Get found in AI search: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews for local businesses

By the end of this guide, you know what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers say about your business, you’ve fixed the sources they draw on, and you have a 15-minute monthly check to keep it that way.

There’s no secret trick here, and anyone selling one should make you suspicious. Google says it plainly: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary” (Google Search Central). AI tools repeat what the web says about you. So the job is making sure the web says the right thing, in the places they read.

What you need

• Access to your Google Business Profile, or the right to claim it. Free.
• Access to your website, or the contact details of whoever looks after it.
• This week’s template: the AI-search readiness checklist.
• Accounts: free ChatGPT and Perplexity accounts are enough for the checks.
• Cost: CHF 0.
• Time: about 2.5 hours the first time, then 15 minutes a month.
• Skill level: no technical skills needed. Step 5 needs your website person for five minutes.

Steps

1. Ask the AI tools about yourself (20 minutes)

Ask the question a new customer would ask, with your town and trade. Do it in ChatGPT (with search on), Perplexity and Google (look at the AI answer at the top, if one appears):

• “Who is a good [your trade] in [your town]?”
• “What are the opening hours of [your business name] in [your town]?”
• “What does [your business name] offer, and what does it cost?”

Write down each answer in the first section of the checklist: are you named, are the hours, address, phone and services right, and which websites does the tool cite as sources? The cited sources tell you where to fix things.

This week’s AI search visibility check skill gives you these questions ready-made and scores the answers you paste back.