Vancouver Electricians in AI Search: Google AI Overview Named BC Hydro Most (2026 Study)

We asked Google AI Overview and Perplexity 25 questions about hiring an electrician in Vancouver. The name Google AI Overview gave most often was not an electrician at all. It was BC Hydro, the provincial utility. Perplexity, given the same 25 questions, answered every one of them and built a very different shortlist.

Study date: October 21, 2026 · Engines: Google AI Overview and Perplexity (one separate run each) · Location: Vancouver, British Columbia · Questions: the same 25 on both engines · Electricians named: 21

	Google AI Overview	Perplexity
Queries with an AI answer recorded	12 of 29	29 of 29
Electricians named	10	17
Mentions of electricians	43	69
Most-mentioned electrician	Kerrisdale Electric (9)	Kato Electrical (14)
Sources cited	84	388

In one line: only 6 of the 21 electricians were named by both engines, and each engine's top electrician barely registered, or did not appear, on the other.

This is the data the two AI engines returned on October 21, 2026. It is not Beket AI's opinion and it is not a ranking of electricians. AI answers change over time, so treat it as a snapshot.

Contents

1. The top name was not an electrician
2. Head to head: each engine's shortlist
3. Where the two engines agreed, and where they did not
4. How often each engine answered
5. The sources behind the answers
6. Both engines added together
7. The bigger picture: independent data
8. What this means for Vancouver electricians
9. Method and limits
10. All 25 questions
11. Request a re-run

The top name was not an electrician

Google AI Overview named 12 businesses and one product brand across its answers. Three of those names were not electrical contractors, and together they took 15 of its 58 name mentions:

• BC Hydro, the provincial electric utility: 10 mentions, named first once. That is more than any electrician got on Google AI Overview.
• Vancouver General Contractors, a home builder and renovation contractor: 3 mentions.
• Zinsco, an old electrical panel brand: 2 mentions.

Perplexity named BC Hydro too, 4 times (once first), but on Perplexity three electricians were named more often.

This makes sense once you look at the questions. Several were about EV chargers, panel upgrades and heat pumps, and the utility runs EV charger rebate programs. Perplexity cited bchydro.com documents on EV charger rebates, including one for strata buildings. For an electrician, the takeaway is that the answer to "who can install an EV charger at my house" may start with the utility, not with you.

We left these three names out of all the electrician counts below.

Head to head: each engine's shortlist

Source: Beket AI audits, October 21, 2026. One run per engine. Name variants combined.

Google AI Overview

Google AI Overview named 10 electricians, 43 times in all. Its top five took 29 of those mentions (67.4%).

Rank	Electrician	Mentions	Share of its electrician mentions	Times named first
1	Kerrisdale Electric	9	20.9%	0
2 (tie)	Premium Electric	6	14.0%	0
2 (tie)	TDR Electric	6	14.0%	0
4	WireChief Electric	4	9.3%	2
5	Electric Hero	4	9.3%	1
	5 other electricians	14	32.6%	2
	All 10 electricians	43	100%	5

Kerrisdale Electric led on mentions but was never named first. WireChief Electric, with less than half as many mentions, was named first twice. Two of the "other" electricians also had 4 mentions each but were never named first.

Perplexity

Perplexity named 17 electricians, 69 times in all. Its top five took 39 of those mentions (56.5%), so its answers were spread more widely.

Rank	Electrician	Mentions	Share of its electrician mentions	Times named first
1	Kato Electrical	14	20.3%	5
2	Hundel Electric	9	13.0%	4
3	Electric Hero	8	11.6%	0
4	WireChief Electric	4	5.8%	2
5	Akai Electric	4	5.8%	1
	12 other electricians	30	43.5%	5
	All 17 electricians	69	100%	17

Kato Electrical and Hundel Electric between them were named first in 9 of the 17 Perplexity answers that put an electrician first. The 12 other electricians had between 2 and 4 mentions each.

Where the two engines agreed, and where they did not

Agreement. Six electricians were named by both engines:

Electrician	Google AI Overview	Perplexity
Kato Electrical	2	14
Electric Hero	4	8
TDR Electric	6	4
WireChief Electric	4	4
Whitley Electric	4	2
Wicks Electric	2	2

WireChief Electric is the most even result: 4 mentions on each engine, and named first twice on each. Electric Hero made the top five on both.

Disagreement.

