To find out if ChatGPT recommends your business, ask it what your customers would ask and write down who it names. If you're not on the list, the fix usually isn't exotic. You need a website that says plainly what you do and where, a complete Google Business Profile, and a steady flow of reviews.
The 10-minute test
- Write five questions the way a customer would actually type them. For example: "Who does 24-hour towing near Covington?", "Pet-friendly cabin rentals near Red River Gorge," or "Emergency vet open Sunday in Cincinnati."
- Run each one in ChatGPT, in Google (check the AI Overview at the top), and in Perplexity if you use it. A private browser window keeps your own history out of the answer.
- For each answer, write down which businesses get named and which websites get cited as sources.
- Save the list and run the same questions again next month. The answers change often, so a single check tells you very little.
That list is your baseline. If you're on it, protect your spot. If a competitor is on it and you aren't, look at their sources. That's usually where the gap is.
Where AI answers get their information about local businesses
BrightLocal studied almost 2 million citations from Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and ChatGPT for local business searches (published August 2026). Google Business Profile made up about 28.5% of all citations. About 93% of the domains cited were individual business websites.
So the two sources you already control, your Google profile and your own site, do most of the work.
Google also says you don't need special files, markup, or tricks to show up in AI Overviews or AI Mode (Google Search Central). The page has to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and that's it.
What to fix, in order
- Your Google Business Profile. Pick the right primary category, keep hours current (holidays too), list every service, and add real photos. A missing service is a question nobody can answer about you.
- One page per service on your website. Say what you do, where you do it, when you're open, and a price range if you can. A towing page that says "flatbed towing in Covington, Newport and Florence, 24/7" gives an AI something to quote. A homepage slogan doesn't.
- Reviews. Reviews are text that AI systems read, and recent ones count. Ask every customer. Don't script what they say, since Google's review policy prohibits asking for specific content.
- Consistent listings. Use the same business name, address, and phone number on Yelp, Facebook, and every directory you're in. Mismatches make it harder to tell that all those listings are the same business.
- Answers to real questions. Write down what customers ask on the phone ("Do you work on tankless heaters?" "Can I bring two dogs?") and answer those questions on your site in plain words.
Why this matters even if your Google traffic looks fine
Pew Research tracked 900 US adults' Google searches in March 2025. When an AI summary appeared, people clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits. Without a summary, they clicked on 15% (Pew, July 2025). Links inside the summary got clicked on about 1% of visits.
When fewer people click through, it matters more whether you're the business the summary names.
What doesn't help
- Pages stuffed with "best plumber Cincinnati" phrases. They read badly to people and to machines.
- Mass-produced blog posts. Google's spam policies name using AI to churn out lots of pages that add nothing for readers as an example of scaled content abuse.
- Paying for an "AI optimization file" or special markup that Google says it doesn't need.
If you'd rather hand it off
Our AI SEO Agent works on both Google and AI answers like ChatGPT and Perplexity. We write articles and pages in your voice, publish them, and track what's working every month. It costs $797 a month plus a $997 setup, with no minimum term.
Want to run the test together? Book a 15-minute call at 513ai.ai/book or call (513) 444-9330.