Which business accountants in Hampshire and west Surrey do AI assistants actually recommend?

We put the 10 questions a person in Hampshire and west Surrey asks before choosing business accountant — cost, specialism, who to use, how to check them — to Claude, 3 times each, 30 answers in all, and recorded every firm the answers named. 22 firms in Hampshire and west Surrey were checked against those answers. 5 of them were named at least once. The rest were not recommended in a single answer.

The league table

Firms are ranked by the number of answers that named them, then by how many different questions. 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.

The questions we asked

1. Which accountants in Winchester look after limited companies and their directors?
2. Which accountants in Hampshire and west Surrey prepare annual accounts and corporation tax returns for small limited companies?
3. Which accountancy firms in Winchester offer monthly bookkeeping and management accounts?
4. I'm moving from sole trader to limited company near Farnham. Which accountant can set it up and advise on tax?
5. How do I choose an accountant in Andover who gives proactive tax advice rather than just filing?
6. Which accountants in Farnham help business owners with tax planning and extracting profits?
7. Which accountancy firms in Hampshire and west Surrey offer payroll, VAT and management accounts?
8. Which accountants in Farnham do payroll and VAT returns for small businesses?
9. Which chartered accountants in Andover advise limited companies on corporation tax and VAT?
10. Which independent accountancy practices in Hampshire and west Surrey are recommended by business owners?

How this was measured

• Date: 5 October 2026. This is one day, not a trend; the index is re-measured monthly.
• Sample: 10 questions × 1 assistant × 3 runs = 30 answers. 22 firms checked.
• Assistants used: Claude (Anthropic’s Sonnet model, through its API, with web search). 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.
• 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.