The short answer
AI assistants draw on search results, listings, reviews and what other sites say about you. Their makers don’t publish exactly how they choose a business. The same groundwork as good SEO gives you the best chance: the same facts everywhere, clear answers on your own site, reviews and mentions, and a site that search crawlers can read.
More people now ask an AI assistant where to eat, who to call or what to buy. If the assistant names your competitor and not you, you lose that customer before they ever see your listing. This guide covers what assistants draw on and the steps that give you the best chance of being named.
What AI assistants draw on
Each assistant builds its answers from sources it can search:
- Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google’s search index.
- ChatGPT search sends queries to search partners, and OpenAI says it ranks results on multiple factors. A site has to let OAI-SearchBot crawl it to be included.
- Copilot draws on Bing’s index.
None of them publish exactly how they choose one business over another. In our experience, businesses with consistent facts, good reviews and clear descriptions tend to be named more often.
Get your facts straight everywhere
Start with the basics: the same name, address, hours, services and prices on every listing and on your own site. Inconsistent details can confuse people and the systems that read about you.
- Google, Apple Maps, Bing and Facebook
- The directories your industry uses
- Your own website
Answer the questions people ask
Write plain answers to the questions customers ask before they buy: what you offer, what it costs, where you go and how to book.
- A clear frequently asked questions section
- Prices or price ranges where you can
- The suburbs or regions you serve, named in words
Earn reviews and mentions
What others say about you is part of what assistants can find. Reviews, local news, partner sites and directories all add to it.
- Ask every customer for a review.
- Get listed where your industry looks.
Make your site easy for search crawlers to read
Help search systems understand your pages.
- Structured data for your business and products that matches what’s on the page.
- Fast, simple pages.
- Let search crawlers in, such as Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Blocking a training crawler, such as GPTBot, doesn’t keep you out of search answers.
Measure it
Ask the questions your customers ask, in the assistants they use, and note how often you’re named and who is named instead.
- Check every month.
- Watch your competitors as well as yourself.
- In Google Search Console, traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted in the Web report.