A practical guide for owners and leadership teams at companies with about 20 to 300 people.
Do buyers really use AI to find businesses like yours?
Yes, and the share is climbing fast.
- In G2's August 2025 survey of more than 1,000 business software buyers, 50% said they now start their research in an AI chatbot instead of Google.
- Forrester's 2025 buyer research found 94% of business buyers use AI somewhere in their buying process.
- BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found 45% now use AI tools to find local businesses, up from 6% a year earlier.
Most of this research is American and much of it covers software purchases, but the direction is the same for any firm whose buyers research online first.
Buyers still check what AI tells them. In TrustRadius's 2026 survey of 1,862 tech buyers, 94% of those who used AI to research a purchase fact-checked it, and user reviews and advice from peers still shaped what they bought. So AI can decide who makes the shortlist. Your reputation still decides who gets hired.
Fewer buyers will click through to your site, either. Pew Research tracked 68,879 real Google searches in March 2025: people clicked a regular result 8% of the time when an AI summary appeared, against 15% when one did not. Being named inside the AI summary now matters as much as appearing in the regular results underneath it.
How does ChatGPT decide which businesses to recommend?
When someone asks ChatGPT, Google, Copilot, Claude or Perplexity for a recommendation, the tool usually searches the web (Google uses its own search index), reads the pages it finds and writes an answer from them. For questions about your company by name, it may also answer from what it learned during training, which is why out-of-date facts can stick around. Three things follow.
- It can only use pages it is allowed to read. Each AI company runs its own crawler, a program that reads websites. If your site blocks it, you may be left out.
- It leans on what other sites say about you. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands in 2025. How often other websites mentioned a brand was far more closely tied to being named by Google's AI than how many sites linked to it. That shows a pattern and doesn't prove cause. Google also says its AI answers can draw on what is said about businesses across the web, in blogs, videos and forums.
- The answer changes every time. SparkToro ran the same recommendation questions 2,961 times across ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI. Fewer than 1 in 100 runs produced the same list of brands, although the best-known brands in each category showed up in most answers. So aim to show up often. There is no fixed "position one" to hold.
Google's own guide is blunt: "optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." (SEO, search engine optimization, is the usual work of getting found on Google.) No special file or hidden code on your site gets you in.
Step 1: Check what AI says about you today
Who: You, an office manager or a marketing coordinator. Time: About an hour the first time, then 20 minutes a month.
Write down 10 questions a buyer might ask before they have heard of you. Mix three kinds:
Category: Who are the best [your service] firms in [your region]?
Shows whether AI names you when buyers don't know you yet.
Problem: How do I [problem you solve] for a company our size?
Shows whether your know-how reaches buyers who are still defining the problem.
Name: What does [your company] do, and what does it cost?
Shows whether AI gets your facts right when someone looks you up.
Ask each one in ChatGPT, Google and one more tool such as Copilot or Perplexity. In Google, look at the AI summary at the top when one appears. Use a private or temporary chat, logged out where you can, so the tool's memory of you doesn't skew the answers.
Note three things: are you named, are your facts right, and which other websites does the answer cite? That last list is your map. Those are the sites AI already trusts for your category.
Save the results. You'll repeat this check to see what changed.
Want a quick first read? Our free AI search check asks ChatGPT and Claude three buyer questions about your firm and checks Step 2 for you, in about two minutes.
Step 2: Make sure AI tools are allowed to read your site
Who: Your web person or IT provider. Time: 30 minutes.
Your website has a small public file called robots.txt that tells crawlers what they may read. Send your web person these three checks:
- Nothing blocks the search crawlers: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot (Claude), PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot. OpenAI states that sites blocking OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT's search answers.
- The training crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot) collect content to build AI models. Blocking them keeps your content out of that training and does not remove you from AI search. Google-Extended is different: it also controls whether Google's Gemini apps can use your pages in their answers, though not Google Search itself.
- If your site uses Cloudflare, a common security service, check its AI crawler and robots.txt settings. Cloudflare has blocked AI training crawlers by default for new sites since July 2025, and if training is blocked there, it can also block Googlebot and Bingbot, which do more than one job.
While they're in there, ask them to confirm your site is set up in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, the free tools Google and Microsoft give site owners. Both now show when your pages appear in AI answers.
Step 3: Fix your business details everywhere AI looks
Who: You, an office manager or a marketing coordinator, with logins. Time: One to two hours, once.
AI tools build their picture of you from many sources. If those sources disagree, the AI may repeat the wrong one.
We saw this with our own company. In September 2026 we asked three AI assistants about Sidekick Orchestration, and none of them got all our basic facts right. When we checked our listings, we found a directory profile still showing prices we had changed. We only found it because we ran the check in Step 1.
Update these so your name, services, service area, prices (if you publish them) and contact details match your website:
- Google Business Profile. Google says this information can help a business appear in its AI answers.
- Bing Places. Microsoft recommends keeping it accurate for the same reason, and Copilot runs on Bing's search index.
- LinkedIn company page.
- Industry directories and associations you already belong to, such as your chamber of commerce or professional body.
- Any site the AI cited in Step 1 that describes you.
Step 4: Publish pages only you could write
Who: You, with whoever drafts your content. Time: A few hours a month.
Google's guide says unique content based on first-hand experience will likely influence AI visibility "more than any of the other suggestions." A generic "10 benefits of our service" page adds nothing an AI could not write itself.
Good pages for a service firm answer the questions from Step 1 with what you actually know:
- what a typical engagement costs and what changes the price;
- how long the work takes and what the client has to provide;
- a specific example, with numbers, of a problem you solved (anonymous is fine);
- when someone should not hire a firm like yours.
