026.

Thumbtack beats Angi in AI citations. Roto-Rooter still owns emergency services. New 5W research ranks 25 home services brands by citation share across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. /ai-visibility-index/home-services-improvement-ai-visibility-index-2026

New 5W research: Thumbtack beats Angi in AI citation share for home services. Roto-Rooter still owns the emergency services answer. The 5W AI Visibility Index ranked 25 home services brands across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. /ai-visibility-index/home-services-improvement-ai-visibility-index-2026