Free AI recommendation check
Find out who AI recommends when someone asks for a business like yours.
Your next customer is asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI who to call before they ever search. We'll run those questions for your service and your city, then send you a short report on who shows up, why, and what it would take for that to be you.
What we check
- 01
The questions your customers actually ask
"Who's the best roofer in Greenville?" "Is [your company] legit?" We run the real phrasings across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
- 02
Who gets named, and who doesn't
The exact competitors each AI recommends for your category, how often you appear, and whether what it says about you is even accurate.
- 03
Where the answers come from
AI pulls from your Google Business Profile, reviews, Yelp, directory listings, and your own site. We trace which sources are feeding the answer, and which ones are missing you.
- 04
Your trust signals
Review count and rating, consistency of your name and address across the web, and whether your site answers the questions AI is trying to answer.
- 05
The gap between you and the winner
What the recommended competitor has that you don't. Usually it's two or three specific things, not a mystery.
- 06
The three moves that matter most
A short, prioritized list. Do them yourself, hand them to whoever runs your marketing, or ask us. Your call.
Request your check
Takes a minute. No account access needed. We'll email your report within three business days.
Why trust us with a look?
Because we've been writing about and testing AI search for local businesses since before most agencies noticed it, and we build the brands, sites, and review systems AI pulls from. A few recent results.
Inquiry landed within the first 30 days of running ads for an architecture firm.
ATMO ArchitectureHot tub sales in the first quarter after launch, with a targeted ad strategy driving in-store and online leads.
Hot Springs Pools & SpasQualified, high-ticket leads per week for a manufacturer scaling from $4M toward $10M.
NovoBlend"He took the time to understand my goals and vision and crafted exactly what I asked for. They kept us in the loop and were committed to communication throughout the process. I highly recommend him for any marketing or advertising needs."
Who's doing the check
Warren runs advertising and growth for branded by clients, from Shark Tank-featured ecommerce brands to dozens of home service companies, and has written our guides on how AI engines decide which brands to recommend. He reviews every report before it goes out.
How it works
1. Request the check
Fill out the form. Takes about a minute, and we don't need access to anything.
2. We run the questions
We ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI the questions a real customer would ask about your service in your city, and record what each one says.
3. Get your report
Within three business days you'll get a short report: who's recommended, why, and the three things we'd change first.
Who this is for
We're most useful to established local businesses that compete on reputation and want to know whether AI is sending customers to them or to the business down the road.
Good fit
You've been in business a few years, you have reviews, and you serve a defined area. If customers compare you to others before calling, this applies to you.
Not a fit yet
You're brand new with no reviews or web presence yet. AI won't have anything to say about you, and that's a brand and website conversation. Use the Reach Us button above.
How to check whether ChatGPT recommends your business (and why one check isn't enough)
When someone asks ChatGPT 'who's the best plumber in Greenville,' it names three or four companies. It does not name all of them, and it does not pick at random. Here is how the answer gets built, how to test your own visibility properly, and what moves a local business from absent to recommended.
You can do the test yourself in 20 minutes. We run a bigger version of it across four AI engines and send you the results, which is what the form above is for.
01
Where AI gets its list of local businesses
ChatGPT with search on pulls from Bing's index and map data. Gemini and Google's AI Overviews pull from Google Business Profile and Google's local pack. Perplexity cites whatever pages it crawled, which is usually directories, review sites, and news. None of them have a secret list; they assemble one from the same public footprint your customers already see.
That means the question isn't 'how do I get into ChatGPT.' It's 'how consistent and credible is my business across the places AI reads.'
02
Ask the way a customer asks, not the way an owner asks
Owners type their company name. Customers type 'emergency AC repair near me,' 'who fixes pool pumps in Simpsonville,' or 'is [company] legit.' Write 10 prompts in that language for your service and city. Mix urgent, comparison, and reputation questions.
Then ask each one in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and a Google search that triggers an AI Overview. Four engines, 10 prompts, 40 answers.
03
Run it more than once, and log it
AI answers are probabilistic. The same prompt can name you Monday and skip you Tuesday. One check tells you almost nothing. Run the set three times over a week and record how often you appear out of the total. Appearing in 8 of 40 answers is a very different situation than 0 of 40 or 30 of 40.
