Which estate agents in Guildford do AI assistants actually recommend?

We put the 14 questions a person in Guildford asks before choosing an estate agent — cost, specialism, who to use, how to check them — to Claude and ChatGPT, 5 times each, 140 answers in all, and recorded every firm the answers named. 30 firms in Guildford were checked against those answers. 21 of them were named at least once. The rest were not recommended in a single answer. Below are the 10 firms named most often; the others are told their result privately.

The top of the table

Firms are ranked by the number of answers that named them, then by how many different questions. The top 10 of the 30 firms checked are listed (the top ten, or the top third, whichever is smaller), plus any firm level with the last one in; a rank number that is skipped belongs to a firm that is not named here: it asked not to be, or the name the assistants used is a trade body, a national chain or a description rather than a local firm. The assistants do not give identical answers twice, so a difference of one or two mentions is noise; being named on questions a rival is absent from is not.

A further 20 firms were checked and are not listed here: 11 named in at least one answer but below the cut, 9 not named at all. Each has a private report, sent to the firm on request and to nobody else.

Is this your firm? If anything here is wrong, or you would rather your firm were not listed, email hello@aether-agency.co.uk or use the contact form. We acknowledge within two working days, correct a factual error as soon as it is confirmed, and take a firm off the public page on request; the measurement itself is not changed, because it records what the assistants said on the day.

The questions we asked

1. What should I expect to pay in estate agent fees when selling a house in Guildford?
2. Is it better to go with a sole agency agreement or list with multiple agents when selling near Guildford?
3. Which independent estate agent in Guildford has the best reviews for selling period cottages?
4. Should I use a small independent agent or a national chain to sell my flat near Guildford town centre?
5. I'm relocating from London and need to sell a family home near Godalming before I buy in Guildford - who handles both ends well?
6. What commission rate is typical for independent estate agents around Farnham compared to Guildford?
7. How can I check if a local estate agent near Woking is actually accredited by the Property Ombudsman?
8. My commute is Guildford to Waterloo and I want a house within walking distance of the station - which local agent knows that market best?
9. Do I need to sign a long contract with an estate agent or can I use one on an ad hoc basis for a single valuation?
10. Are independent estate agents around Guildford more responsive than the bigger branded firms for arranging viewings quickly?
11. What proof should I ask for that an estate agent near Cranleigh is genuinely a local independent and not part of a franchise?
12. How much does it typically cost to get a full property valuation done in the Guildford area before listing?
13. We're first-time buyers looking along the Guildford to Aldershot corridor - which local firm should we contact first for new listings?
14. Which estate agent should I use if I want someone specialising in rural properties near the Surrey Hills outside Guildford?

How this was measured

• Date: 23 September 2026, the day the answers were collected. This is one day, not a trend; the index is re-measured monthly and each month’s date is shown.
• Sample: 14 questions × 2 assistants × 5 runs = 140 answers. 30 firms checked.
• Assistants used: Claude (Anthropic’s Sonnet model, through its API, with web search); ChatGPT (OpenAI’s gpt-4o-mini model, through its API, with web search — not the model inside the ChatGPT app). Answers from these programming interfaces can differ from what the consumer apps show.
• Counting: a firm is counted when its name appears in an answer. Names are picked out of the answer text automatically, then matched to the firm list.
• What is public: the 10 firms named most often, by name. Every other firm’s result is private to that firm. A firm can have itself taken off this page on request (see above).
• Limits: the assistants vary between runs, so small gaps are noise. Firms that were not named may still be recommended by an assistant or a question we did not ask. National chains are left off the list. This measures what the assistants said; it is not a judgement of the quality of any firm’s work.