• Kerrisdale Electric, Google AI Overview's most-mentioned electrician (9), was not in Perplexity's results.
• Kato Electrical, Perplexity's leader (14 mentions, 5 times first), got 2 mentions on Google AI Overview.
• Hundel Electric, Perplexity's #2 (9 mentions, 4 times first), was not among the names in Google AI Overview's results, even though Google AI Overview cited hundelelectric.com twice.
• Premium Electric, tied for #2 on Google AI Overview (6), was not in Perplexity's results.
• In all, 4 electricians came up only on Google AI Overview and 11 only on Perplexity.

None of this says one engine is right. Each engine reads different sources and builds a different list. We saw the same split in our Vancouver movers study, where no mover was named by all three engines we tested, and it is why we keep saying you can't trust one AI engine to tell you how visible you are.

How often each engine answered

Source: Beket AI audits, October 21, 2026.

Each run logged 29 queries: our 25 questions plus 4 discovery queries the market audit adds on its own. Perplexity returned an answer the audit could record for all 29. Google returned an AI Overview the audit could record for 12. For the other 17, the audit recorded no AI Overview.

That gap matters for the share numbers. Google AI Overview's counts come from fewer than half the queries, so compare its list with Perplexity's by rank and overlap, not share for share.

The sources behind the answers

Source: Beket AI audit (Perplexity), October 21, 2026.

Engine	Sources cited	Most-cited domains (times cited)
Perplexity	388	katoelectrical.com (39), technicalsafetybc.ca (28), vancouver.ca (17), akaielectric.ca (16), electrichero.ca (14)
Google AI Overview	84, from 48 domains	google.com (7), kerrisdaleelectric.ca (5), facebook.com (4), tdrelectric.ca (4), the renovation contractor's site (4)

What stands out:

1. Each engine's leader had its most-cited contractor website. Perplexity cited katoelectrical.com 39 times, more than any other site, and Kato Electrical was its most-mentioned electrician. On Google AI Overview, the most-cited contractor site was kerrisdaleelectric.ca (5), the site of its most-mentioned electrician; only google.com was cited more (7).
2. Perplexity leaned on official sources. The regulator, Technical Safety BC (technicalsafetybc.ca), was its second most-cited domain (28), and the City of Vancouver (vancouver.ca) was third (17). Three of our questions were about licensing, permits and choosing a contractor. Google AI Overview cited vancouver.ca 3 times and technicalsafetybc.ca once.
3. Google AI Overview pulled more from platforms. Its 84 citations included google.com (7), facebook.com (4), homestars.com (3) and yellowpages.ca (2). None of those were in Perplexity's top ten.
4. One citation crossed the border. Among the 100 Perplexity citations we could export individually, one was a permit document from the City of Vancouver, Washington. It is a small example of the problem we covered in does AI search even know your business is Canadian?

Both engines added together

Added together, the two runs contain 112 mentions of 21 electricians. Because Perplexity answered far more queries, it supplied 69 of the 112.

Rank	Electrician	Mentions	Share of all electrician mentions	Times named first	Named by
1	Kato Electrical	16	14.3%	6	Both
2	Electric Hero	12	10.7%	1	Both
3	TDR Electric	10	8.9%	0	Both
4 (tie)	Hundel Electric	9	8.0%	4	Perplexity
4 (tie)	Kerrisdale Electric	9	8.0%	0	Google AI Overview
	16 other electricians	56	50.0%	11
	All 21 electricians	112	100%	22

The combined table hides the split. Kerrisdale Electric is tied for #4 here entirely on Google AI Overview mentions, and Hundel Electric is tied with it entirely on Perplexity mentions.

The bigger picture: independent data

These figures come from independent public sources, not from our audits.

• People already ask AI for local businesses. In BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 of 1,002 U.S. adults, 45% said they had used AI tools for local business recommendations in the past 12 months, up from 6% the year before. The same survey found 97% of AI users sometimes double-check AI recommendations against real reviews.
• EV charging is a big job category in BC. Transport Canada's EV dashboard puts British Columbia's EV share of new light-duty vehicles at 20.8% in Q1 2026, against 11.7% for Canada. It counts 238,077 EVs in BC and 7,820 public chargers, about 30 EVs per public charger. Two of our questions were about installing EV chargers.
• Licensing is checkable, and AI engines point there. Technical Safety BC's licensed contractor guide says its public registry shows only active licences, the scope of work each contractor is authorized for, and enforcement actions since 2022.
• Permits in Vancouver are local. Technical Safety BC says it issues electrical installation permits except in a few places, including Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver and Surrey, where the municipality handles them. Its homeowner permit page adds that strata owners cannot get homeowner permits and must hire a licensed contractor.

