Insights ยท How-to
How to Check If AI Recommends Your Business
A simple prompt test you can run in under an hour.
How do I test whether AI recommends my business?
List the questions a buyer would ask before choosing a business like yours, then ask each one in ChatGPT, Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode), Perplexity and Copilot. Note whether your business appears, what is said about it and which websites are cited.
Use natural questions, not keywords. For example: 'Who are the best family dentists in Murfreesboro?' or 'Which accountants near me help small businesses with QuickBooks?'
- Use a private or signed-out window where possible
- Ask each question the same way every month
- Include questions with and without your town name
- Log results in a spreadsheet
What should I record?
Four things tell you most of what you need to know.
- Mentioned: yes or no
- Accuracy: are your services, location and hours right?
- Position: first recommendation or one of many?
- Sources: which sites does the AI cite?
What do I do with the results?
If you are missing, look at the sources the AI cites for competitors: directories, review sites, local news and industry lists. Those are the places where your business needs an accurate presence.
If details are wrong, correct them at the source: your website, Google Business Profile and major listings. Research on AI answers has found low overlap between engines for the same prompt, so expect differences and track the trend over time.
Sources
- Think Before Writing (arXiv 2604.19113, 2026)
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
Sources checked on . Third-party findings are reported as published and may be correlational.
Written by
Dr. Abaid Ahmad
Founder of Summit Digital Marketing. Fellow and Chartered Marketer (CIM, UK), Chartered Manager, PhD and MBA, with more than ten years of digital marketing using AI.
Next step
Find out what AI says about your business
Request a free AI visibility audit. You get a written summary and prioritised fixes within one business day of hearing from you.