A growing number of people do not search any more. They ask. "Where should I get a haircut near campus." "Is there a good ramen place in Tuscaloosa." And they act on the answer without ever seeing a results page.
Which means there is now a version of your business that exists only inside an assistant's answer, and most owners have never seen it. Here is how to look.
The five-minute test
Do this signed out, in a private window, on a device that has not been to your website.
Ask a general question first. Not your name. "What are the best barbers in Tuscaloosa" or "where can I get a laptop repaired near the University of Alabama." Are you mentioned at all? Who is?
Then ask about you specifically. "Tell me about [your business name] in [your town]." Read the answer as though you were a customer. Are the hours right? The address? Does it say something that was true two years ago? Does it confuse you with a different business that shares your name?
Then ask where it got that. Most assistants will tell you which sources they used. That list is the actual answer to what you need to fix, because those are the pages shaping what people are told about you.
Why they get it wrong
They read cached copies. Correcting your website today does not correct the answer today. Weeks, sometimes.
They average across sources. If your hours are right on Google and wrong on three directories, the assistant is reconciling four things and it may not pick yours.
They cannot tell you apart from your namesake. If another business shares your name, an assistant will often blend the two, because nothing it can read says which is which.
They quote what is stated plainly. This is the useful one. A model summarising your page needs a sentence it can lift. Marketing copy that never plainly states what you do, where, and for whom gives it nothing to take, so it takes something from a directory instead.
The four fixes that actually change the answer
1. Say the plain sentence somewhere on your site. "Joe's Barbers is a barber shop on 15th Street in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, open Tuesday to Saturday." No adjectives. That is the sentence an assistant will use, and if it does not exist on your site it will use one from somewhere you do not control.
2. Make every source agree. Google Business Profile, your site, any directory that appears. Same name, same address format, same phone, same hours. Consistency across sources is most of what makes an assistant confident.
3. Answer the actual questions on your site. Not "About Us" and "Services." A section that says "Are you open on Sundays?" and answers it. That is the shape a question-answering system is looking for, and almost no small business site has one.
4. If you share a name, say so outright. One sentence naming the confusion and distinguishing yourself does more than any amount of hoping. I have that sentence on my own site because three other people share my name, and it is the only thing that reliably separates us.
What does not work
Keyword stuffing. Paying for an "AI optimisation" service that will not tell you what it does. Adding a page of text written for machines: assistants are summarising, and a page that reads as machine-written summarises badly.
There is no ranking dial here. What there is: be findable, be consistent, and state plainly what you are. A 2026 survey of the research on this found the dominant factors are topical relevance and position, that statistics and quotable facts help, and that keyword stuffing measurably hurts. It found no established evidence that publishing volume does anything at all.
Do the ordinary thing first
Almost every assistant answer about a local business is downstream of the same handful of sources, and the biggest one is free. Claim your Google Business Profile and put accurate hours in it before you think about any of this.
The rest of the self-check is here.
Common questions
How do I find out what ChatGPT says about my business?
Open a private window, signed out, and ask it directly: tell me about your business name in your town. Then ask a general question in your category without naming yourself, to see whether you are mentioned at all. Then ask which sources it used, because that list is what you actually need to fix.
Why does AI give wrong information about my business?
Four common reasons. It reads cached copies, so correcting your site today does not correct the answer today. It averages across sources, so wrong hours on three directories can outweigh right hours on your own site. It cannot distinguish you from a business with a similar name unless something says which is which. And it quotes what is stated plainly, so marketing copy that never says what you do, where, and for whom gives it nothing to lift.
How do I get my business mentioned by AI assistants?
Put the plain sentence on your site saying what you are, where, and when you are open, without adjectives. Make every source agree on name, address, phone and hours. Add a section that asks and answers the questions customers actually ask. And if you share a name with another business, say so outright and distinguish yourself in one sentence.
Is AI optimisation for local business a real thing or a scam?
The underlying work is real and it is mostly the same work as being findable in the first place: a claimed listing, consistent details across sources, and pages that plainly state facts. Be careful with anyone selling AI optimisation who will not describe what they will actually change. There is no ranking dial inside an assistant to buy access to.