How to check whether ChatGPT and Gemini recommend your business

Here’s an uncomfortable question most business owners can’t answer: when someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend a business like yours, do you get named? You won’t find it in Google Analytics — the enquiry that comes from an AI recommendation just lands, and you assume it was word of mouth. But you can check where you stand directly, for free, in about ten minutes. Here’s how.

Step 1: Ask the AIs the way a customer would

Open ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Perplexity, and ask each the questions a real customer would type. Not “tell me about [your business]” — that’s cheating. Ask the category question:

• “Who’s a good [what you do] in [your city]?”
• “Best [service] near [suburb]?”
• “I need [problem] sorted in [area] — who should I call?”

Ask a few variations. Note whether you’re named, who is named (often your competitors), and what the AI says about them.

Step 2: Read what it says, not just whether you’re there

If you are named, look at the words the AI uses — they reveal what the web is “saying” about you. If you’re not named, look at who is, and why. Usually the recommended businesses share some mix of: a clear website that plainly states what they do, strong and recent reviews, and mentions on other sites. That’s your gap list.

Step 3: Check the raw materials the AI is working from

The AIs assemble their answer from what’s out there — so check the sources:

• Google yourself the same way. Is there a clear, consistent picture of your business, or is it vague and scattered?
• Your Google Business Profile — filled out, categorised correctly, with genuine recent reviews?
• Your website — do the key pages plainly say what you do, where and for whom? Or is it clever copy a machine can’t extract a recommendation from?
• Consistency — do your name, location and services match everywhere they appear online?

Where those are weak, the AI has nothing solid to recommend you on.

Step 4: Do it again in a month

This is the important one. A single check is a snapshot; the value is in the trend. Note where you stand today, make some improvements, then re-run the same questions in a month. Are you named more often? Is what the AI says about you better? That trend — not a one-off result — is how you actually know it’s working.

A caution

Don’t over-read a single answer. AI outputs vary between sessions and models, and they change constantly. One “no” doesn’t mean you’re doomed, and one “yes” doesn’t mean you’re set. Look for the pattern across several questions and a few weeks.

What to do with what you find

Almost everything that gets you named by an AI is the same work that improves your normal search visibility — clear content, real reviews, consistent details, a fast well-structured site. (We broke down how AI decides who to recommend separately.) So the gaps you find here are worth fixing regardless.

If you’d rather not do it by hand — or you want a proper read on your AI visibility versus your competitors, tracked over time — that’s exactly what our AI Search Optimisation (AIEO) work does. Get in touch and we’ll run the check for you.