Quick answer
To get recommended by ChatGPT, check what AI says about your business today, make it clear what you do and for whom, publish pages that answer real buyer questions, show proof, get mentioned on trusted sites and keep your site crawlable. No one can promise a mention, but these steps raise your odds.
Getting your business recommended by ChatGPT is not a trick, and no one can promise it. A growing number of buyers now ask an AI assistant who to hire. They type something like “who is a good accountant for small businesses in Leeds?” and get a few names.
You would like to be one of them. Here is what you can realistically do, and what you should be suspicious of.
Why is one business recommended by ChatGPT and not another?
AI assistants build answers from what they learned in training and, in many cases, from live search results. They tend to name businesses that appear clearly and repeatedly across trustworthy sources, with consistent descriptions and a clear match to the question.
If your business is described vaguely, rarely mentioned outside your own site or hard to tell apart from competitors, there is little for the system to latch onto.
Step 1: Find out what AI says about you today
Before you change anything, test. Open a few AI tools and ask the questions your buyers would ask:
- “What are the top [your service] providers in [your area]?”
- “Who should I hire for [problem you solve]?”
- “What does [your business name] do?”
Write down whether you appear, how you are described, which competitors are named and whether anything is wrong or out of date. Repeat the test a few times, because answers vary from one run to the next.
Step 2: Make your business easy to understand
State plainly what you do, who you serve and where. Use the same wording on your website, your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and any directories.
Check basics like your name, address, services, hours and description. Inconsistent or outdated details create confusion.
Step 3: Publish pages that answer real questions
AI tools quote content that answers questions clearly. For each important question your buyers ask, make a page or a section that:
- Opens with a direct answer in a few sentences
- Adds detail, examples and honest limits
- Is written by a real person or team, with a visible date
- Links to related pages on your site
Think about price questions, comparison questions and “how do I choose” questions. Those are the ones buyers ask when they are close to deciding. Our posts on what GEO is and AEO vs SEO explain more.
Step 4: Show proof
AI tools weigh credibility. Give them, and the people reading, reasons to trust you:
- Named authors and real team pages
- Genuine reviews and testimonials, with permission
- Case studies, where you can share them honestly
- Qualifications, memberships and awards
- Clear information about how you work
If you cannot share names, you can still describe work in general terms, as long as it is true.
Step 5: Get mentioned elsewhere
This step is the hardest and often the most influential. What other sites say about you matters because AI tools learn from the wider web.
Ways to earn real mentions:
- Industry directories and review sites that fit your field
- Local organisations, chambers and associations
- Guest articles on respected industry sites
- Podcasts and interviews
- Partnerships and customer stories with permission
- Active, helpful presence in communities where your buyers ask questions
Never buy fake reviews or fake mentions. It breaks platform rules, can damage your reputation and does not build real trust.
Step 6: Keep the technical side healthy
Make sure your site is fast, crawlable and clearly structured. Use structured data where it fits, so machines can read your business details. Keep pages updated.
Step 7: Track and repeat
Re-run your question set every month or so. Note whether mentions improve, how you are described and which sources get cited. Small changes can take a while to show, and answers are never fully stable.
What to be careful about
- Promises of promised placement. No one controls AI answers.
- Tricks aimed at models. Hidden text and manipulation can backfire.
- Neglecting regular SEO. Good SEO still feeds many AI answers. See is SEO dead?
What if the AI says something wrong about you?
First check whether your own pages and profiles say the same wrong thing. Fix the source. Then publish clear, accurate information and make sure other sources agree. Some tools offer feedback options, but fixing the underlying information works better over time.
For our approach, see AEO and SEO at Omega.
What do the AI companies themselves say?
Go to the primary sources. OpenAI’s Overview of OpenAI crawlers page lists its crawlers and what each is for, and explains that site owners can manage them with robots.txt. Perplexity does the same at Perplexity crawlers. If you block the wrong bot by accident, you can disappear from the answers you want.
On Google’s side, AI features and your website says that to appear in AI features a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and that you do not need special markup beyond normal SEO. That is encouraging: the basics still matter. Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search explains how structured data helps Google understand a page, which is useful even though it is not a ranking switch.
Why does this matter? Because buyers are using these tools. The Pew Research Center article 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT found that about a third of U.S. adults had used ChatGPT, and the share was growing. That does not mean search is gone, but it does mean your business may be described to buyers by a machine before they ever visit your site.
Use this alongside the difference between AEO and SEO and our explainer on generative engine optimization. For help, see our AEO service or book a free diagnostic.
A one-page checklist
If you want the short version to work from, use this.
- Ask AI tools your buyers’ questions, and save what you see.
- Make your name, description and details identical everywhere.
- Write direct answers to your ten most important buyer questions.
- Add real proof: named authors, genuine reviews, honest case studies.
- Earn three real mentions on credible third-party sites this quarter.
- Fix anything inaccurate in your own pages and profiles.
- Re-run the questions next month and compare.
Nothing on this list is a trick, and all of it helps ordinary search as well.
How Omega helps your business
Omega Growth helps businesses that already spend on marketing see where growth leaks between the first click and the signed deal, then fixes the weakest step first and reports in pipeline and revenue terms.
Frequently asked questions
Can I pay OpenAI to be recommended?
Not as a way to buy organic recommendations in answers. Advertising options in AI tools are limited and changing. The reliable route is to be clear, credible and mentioned by sources the tools consult. Anyone promising paid placement in organic answers is guessing, or selling something else entirely.
How often should I check what ChatGPT says?
Monthly is a sensible rhythm. Answers vary from run to run, so ask each question a few times and look for patterns instead of single results. Save the answers, so you can compare over time. Use the same wording each time so any changes you see come from real shifts, not from different questions.
Does my website need special code for AI?
Not special code, but clear structure helps: good headings, direct answers and structured data for your business details. There is no proven trick. The fundamentals of clarity, accuracy and credibility matter most. Plain, accurate, well organised pages beat clever markup almost every time.
Does blocking GPTBot stop ChatGPT recommending me?
Not necessarily, because OpenAI uses different crawlers for different jobs. Its documentation separates training from search and user-triggered browsing. Check the current crawler list and decide what you allow, knowing that blocking search crawlers can limit visibility in search features.
How long does it take to appear in AI answers?
It varies and cannot be promised. Changes to your site can be picked up within days or weeks, but being named depends on many signals outside your control. Track your visibility monthly instead of expecting a fixed date.
Sources
- OpenAI Platform Docs, Overview of OpenAI crawlers, accessed 2026.
- Perplexity Docs, Perplexity crawlers, accessed 2026.
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website, accessed 2026.
- Google Search Central, Introduction to structured data markup in Google Search, accessed 2026.
- Pew Research Center, 34% of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, 2025.