Check What AI Search Says About Your Business

A growing number of customers no longer start with a list of search results. They ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Google's AI Overviews a question in plain language, like who is the best roofer near me or which dentist takes my insurance, and they get an answer that names a few businesses. Whether yours is one of them, and what is said about it, is decided before anyone visits your website.

Most business owners have never checked. It takes about half an hour, costs nothing, and usually turns up at least one thing worth fixing.

Ask the questions your customers ask

Write down five or six questions a real customer might type or say. Mix general ones with specific ones:

• Who is the best [your service] in [your town]?
• Who can [do a specific job] this week near [your area]?
• What does [your service] cost in [your town]?
• What are the hours for [your business name]?
• Is [your business name] any good?

Put each one to two or three AI assistants, using a private browser window so your own history does not shape the answers. Save the responses, because they change over time and you will want to compare later.

What to look for in the answers

Read every answer as a customer would, then note three things. First, whether you appear at all for the general questions, and which competitors do instead. Second, whether anything said about you is wrong: old hours, a former address, a service you stopped offering, a phone number that no longer works. Third, what is missing, such as the services you most want to be known for or the areas you cover.

Where an assistant shows its sources, note those too. They tell you exactly which pages it relied on, and they are usually more useful than the answer itself.

You cannot edit what an AI assistant says. You can fix what it reads.

Fix the sources, not the answer

AI assistants build their answers from what is published about you across the web: your website, your Google Business Profile, directory sites, reviews, local news and anything else they can find. There is no form to correct an answer directly, so the work is making sure those sources are accurate and say the same thing.

• Your Google Business Profile. Check the hours, services, categories, description and service area, and add holiday hours as soon as you know them.
• Directory sites. Your name, address and phone number should match exactly everywhere. Old details on a forgotten directory are a common source of wrong answers.
• Your website. Each main service should have its own page that says plainly what you do, where, and for whom. Answer the questions customers ask in the words they use.
• Reviews. Assistants often summarise what reviewers say. Recent, detailed reviews that mention specific services give them better material.

If you want to understand why some businesses are cited and others are not, AI search 101: how to get your business cited in AI answers covers what these tools look for in more depth.

Do it before the holidays, then repeat it

The busiest season is when wrong answers cost most. A customer told by an assistant that you are open on a day you are closed, or that you do not offer something you do, simply goes elsewhere and you never find out. Correcting the sources now gives the changes time to be picked up before late November. For businesses with several sites, holiday hours on Google for every location covers getting the hours right at each one.

Then repeat the same questions every couple of months. Answers shift as sources change, and a saved record lets you see whether your fixes are working.

Keeping profiles and directory listings accurate everywhere is the core of local search marketing with Vizible, and it is the groundwork AI answers draw on. If you would like us to run this check for you and show what to fix, ask for a free growth proposal.