Guide section 6, and the AI test in your report
Being recommended by AI assistants
More and more people now ask an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity who to hire, instead of searching Google and clicking through a list of websites. This page explains how they choose who to name, how to read the AI test in your report, and what you can do about it.
Updated 1 November 2026
A table of the questions we asked and whether each assistant named you, the businesses they named instead, the websites they relied on, and what to change.
Why this matters
When someone asks an AI assistant "who is a good electrician near me?", they usually get a short answer naming two to five businesses, not a page of ten links. If you are not one of the names, you are not part of that conversation at all. Google itself now shows AI-written answers above its ordinary results for many searches, so the same thinking applies there too.
You do not need to use AI yourself to be found by it. It mostly comes down to a clear website that says what you do, where you do it and how to reach you, and the same details wherever your business appears online. If you would like the background, what is GEO and what is AEO explain the terms.
How AI assistants decide who to name
When asked for a recommendation, an assistant searches the web and reads what it finds: business websites, directory and review sites, map listings such as your Google Business Profile, and sometimes local news. It then names the businesses it can describe with confidence. In practice, assistants tend to name businesses that are:
- Clearly described on their own website: what they do, where, for whom.
- Described the same way in several places: the same name, address, phone number and services on the website, the business profile and directories.
- Well reviewed, with recent, genuine reviews.
- Easy to check: insurance, memberships, years trading and opening hours stated plainly.
Our question test
We ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the kind of questions your customers might ask, such as "Who are the best roofers in Springfield?", and record who they named. In the table in your report:
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| Named | The assistant named your business in its answer. |
| Not named | The assistant answered, but named other businesses. |
| your site was a source | The assistant read your website while answering, but still did not name you. This often means your site did not make clear enough what you do or where. It is a good sign that the fixes will help. |
| No AI answer | The assistant did not give a usable answer to that question. |
| Check failed | A technical problem on the assistant's side. It says nothing about your business. |
AI assistants give slightly different answers each time, even to the same question. Treat the table as a picture of how things stood on the day. What matters is the pattern: are you named sometimes, never, or most of the time?
Businesses named instead are worth a look. Visit their websites and listings. Not to copy them, but to see what they make clear that you do not: services, areas, reviews, memberships.
Sites the assistants leaned on are the directories and review sites the assistants relied on for your trade and area. Make sure you are listed on the ones that suit your business, with exactly the same details as your website. If your report says we found no link to your website from one of them, you may not be listed there, or your listing may not include your website address.
Can AI assistants read your site?
Assistants send robots to read websites, just like Google does. Some things can turn them away without you knowing:
- Your robots.txt file can block them by name. Some security plugins and hosting companies add these blocks automatically.
- Security settings. Some hosts and services such as Cloudflare have a "block AI bots" switch. It may have been turned on for you.
- Words that only appear after a script runs. Some modern websites build their text in the visitor's browser. Many robots do not wait for that, so to them the page looks almost empty.
- A "nosnippet" setting tells Google not to quote your page. Google uses the same setting for its AI answers.
There are two kinds of AI robot, and your report treats them differently:
| Kind of robot | What it does | Our advice |
|---|---|---|
| Search robots | Fetch your pages when someone asks an assistant a question, so it can answer and recommend. | Let them in. Blocking them hides you from answers. |
| Training robots | Collect text to help build future AI models. | Your choice. Blocking them does not stop assistants recommending you. |
What helps
- A clear page for each main service, saying what, where and for whom near the top.
- Plain answers to the questions customers really ask, with the answer in the first sentence.
- Hidden business details (structured data, see copy and paste) that match what the page shows.
- A complete Google Business Profile, plus Bing Places and Apple's business listing, with the same details everywhere.
- Recent, genuine reviews, and polite replies to them.
Pages written only for robots, stuffing pages with keywords, and anyone selling a guaranteed place in AI answers. Special "AI files" such as llms.txt are optional extras: no major AI assistant has said it relies on one, and Google has said websites do not need special files or code to appear in its AI features. Nobody can guarantee what an AI assistant will say.
See the AI test in the example report, or start with the free check, which tells you whether AI assistants are being turned away from your site.
Questions
AI assistants: common questions
How do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity decide which businesses to name?
What questions do you ask the AI assistants?
Why was my business not named?
Do I need an llms.txt file?
Can anyone guarantee a place in AI answers?
Keep reading
Try it on your own website
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