How businesses get recommended by ChatGPT, and why most don't.

When someone asks ChatGPT to recommend a business, it doesn't pick at random and it doesn't necessarily pick the best. It picks the businesses it can find, understand and trust from what's been written about them online. If yours isn't showing up, it's usually because the AI tool doesn't have enough to go on, not because you're any worse than the businesses it names.

This is the newest corner of search, and the one where most businesses have the least idea where they stand. You'll hear it called AI SEO, LLM SEO or generative engine optimisation. The labels matter less than the question underneath: when your customers ask an AI tool for help, does your name come up?

How ChatGPT decides which businesses to recommend

AI tools build their answers from two places. The first is what they learned in training, a vast snapshot of the web frozen at a point in time. The second, increasingly, is a live search: when a question needs current or local information, tools like ChatGPT search the web, read the results and summarise what they find.

That second route is where most business recommendations come from, and it's why ordinary search visibility still matters so much. If your site doesn't appear in the results the AI tool searches, it can't read you, and it can't recommend you.

From there, the tool is looking for confidence. Which businesses come up repeatedly? Which are described clearly and consistently? Which have reviews, mentions and specifics that make a recommendation feel safe? The business that's easiest to vouch for tends to be the one that gets named.

Why most businesses don't get mentioned

The same patterns come up again and again.

• Vague content. A services page promising “quality solutions tailored to your needs” gives an AI tool nothing to quote.
• No presence beyond the website. Few reviews, no directory listings, no mentions where your industry talks. The AI tool sees a business nobody is vouching for.
• Inconsistent details. Different names, addresses or service descriptions across the web make it harder to be sure who you are.
• Weak search visibility. If you don't rank for the searches an AI tool runs behind the scenes, you're not in the pool it chooses from.

What improves your chances with AI search

Be the clearest answer. Write pages that state exactly what you do, for whom, where, and at what kind of price. Specifics get quoted. Generalities get skipped.

Answer the questions customers really ask. Comparisons, costs, suitability, “do I need” questions. These are the prompts people put to AI tools, and the pages that answer them directly get used.

Build the evidence around you. Reviews, case studies, industry listings and press. An AI tool is far more comfortable recommending a business other sources already recommend.

Use structured data. Schema markup spells out your business, services, location and ratings in a form machines can read without guessing.

Keep your core SEO in good shape. Rankings feed the live searches AI tools run. Neglect them and your AI visibility follows.

Why AI search is worth the effort

AI search still sends far fewer visitors than Google. But the visitors it does send arrive differently. They've usually asked a detailed question, been given a recommendation, and come to you already leaning towards getting in touch.

We've seen this clearly across the timber building brands we look after. Chart Stables designs and builds timber stables, and people planning a new stable block ask AI tools long, specific questions about sizes, planning permission and costs. With content built around those questions and a full schema overhaul across the site, AI tools now regularly send visitors through.

Visitors arriving at Chart Stables from AI tools become leads at around 3 times the rate of visitors from Google search.

The numbers are smaller, but the intent is far higher. That's worth measuring as its own channel rather than letting it disappear into the general traffic figures.

Where to start

Ask the AI tools the questions your customers would ask, and see who gets named. Then look at what those businesses have that you don't: clearer pages, more reviews, a stronger presence beyond their own site. That gap is usually the work.

If you'd like to know how your business shows up in AI search, and what it would take to be the one that gets recommended, that's exactly what a Visibility Review looks at.