Does ChatGPT recommend your business? See what AI tells your customers

How to check whether AI recommends your business

1. Type what you do and where, like “plumber” and “Aarhus”. Add your business name too, to hear what AI knows about you in particular.
2. Click a service next to a question. It opens in a new tab with the question asked. Gemini and Copilot don’t take a question in a link, so there you copy the question and paste it in.
3. Read the answer, and note whether you’re mentioned, whether the details are right, and which sources the answer is built on.
4. Ask the same question again in a week or two. The answers change, so one answer is a snapshot, not a verdict.

The answers can be coloured by your own history with the service. To see what a new customer sees, use a private window or log out first, where the service allows it.

Where does ChatGPT get its knowledge of local businesses?

An AI assistant knows some things from its training, but that knowledge is old and rarely precise about small businesses. So when someone asks for a recommendation in a particular town, the assistants usually search the web and build the answer on what they find.

Each service searches in its own place: Google AI Mode builds on Google Search and Google Maps, Copilot on Bing, and ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude have their own web search. What they share is that they read the same sources as the search engines: your website, your listings on maps and review sites, and what others write about you.

How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and other AI

There is no sign-up. It’s about making it easy for AI to find, understand and trust the facts about you:

• Fill in your Google Business Profile completely: category, services, area, opening hours and photos. Add your business to Bing Places too, which Bing and Copilot use.
• Use exactly the same name, address and phone number everywhere: your website, Google, Bing, Krak, Facebook and Trustpilot. Inconsistent details make it harder for AI to be sure it’s you.
• Get reviews, and answer them. AI answers often mention what customers praise, so new reviews with concrete words (“came the same day”, “fixed price”) help.
• Say on your website, in plain text, what you do, where you work and what it costs. Give each important service its own page. Text inside images is often not read.
• Add structured data about your business, so your name, address and opening hours are in a format machines can read.
• Get mentioned elsewhere: local media, trade associations, suppliers and partners. AI weighs what others write about you.
• Check that your robots.txt doesn’t block the AI services’ search crawlers, such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT) and PerplexityBot. Block them, and they can’t read your website when they search.

Most of it is the same work that gets you found on Google. Step 7 of how to make a website goes through it in order.

Why doesn’t ChatGPT recommend my business?

The usual reasons, roughly in order:

• Your website doesn’t say clearly what you do, or in which town.
• Few or no reviews, or reviews in one place only.
• Different names, addresses or phone numbers on different sites.
• The business or website is new, and the search engines haven’t found it yet.
• Your website blocks the AI services’ search crawlers.
• Your competitors are simply mentioned in more places.

What are GEO and AI SEO?

GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AI SEO are the new words for showing up in AI answers rather than only in Google’s list of links. For a local business it’s mostly the same basics as ordinary local SEO: a clear website, a filled-in business profile, reviews and the same details everywhere. Be wary of anyone who promises you a fixed place in ChatGPT; nobody can guarantee that.

See how you look on Google too

Many customers still search on Google, and AI answers often build on the same results. See how your website looks on Google, and whether the title and description get cut off.