What does ChatGPT say when a customer asks about you?

In one sentence: we put your customers' real questions to the AI tools they use, record exactly what each one says about your business, trace wrong facts back to where they came from, fix them there, and show you the before and after on your monthly page.

Do my customers really ask AI tools about local businesses?

Yes, and more each year. 45% of US consumers used an AI tool for local business recommendations in the past year, up from 6% the year before (BrightLocal, 2026). ChatGPT was the most used, at 31%, followed by Google's AI Mode at 23%. Among people aged 30 to 44, it was 64%.

People also click through less. When a Google search showed an AI summary, people clicked a regular result on 8% of visits, against 15% when there was no summary (Pew Research Center, 2025). More customers now judge you from the answer alone. If it has your old hours, they may never know.

The good news: people still check. 97% of AI users sometimes double-check an AI recommendation against real reviews (BrightLocal, 2026). That's why this check works hand in hand with your reviews and listings.

What can go wrong in an AI answer?

AI tools sound confident even when they're wrong. When one company asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity over 72,000 questions about UK high street shops, 64% of the businesses had at least one false fact returned about them. Wrong locations were the most common mistake, and about 1 in 15 website answers pointed to a dead link, a lookalike or a different business (Searchable, 2026). The same things happen to small businesses:

• Old facts that won't die. You moved two years ago. An old directory still lists the old address, and an AI tool repeats it to someone looking for directions.
• "They don't do that." Someone asks whether you fit heat pumps or see children. Your website never says so clearly, so the answer says no, or names someone else.
• Mixed up with a namesake. A business with a similar name in the next town gets your reviews, or you get theirs.
• Simply missing. The tool names three other businesses and not you, often because the facts about you online are thin or don't agree with each other.

Which questions do you ask?

We build a fixed set of 5 to 10 questions with you, from your real enquiries and the way your customers talk. A plumber's set might include "emergency plumber near me open on Sunday" and "Is [your business name] any good?". A clinic's set might ask who takes new patients on Saturdays, or what a first visit costs.

We ask the same set each time, in the same way, so changes mean something. AI answers vary by person, place and day, so one answer proves little. A trend across six months tells you a lot, and that's what your monthly page shows.

Where do AI tools get their facts about me?

Mostly from the same places a careful customer would look:

• Your own website. Your pages, and how clearly they state your services, hours, prices and the areas you cover.
• Your listings. Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp and the directories for your trade.
• Your reviews, and what customers say in them.
• Mentions on other sites. Local news, associations, suppliers, wedding blogs, tourism boards. In a study of 75,000 brands, mentions of a brand on other websites tracked visibility in Google's AI Overviews about three times as closely as links did (Ahrefs, 2025).

When these sources agree, AI tools tend to get you right. When they disagree, the tool has to guess.

What do you fix when an answer is wrong?

1. Find the source. We work out where the wrong fact comes from: an old listing, an out-of-date page, a directory nobody remembers signing up to.
2. Fix your website. Clear, simple statements of what you do, where, when and roughly what it costs, on the page where people expect them.
3. Fix your listings. Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp and trade directories, so they all say the same thing. See listings care.
4. Fix the hidden labels. Schema markup is a small set of labels in your page code that tells search engines and AI tools your name, address, hours and services in a format they read easily. We keep it matching what your page actually says.
5. Report it. Where a tool lets you flag a wrong answer, we do, and we ask outside sites to correct their facts.
6. Check again. Same questions, next time round. Your monthly page shows what changed.

Do I need special AI files or tricks?

No. Some agencies now sell "GEO" or "AEO" packages (generative engine or answer engine optimisation, meaning work aimed at AI answers). Google's own guidance is clear: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." It adds that you don't need "new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup" (Google Search Central, 2025).

What does help is the ordinary work, done well: accurate facts, clear pages that answer real questions, current listings, honest reviews and being mentioned on other sites. Search engine optimisation (SEO), meaning the work of helping search engines understand and trust your site, still matters for exactly this reason.