How you write it helps too. In a 2023 lab test on a simulated AI search engine, researchers at Princeton and partners found that adding quotations, statistics or cited sources each raised a page's visibility by roughly 27 to 41%. They didn't test ChatGPT itself, but the result fits Microsoft's advice: it says Copilot can lift clear question-and-answer pairs from a page word for word. So:
- put the answer in the first sentence or two;
- use headings phrased as the questions buyers ask;
- back claims with a number and its source;
- keep key facts in the page text, not inside images, PDFs or click-to-open sections.
AI can help you draft these pages quickly. Keep a person who knows the work in charge of what goes out, because the first-hand detail is the part that counts.
Step 5: Get named on other trusted sites
Who: You, with help from a marketing coordinator if you have one. Time: A few hours a month.
This is the slowest step, and with Step 4 it is one of the two most likely to get you named. Aim for pages on sites with their own reputation that describe what you do.
For a 20 to 300 person firm, the realistic sources are:
- Your associations: chamber of commerce member features, industry body directories, speaker pages.
- Partners: firms you refer work to and receive work from, naming each other on their sites.
- Local and trade media: a short story about a specific project, or a guest article for a business site your buyers read.
- Reviews from actual clients on Google and the platforms your industry uses. In a 2026 study of 10,000 local businesses by Insites, the ones both ChatGPT and Perplexity found averaged about 133 Google reviews, against about 11 for those neither found.
- Places your buyers ask questions: answering a question well on LinkedIn or Reddit, as yourself, with no pitch.
Google warns that seeking inauthentic mentions "isn't as helpful as it might seem," because its systems are built to reward quality and block spam. Earn them.
What not to bother with
These come up in a lot of AI search advice. For a firm your size, skip them or put them last.
An llms.txt file
It's a proposed file that summarizes your site for AI. Google says it ignores it and that creating one "will neither harm nor help." We keep one on our own site because it costs nothing to maintain. Don't expect it to do anything.
Special "schema" code for AI
Schema is hidden code that labels facts on a page for search engines. Google says its AI answers need no special version, and the Insites study found no link between schema and being found by AI. If your site already has it, leave it.
A separate page for every possible question
Google says pages made mainly to sway AI answers can break its spam rules.
Mass-produced AI articles
Google says more pages don't make a site better, and mass-producing them falls under the same spam rules.
Anyone promising guaranteed placement in ChatGPT
ChatGPT now shows clearly labelled ads, and OpenAI says ads don't influence its answers. Bing's updated guidelines, as reported by Search Engine Journal, say no technique guarantees a citation.
Paid tools that track how often AI names you, at first
Answers change every run, so the monthly check in Step 1 tells you most of what you need.
How do you know it's working?
Give it three to six months. Then look at four things:
- Your monthly Step 1 check. Count how many of your 10 questions name you, across all three tools. Many AI tools can now run a saved prompt on a schedule, so set it up once and have the results sent to you.
- Google Search Console. Its Generative AI performance report shows how your pages appear in Google's AI features.
- Bing Webmaster Tools. Its AI Performance report shows when Copilot and Bing's AI summaries cite you.
- Your website analytics. ChatGPT tags the links it sends, so your analytics can show how many visitors came from ChatGPT.
Also ask every new prospect "how did you find us?" and listen for AI tools in the answer.
Who does what
| Step | Who | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Check what AI says about you | Owner, office manager or marketing coordinator | About an hour, then 20 minutes a month |
| 2. Let AI tools read your site | Web person or IT provider | 30 minutes, once |
| 3. Fix your details everywhere | Owner, office manager or marketing coordinator, with logins | 1 to 2 hours, once |
| 4. Publish pages only you could write | Owner plus whoever drafts | A few hours a month |
| 5. Get named on other trusted sites | Owner, with marketing help | A few hours a month |
Frequently asked questions
Is AI search optimization different from SEO?
Mostly no. Google says optimizing for generative AI search "is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO." The difference is emphasis: what other sites say about you, and clear first-hand answers, matter more than they used to.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT?
You can buy a labelled ad that appears beside an answer. OpenAI says ads don't influence what ChatGPT's answers say. Be wary of anyone selling a guarantee.
How long does it take to show up in AI answers?
Fixes to your own site and listings can show up within weeks. Being named in category answers usually takes months, because it depends on other sites mentioning you.
Does blocking AI training hurt my visibility?
Blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot or CCBot doesn't remove you from AI search. Keep the search crawlers listed in Step 2 open, and check Cloudflare settings if you use it.
Where Sidekick Orchestration fits
We coach leaders to use AI in the work they do every week, then help them lead it across their organization. Keeping your business visible in AI search is one of the projects we coach teams through. We don't log into your accounts; we show your people how to run each step with ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot, until it becomes a monthly routine they run without us. If you want someone to do the marketing work for you, we'll point you to a marketing partner.
AI search is one place AI can help. To see where else it fits, from proposals to client intake to reporting, start with the free AI Opportunity Map: answer a few questions and get a map of where AI could help, and where it shouldn't. If you want your team coached through these five steps, book a 30-minute fit call with Chase.
Sources checked October 20, 2026: Google, AI features and your website; Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI features; Google Search Central blog, May 2025; Google common crawlers; Microsoft Advertising, optimizing for AI search answers; Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance; Search Engine Journal on Bing's guidelines; OpenAI crawlers; OpenAI publishers FAQ; OpenAI on advertising; Anthropic crawlers; Perplexity crawlers; Cloudflare, new AI traffic options; MIT Technology Review on Cloudflare; llms.txt proposal; Aggarwal et al., GEO; Ahrefs, 75K brands studied; SparkToro on AI recommendation consistency; Pew Research Center; G2; Forrester; TrustRadius; BrightLocal; Insites.
