What does ChatGPT say about your business? How to appear in AI answers

Why what AI says matters

For years, finding a professional meant typing into Google and looking at the top results. Today many people ask an AI assistant a full question and get a ready-made summary, sometimes with two or three recommended names.

• Fewer clicks: if the answer already says who to call, many people don't visit ten websites to compare.
• AI can get it wrong: old opening hours, services you no longer offer or a phone number that isn't yours.
• The well-explained win: AI recommends what it finds clear, consistent and backed by other sources.

AI doesn't know you. It only knows what you and others have published online.

Where they get their information

These tools learn about your business in two ways:

What they learned in training

Models are trained on huge amounts of web text up to a certain date. If your business is small or new, they probably know little or nothing about you this way.

What they look up at the time

Increasingly, they search the web when answering. ChatGPT has its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot; according to OpenAI, sites that block it are not shown in its search answers. Google's AI features (AI Overviews and AI Mode) rely on Google's index: they can only link to pages Google has indexed.

The practical conclusion: what AI says about your business depends mainly on what you publish on your website and what other reliable websites say about you. In other words, on the same things that have always mattered on Google.

Source: OpenAI, overview of OpenAI crawlers. Source: Google, AI features and your website.

Check it yourself: what AI says about you

Spend half an hour asking two or three assistants, in a session without your account so your history doesn't influence the answers:

1. Ask about your name: “What do you know about [your business] in [your town]?”. Check whether the details are correct.
2. Ask like a client: “Recommend a [your service] in [your area]”. See whether you appear and who appears instead.
3. Ask about your specialism: “Who specialises in [your niche] in [your area]?”.
4. Ask for the sources: “Where did you get that information?”. It will tell you which websites it relies on.
5. Note the errors and where they come from: your website, your Google profile, an old directory…

Answers change from day to day and between tools, so treat this as a rough snapshot, not a fixed ranking.

What you can do so AI speaks well of you

A website that clearly explains who you are

What you do, for whom, where and since when, written as text, not only in images. One page per service and an “About” page with concrete details.

The same details everywhere

Identical name, address, phone and opening hours on your website, Google Business Profile, social media and directories. If every place says something different, AI doesn't know which to believe.

Answers to your clients' questions

Guide prices, how you work, timescales, FAQs. If the answer is on your website, AI can use it and cite you.

Reviews and mentions on other websites

Google reviews, professional bodies, associations, local press or sector directories. AI gives more weight to what several sources confirm.

Structured data

A small piece of code on your website that describes, in an orderly way, what your business is, where it is and what it offers. It helps search engines understand you without ambiguity.

Not blocking search engines by accident

Check your robots.txt file, or ask whoever runs your website to do it. Some plugins or settings block AI search crawlers without you knowing.

If it sounds familiar, that's because almost all of it is good old SEO done properly. I explain it in the hard truth about SEO and, if you work under your own name, in personal branding.

The first place to check your details is your Google listing: Google Business Profile: a practical guide for small businesses ↗

Myths and shortcuts that don't work

• “We'll rank you on ChatGPT.” Nobody controls what an AI answers. Be wary of anyone who guarantees it, just as with Google.
• Stuffing your website with text for AI. Write for people: what is useful and clear for a client is what AI understands best.
• Inventing reviews or mentions. Besides being misleading, these tools cross-check sources and fakes come out.
• Blocking all AI “just in case”. You can choose not to let them train on your text, but if you also block the search crawlers, you disappear from their answers.

What I do on my own website

On josecabello.net I apply what I recommend: the website lets search crawlers read it, every page has structured data saying who I am and what I do, my details are the same everywhere and I publish guides like this one that answer my clients' questions. There is no trick: it is about making it very clear who you are so anyone, person or machine, can understand it.

Common questions