How to Get Your Business Mentioned in ChatGPT and AI Search

More buyers now start with a question to an AI assistant rather than a list of search results. "Who's a good accountant for freelancers in Leeds?" "What's the best CRM for a five-person agency?" "Is solar worth it for a three-bedroom house?"

When the answer mentions a business, it's usually a handful of names, not ten blue links. So the question many owners are asking is simple: how do I get my business mentioned in ChatGPT and the other AI tools, as one of those names?

The honest answer is that nobody outside the AI companies controls this, and anyone who guarantees results is overselling. But there's a lot you can influence, and most of it is also good practice for ordinary search and for human visitors.

How do AI assistants find information?

It helps to know roughly what's happening behind the answer. Tools such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Microsoft Copilot typically:

1. Interpret the question and turn it into one or more searches.
2. Retrieve pages from a search index, whether their own, a partner's or a traditional search engine's.
3. Read and summarise the most relevant passages, often citing the sources.

Two things follow from this. First, if your pages aren't in the index, you can't be cited. Second, the passages that get used are the ones that answer the question clearly, not the ones with the most keywords.

1. Make sure the crawlers can reach you

Start with the technical basics, because nothing else matters if they're wrong:

• Check your robots.txt file. Some sites, often by accident or through a security plugin's default, block the crawlers AI search tools use. OpenAI and Perplexity both publish the names of their search crawlers and how to allow them. Google's AI features rely on normal Googlebot crawling.
• Understand the difference between search crawlers and training crawlers. Some providers use separate crawlers or controls for training their models and for fetching pages to answer live questions. You can choose to opt out of training while still allowing search access. Check each provider's current documentation, as these details change.
• Don't hide key information behind scripts, logins or images. If your prices, services or opening hours only appear inside an image or a widget, a crawler may not see them.

2. Answer the question in the first sentence

Most business web pages bury the answer. A page about solar panel costs might spend three paragraphs on the company's history before mentioning a price.

AI systems, like busy humans, favour passages that give a direct, self-contained answer. A useful pattern:

Question as a heading → one- or two-sentence answer in plain language → the detail, exceptions and evidence.

For example:

How much does a home solar system cost?

(Illustrative figures.) For a typical three-bedroom house, a 4 kW system usually costs between £6,000 and £8,000 installed. The exact price depends on your roof, whether you add a battery and…

This format also helps you win featured snippets in regular Google results, and it's simply easier for people to read.

3. Write the questions your buyers actually ask

Keyword tools are useful, but the best source of questions is your own sales process. Make a list of what prospects ask on the phone, in emails and in the first meeting:

• What does it cost?
• How long does it take?
• Is it right for someone in my situation?
• How do you compare with [alternative]?
• What happens if it goes wrong?

Each of these deserves a clear answer somewhere on your site, either on a service page, in an FAQ or in a dedicated article. These are also the questions people type, or speak, into AI assistants.

4. Be specific enough to be quotable

Generic content gives an AI system nothing to cite. "We provide high-quality services tailored to your needs" is true of everyone and useful to no one.

Specifics that make content quotable:

• Prices or price ranges, with what's included
• Timescales ("most installations take one to two days")
• Who it's for and who it isn't for
• Named locations, products, standards or certifications
• Your own data or experience ("of the 200 audits we've done, the most common issue was…")

First-hand experience is especially valuable: it's the one thing an AI can't generate from other people's pages.

5. Keep your business facts consistent everywhere

AI systems piece together an understanding of your business from many sources: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory listings, review sites, social profiles, news mentions.

When those sources disagree about your name, address, services or prices, it's harder for any system to be confident about you. A quick consistency check:

• Is your business name written the same way everywhere?
• Are your address, phone number and opening hours current on every profile?
• Do your service descriptions match across your site and your listings?
• Is your "About" page clear about who you are, where you operate and what you do?

Structured data (schema markup such as Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, Product and FAQPage) gives search engines this information in a machine-readable format. It isn't a magic switch, but it removes ambiguity.

6. Earn mentions on other sites

When an AI assistant recommends businesses, it often draws on third-party sources: review platforms, "best of" lists, industry directories, local news, forums and comparison articles. Being mentioned, positively and accurately, in the places your buyers already trust matters.

Practical ways to earn those mentions:

• Ask happy customers for reviews on the platforms relevant to your industry
• Get listed in reputable industry and local directories
• Contribute genuinely useful expertise to industry publications or podcasts
• Publish original data or guides that others want to reference

This is slow, but it compounds, and it was already good for traditional search.

7. Keep content current

For questions where timing matters, such as prices, regulations and "best tools in 2026", AI systems and search engines tend to favour recently updated sources. Review your key pages at least once a year, update figures, and show a visible "last updated" date where it's useful to readers.

What about llms.txt?

You may have seen advice to add an llms.txt file, a plain-text summary of your site written for AI tools. It's cheap to add and does no harm, but at the time of writing it isn't a standard the major AI search providers have committed to using, so don't expect it to change much on its own. Clear pages and accessible content matter far more.

How to check whether your business is mentioned in ChatGPT

There's no Search Console for AI answers yet, but you can get a rough picture:

1. Ask the assistants directly. Try the questions your customers ask, in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Mode. Note who gets mentioned and which pages are cited.
2. Check referral traffic. Many analytics tools now show visits from AI assistants as referrals. Watch the trend over months, not days.
3. Ask new customers how they found you. "An AI recommended you" is becoming a real answer.

Frequently asked questions

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

No. At the time of writing, AI assistants don't sell placement in their answers the way search engines sell ads. Be wary of anyone offering guaranteed AI recommendations.

How long does it take for AI tools to start mentioning my business?

There's no fixed timeline. Tools that search the web live can pick up changes as soon as your pages are re-indexed; anything relying on model training updates much more slowly.

Do I still need SEO if people use AI search?

Yes. AI search tools draw heavily on search indexes and well-ranked pages, so normal SEO remains the foundation. I explain how the two fit together in what is AI search optimization.

Does blocking AI training crawlers stop me appearing in AI answers?

Not necessarily. Some providers separate training crawlers from the crawlers used to fetch pages for live answers, so you can often opt out of one but not the other. Check each provider's documentation.

A realistic summary

You can't force an AI assistant to recommend you. You can make it easy for them to find you, understand you and quote you accurately, by being accessible, clear, specific, consistent and well-regarded elsewhere. That's not a new trick; it's good content, with fewer places to hide.

If you'd like help auditing your site for this, see AI search optimization or GEO and LLM visibility content, or read the AI search answer page sample to see the approach in practice.