ChatGPT recommends businesses by searching the web when a question needs current information, reading the pages it finds, and naming the businesses those pages describe clearly and consistently. The way to be recommended is therefore to be clearly and consistently described on the pages it reads: your own site, your Google Business Profile, Yelp, the BBB, trade directories and review sites.
There is no submission form and no paid placement. In our measurements the same question asked ten times returns different names; the businesses that appear most are the ones whose facts match everywhere and whose pages answer the exact question.
Every week we put buyers' questions for 20 local trade markets in three metros to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google's AI Overviews and Google's AI Mode and count which businesses get named. The latest window: 3,778 AI answers read, 409 businesses named, 35 days, computed 3 November 2026. The most-named cremation provider in Tampa Bay appeared in 52% of 181 answers (95% range 45–59%); the most-named excavation company in Charlottesville in 20% of 209 answers. Nobody is named in every answer. The method and every number are public on the AI Market Index. Method: each question is asked repeatedly on every engine; a business counts as named when its name appears in the answer text or its domain in the cited sources; a failed read is excluded, never counted as a miss; every count is n of N with its date.
| Source the engines read | What moves the answer | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Your website | A page that answers the exact question; readable facts | One answer page per question; structured business facts |
| Google Business Profile and Maps pages | Complete, claimed, consistent | Fill every field, add photos, match hours |
| Yelp, BBB, trade directories | Presence and accuracy | Claim, correct, respond to reviews |
| Review text | The words customers use | Ask for reviews that mention the service and town |
| Duplicate or old sites | Split or stale citations | 301-redirect old copies to the live site |
The explainer, with the counts on screen: how the assistants decide, what they cite, and the five things that move the answer. Narration is a generated voice; the numbers are ours.
No. It searches when it judges the question needs current or local information. 'Who is a good plumber near me' triggers search; the answer depends on what it finds.
Open the sources it cited. Almost always the competitor is described on more of them, or more consistently, or has a page that answers the exact question.
Yes. Review sites are among the most-cited sources for local questions; in our October measurements Yelp was cited in 351 of 1,664 answers about one client.
Count, don't look. Ten runs a month per question, per engine, with the range. Our Scoreboard does this from $49 a month.
Run the free AI-visibility scan for one pass on your business. For the counted baseline across all six engines, the Visibility Sprint is $1,500 one time, credited in full if you start a managed plan within thirty days. Self-serve measurement starts at $49 a month. Managed plans start at $2,950 a month, by application. No plan promises rankings or placement; nobody controls what an AI model says, and we say so.
By Daley Adams, Founder, ASN Intelligence LLC. Updated 5 November 2026.