What this means for Vancouver electricians

• Check more than one engine. Kerrisdale Electric led one engine and was absent from the other. Kato Electrical led one and got 2 mentions on the other. One engine's answer tells you little about the rest.
• Answer the questions the utility is winning. BC Hydro was the top name on Google AI Overview. If you install EV chargers, heat pumps or new panels, publish plain pages that explain the job, the permit and how rebates work, so the engine has a contractor's page to cite.
• Make licensing easy to confirm. Perplexity cited Technical Safety BC 28 times. Show your licence number and the exact business name that appears on the registry, so an engine (or a customer) can match the two.
• Give each service and area its own page. Our questions covered panel upgrades, knob and tube rewiring, basement suites, pot lights, strata EV charging and six cities and neighbourhoods. The contractor pages Perplexity cited included a North Vancouver page, a Burnaby page and a knob and tube rewiring page.
• Keep your profiles consistent. Google AI Overview cited Facebook, HomeStars and Yellow Pages. Five electricians in this study appeared under two spellings of their name.
• Re-check. These answers will move. One check is a snapshot, not a verdict.

Method and limits

How we ran it. We ran two market audits with Beket AI on October 21, 2026, one for Google AI Overview and one for Perplexity. Both runs finished between about 9:16 and 9:19 AM PT. Each audit's location was set to Vancouver, BC, Canada, and its language to English. We wrote the 25 questions ourselves, and both engines got exactly the same 25. None of them named a business. Each run also logged 4 discovery queries that the market audit adds on its own; we could not export those, so they are not listed below, but the counts include them.

What we counted. A mention is a business named in an answer. Share is an electrician's mentions divided by all electrician mentions on the same engine (or on both, in the combined table). Times named first counts answers where that electrician came first. When we say an engine "did not name" a business, we mean it was not in that engine's audit results; every name in those results had at least 2 mentions, so a business named only once may not show up.

Combining names. We combined spellings that are clearly the same company: "Kato Electrical" and "Kato Electrical Inc."; "Hundel Electric" and "Hundel Electric Services"; "TDR Electric" and "TDR Electric Inc."; "Premium Electric" and "Premium Electric Ltd"; "WireChief Electric" and "WireChief Electric Ltd.". We also shortened "Euro Tech Electric Ltd." and "Arcwest Electric Ltd." to drop the "Ltd.". That takes 35 raw name entries across the two runs down to 21 electricians plus the three non-electricians described above.

Limits.

• One run per engine, on one day. Answers can differ from day to day and from person to person.
• Google AI Overview answered 12 of 29 queries, so its numbers are small. One or two mentions can change a rank on either engine.
• Two engines only. Other AI tools were not part of this study.
• Domain totals cover every citation. Our export of individual Perplexity citations covered 100 of its 388.
• A mention means the engine gave a name. It says nothing about quality, licensing, insurance or price, and it is not a recommendation from Beket AI. We did not rate, verify or rank the electricians ourselves.

All 25 questions

Both engines got these same 25 questions:

1. best electricians in Vancouver BC
2. licensed electrician near me in Vancouver BC
3. affordable electricians in Vancouver BC
4. how much does an electrician cost per hour in Vancouver BC
5. emergency electrician available 24/7 in Vancouver BC
6. electrician for panel upgrade in Vancouver BC
7. who can install an EV charger at my house in Vancouver BC
8. EV charger installation for condos and strata buildings in Vancouver
9. electrician for knob and tube wiring replacement in Vancouver
10. electrician for a basement suite renovation in Vancouver
11. electrician for heat pump wiring in Vancouver BC
12. pot light installation electrician in Vancouver
13. commercial electrical contractors in Vancouver BC
14. electricians in Burnaby BC
15. electricians in North Vancouver
16. electricians in Richmond BC
17. electricians in Surrey BC
18. residential electrician in East Vancouver
19. electrician for an old house in Kitsilano
20. small electrical jobs handyman or electrician in Vancouver
21. highly rated electricians in Vancouver with good reviews
22. how to check if an electrician is licensed in BC
23. do I need an electrical permit for a renovation in Vancouver
24. how to choose an electrical contractor in Vancouver
25. electrician for a home inspection electrical report in Vancouver

Request a re-run

AI answers change, and we plan to run this study again to see what moves. Our earlier local studies, including Seattle plumbers, show the same pattern of small, shifting shortlists.

Run an electrical contracting business in Vancouver, or another local business? You can request another run, or your own audit, at beket.ai. A free Beket AI audit covers 25 prompts across 3 engines. Beket AI Pro is $49/month and re-audits daily, starting at 50 prompts across 3 engines.