This is the number we report back: your share of answers, next to each named competitor's share.
04
What the named businesses have in common
Across the local markets we've tested, the businesses AI recommends share four things: a complete Google Business Profile with the right primary category, a review count well above the local median with recent reviews, a website that plainly states service, city, and proof, and mentions on third-party sites (directories, local press, associations) that agree on the business name, address, and phone.
Review volume and recency are the strongest single signal. A competitor with 140 reviews will outrank a better company with 30 almost every time.
05
Why competitors with worse work still get recommended
AI can't inspect workmanship. It reads text. A mediocre company that answers every review, posts photos monthly, and gets written up by the local paper looks, to a language model, like the obvious recommendation. The fix is to make your real quality legible: reviews that mention specific jobs, a site that names the neighborhoods you serve, and case studies with numbers.
Our article on brand trust signals that make AI recommend you covers each signal in detail.
06
You cannot pay for it, but you can measure it
There is no sponsored placement in ChatGPT's organic answers, Gemini, or Perplexity. Sponsored AI placements exist separately (ChatGPT Ads) and are labeled. What you can do is track referral traffic from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai in GA4, add 'How did you hear about us?' with an AI option on your forms, and re-run the prompt set every 60 days to see whether your share is moving.
If it isn't moving after 90 days of review and listing work, something upstream is inconsistent, and the report will usually show what.
What we see when we run the check
Numbers from the local service markets we test most. Your market will differ, which is the point of running it for you.
3 to 4 names
How many businesses a typical AI answer names for a local service query. If there are 40 companies in your category, most are invisible.
30%+ of answers
The share a business usually needs before AI referrals show up as a measurable lead source. Below 10%, you're effectively absent.
60 to 90 days
How long it typically takes for review and listing work to change which businesses get named. AI visibility lags the work.
Questions people ask about AI recommendations
Q
How do I know if ChatGPT is recommending my business?
Ask it the way a customer would: 'best [service] in [city]' and 'is [your company] legit.' Run each prompt several times over a week in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, and count how often you're named. Or request the free check and we'll run the full set for you.
Q
Does ChatGPT use Google reviews to recommend businesses?
Indirectly. ChatGPT's search mode leans on Bing and map data; Gemini and Google AI Overviews use Google Business Profile directly. Review count, rating, and recency show up in all of them, which is why reviews are the strongest lever you have.
Q
Can I pay ChatGPT to recommend my business?
No. Organic AI answers have no paid placement. Sponsored AI ads exist as a separate, labeled product. Visibility in the organic answer comes from your public footprint: listings, reviews, website, and mentions.
Q
Why does ChatGPT give different answers to the same question?
Because the model generates each answer fresh, and because search results change. That's why a single check is unreliable and we measure your share across repeated runs instead.
Q
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?
Usually one of four things: they have more and newer reviews, their Google Business Profile is more complete, their site states service and city more plainly, or they're mentioned on more third-party sites. The report shows which.
Q
How long does it take to start showing up in AI answers?
Most businesses that fix listings and build review volume see movement in 60 to 90 days. Businesses with no reviews and an outdated site take longer because there's nothing for AI to cite yet.
Q
Is this only about ChatGPT?
No. We check ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Google's AI results in particular now sit above the map pack for many local searches, so being absent there costs more than being absent in ChatGPT.
Q
Does regular SEO still matter if customers are asking AI?
Yes, more than ever. AI engines read the same pages, listings, and reviews that search rankings depend on. Good local SEO is the raw material; AI visibility is what it produces.
Q
My business is brand new. Can I get recommended?
Not yet, honestly. AI needs reviews and mentions to cite. Start with a complete Google Business Profile and a system for asking every customer for a review. Come back for the check once you have 20 or more.
Q
What does the free report include?
Your share of answers across four engines, the competitors named instead of you and their share, the signals they have that you don't, and three prioritized fixes. Delivered as a written report within three business days.
Related tools and reading
Why free?
Because it's the fastest way to show you how we think. Most people read the report, fix a couple of things, and move on, and that's fine. Some decide they'd rather have us build the brand AI keeps recommending, and that's how we earn clients: by being useful first.