Bernstein US Commercial Services via Citi: Rollins and Rentokil — A Bug for Robots: ChatGPT's Bias Against Big Brands Orkin and Terminix
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A Bernstein report highlighted by Citi finds pest-control sales growth disappointed investors in the Q2 2026 reporting season: Rollins benefited from clearly better weather—the explanation management had used for two prior soft quarters—yet results did not improve, while Rentokil's pest-control growth slowed modestly on commercial-client weakness. Combined organic search traffic for the four largest operators (excluding Anticimex) fell 24% year-over-year (366 million versus 480 million clicks), with only Terminix growing, up 21%. In a test spanning roughly 100 cities with Orkin locations and four question types per city, ChatGPT—holding 55–60% of the LLM market—recommended Orkin in just 2 of 100 prompts and Terminix once, versus Gemini at 64% and 23% and Claude at 38% and 4%; the report attributes the gap to differences between the Google and OpenAI/Bing ecosystems. The author admits limited knowledge of LLM technology stacks but still argues Rollins' softness is 'somewhat' the result of this negative bias, while noting LLMs drive under 1% of traffic in agentic e-commerce. A Rentokil model extends to FY2028 (estimated diluted EPS 35.66). Ratings as of August 24, 2026: Rollins Outperform, target $70.00; Rentokil Underperform, target 390.00p.