Your next customer just asked ChatGPT who to call.
Was your business the answer?Nearly half of consumers now ask AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI for recommendations before they buy. A year earlier it was 6%. And being on Google isn’t enough: in a 2026 study of 350,000+ business locations, Google’s local 3-pack showed 35.9% of them, while ChatGPT recommended 1.2%.
Here are three well-reviewed options:
- 01A competitor
- 02Another competitor
- 03A third competitor
Being on Google isn’t enough
of consumers now ask AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI for recommendations before they buy.
In a 2026 study of 350,000+ business locations, ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of them. Google’s local 3-pack showed 35.9%.
“But I already rank on Google.”
We hear this all the time, usually from an owner who just typed “best [their service] near me” into ChatGPT and watched it recommend three competitors. After years of Google work, hundreds of reviews, and page one rankings, ChatGPT doesn’t know who you are.
But Google rankings and AI recommendations run on different signals. Google crawls your website or shows your Google Business Profile. AI models read the entire internet’s opinion of you: the directories and “best of” lists that mention you, what your reviews actually say, whether the web agrees on your name, address, and specialty, and whether your site answers questions the way AI likes to reference them. Strong Google standing certainly helps, but it just isn’t enough on its own.
Your website, or your Google Business Profile.
- The directories and “best of” lists that mention you
- What your reviews actually say
- Whether the web agrees on your name, address, and specialty
- Whether your site answers questions the way AI likes to reference them
What AI Visibility work actually looks like
AI assistants recommend businesses the web consistently vouches for, so the work is building a consistent story of your business:
Measure what AI says about you now
We run the questions your customers ask across ChatGPT, Google AI, Claude, and Perplexity, repeatedly, and gather the answers. You see exactly who gets recommended and how often it’s you. This is your baseline.
Fix what AI gets wrong
Outdated hours, incorrect policies, a product or service you don’t offer, or an old review summarized as your reputation. We trace the sources of the bad information and correct it. Why do these little details matter? AI likes consistency; it rejects confusion.
Earn the mentions AI trusts
Citations in the directories, publications, and “best of” lists that AI trusts. Reviews that mention what you actually do; AI reads review text, not just stars. Consistent business data everywhere your name appears.
Structure your content so AI can quote it
Clear answers to real customer questions, organized so both search engines and AI assistants can lift them cleanly. Schema markup and entity signals packaged in AI’s preferred format, structured data in javascript, serves up the information to AI on a silver platter.
Monthly tracking
AI answers vary from run to run, which is why we never sell “AI rankings.” We measure your share of recommendations across repeated runs and report the trend on your scorecard. With proper GA4 conversion tracking setup, we can track the number of conversions that came from ChatGPT. However, GA4 often attributes some AI traffic to “Direct” traffic, so we like to keep our eye on that as well.
Results and transparency
We prioritize activity that gets leads and sales. We start with reputation and buying queries, then work our way up the buying funnel.
We built our own proprietary system that pulls data from multiple sources so we can get the most complete picture.
Our system tracks AI questions, answers, and the source of the answers. Our scorecard tracks when you are cited, mentioned and recommended.
Local Service Business
The results of our AI Visibility Audit showed that this client’s brand was being confused with his competitor’s brand. His competitor had a terrible reputation, with many complaints, while our client worked hard to secure over 100 4.6 – 5 Star reviews across Google and Yelp.
We also found that his brand was mentioned for one of his main services, but not the other.
We uncovered that one of the sources that was cited was BBB. Our client had an old, outdated profile. We updated his BBB profile so that it differentiated his brand from his competitor’s. We created a content asset on his website to distinguish him from other businesses in his industry, and got other websites and a media outlet to publish articles that referenced the company and quoted the owner.
ChatGPT and Google Overviews were recommending his brand and both of his main services. He got two large projects that month as a result of these AI recommendations.
Many names, one goal
The industry hasn’t settled on a name. You’ll see AI SEO, GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization), and LLM SEO. There are subtle differences, but all describe the same goal: making your business the one AI recommends. We call it AI visibility because that’s what you actually get, and we treat it as an extension of SEO rather than a replacement, because the foundations overlap and your Google traffic still matters.
visibility
FAQ
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend me?
No, and nobody honest can. AI answers vary from run to run. What we can do is measure your share of recommendations over repeated runs, improve the signals AI relies on, and show you the trend with reports and screenshots.
How long before I see movement?
Some fixes show up fast, within weeks, because AI tools read live web sources. Reputation-level signals build over months, like SEO. Your baseline audit shows us the gaps.
Is this instead of SEO?
It’s on top of SEO. Because AI often references top ranking web pages, the two go hand in hand. This is the new SEO. Every retainer includes it at some level.
How do I know if I have a problem?
Run the free Self-Check Kit: A list of prompts with a scoring worksheet. If you don’t like your score, our Visibility Audit gives you a deep dive with a blue print of what we need to get AI to recommend you.
Find out what AI says about you
Start free with the Self-Check Kit, or get the full picture with the Visibility Audit: Where your brand sits and a prioritized plan.