Tell us three things
Your trade, your town, and two competitors you lose jobs to. The form below takes a minute.
AI search
When customers ask AI who to hire, are you in the answer?
More people are skipping the search results and asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI Mode directly. The reply names two or three businesses. This page explains how those names get chosen, what you can honestly do about it, and how to find out where you stand today — for free.
Included in the Growth Package · Free check · No promised placements
What changed
Search gave ten links. An assistant gives two or three names.
For twenty years, being found meant ranking on a page of ten blue links and a map with three pins. People scanned, compared and clicked. Sixth place was not great, but people still saw you.
An AI answer works differently. Someone types, or says, “who should I call to fix a leaking sprinkler line in Orlando?” and the assistant writes back a short answer naming a couple of businesses, with a sentence on why each. Nobody sees the sixth name. There is no sixth name.
Two things follow from that. Being mentioned is all or nothing: you are in the answer or you are not. And the answer is assembled from what the web says about you, not only from your website — your Google profile, your reviews, the lists and directories that mention you, and whether all of those agree with each other.
It has not replaced Google. For most local services, people still end up on Google Maps or on the phone. But it is a new front door, it is growing, and it rewards one kind of business above all: the one whose facts are clear, consistent and easy to quote.
Anatomy of an answer
Where each sentence of a recommendation comes from.
The answer below is an illustration, put together to show the mechanics. It is not a real answer and the businesses are placeholders. Each highlighted claim comes from a different kind of source.
Illustration
Who should I call to replace a wood fence in Lubbock?
Here are a couple of well-reviewed options:
[Business A] installs and repairs wood, iron and vinyl fencing across Lubbock and Wolfforth1. Customers often mention fast quotes and a clean site afterward2, and it appears on a couple of local “best fence companies” lists3.
[Business B] lists its prices per linear foot on its website4 and is open on Saturdays1, which helps if you want someone to look at it this weekend.
Would you like me to compare their warranties?
- 1Google Business Profile
Services, service area, hours and categories. The source assistants lean on most for local questions, and the one most owners fill in once and forget.
- 2What reviews actually say
Not only the star rating. Assistants summarise the themes that come up again and again, so the words in your reviews matter.
- 3What other sites say about you
Local “best of” lists, news, associations, supplier directories. An assistant trusts what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.
- 4Plain facts on your website
Services, prices, area, hours, credentials. Slogans do not get quoted. Specifics do.
What moves the odds
Mostly the work you should already be doing. Then a few extras.
For a local business, most of AI visibility is the same work as local SEO. Anyone telling you it is an entirely new discipline is selling you something new to buy.
The foundation
Same work as local SEO- A complete Google profile with the right categories, real photos, accurate hours and every service listed.
- Reviews that keep arriving, each one answered. Recency counts as much as the total.
- The same name, address and phone on every listing that mentions you.
- A website that states facts plainly: what you do, where, for roughly how much, and when.
If these are weak, nothing in the other column will save you. Start here.
The new parts
What AI search adds- Mentions on the sites assistants cite — local lists, associations, suppliers, news. Earned, not bought.
- Bing Places, claimed. Several assistants lean on Bing’s index, and most local businesses have never touched their Bing listing.
- Structured data that states your business type, area, hours and services in a form machines read without guessing.
- An open door. Some hosts and plugins now block AI crawlers by default. If they cannot read you, they cannot recommend you.
- Answers to exact questions. “Do you replace just one damaged section?” deserves a sentence somewhere a machine can find it.
These are small jobs, mostly done once and then kept accurate. They matter because almost nobody local has done them yet.
A word on llms.txt
It is a proposed plain-text summary of a website, written for AI tools. It is not an official standard, Google has said it does not use it, and nobody can show it is why an assistant picked a business. It also takes about an hour, so we add one as part of the Growth Package — this site has one. Anyone selling it as the key to AI visibility is overselling it.
What we will not say
Nobody can promise you a place in ChatGPT.
Not us, not anyone. The same question gets different answers from different assistants, on different days, for different people — location, history and phrasing all move it. Someone guaranteeing “number one in ChatGPT” is describing one lucky run.
What we can promise is measurement: the same questions, asked the same way, every month, with screenshots you keep. You will know whether it is working, and so will we.
The free check
Ten questions, four assistants, every answer kept.
This is the actual test. The example is for a landscaper in Orlando; yours uses your trade, your town and the competitors you lose jobs to.
- 01
Who is the best landscaper in Orlando?
The broad question most people start with - 02
I need sprinkler repair in Orlando. Who should I call?
A job, not a category - 03
Who does sod installation near Winter Park?
A neighborhood, not the city - 04
Which landscapers in Orlando have the best reviews?
Whether your reviews are being read - 05
Cheapest lawn service in Orlando that is still good
The price-sensitive buyer - 06
Is [your business] any good?
What people ask after hearing your name - 07
[Your business] or [competitor]?
The head-to-head - 08
Does [your business] do irrigation repair?
Whether it can find your services - 09
What are [your business]’s hours and service area?
The facts it repeats about you - 10
A landscaper in Orlando who gives free estimates
A specific need you can win on
We run the test
Ten questions in four assistants, logged out, with a screenshot of every answer.
You get the receipts
Within three business days: every screenshot, and one page on where you appear and why you do not.
Keep it either way
No call required. If you want the gaps closed, the Growth Package does that, and the check repeats monthly.
Request yours
Find out what AI says about you.
Free, by email, within three business days. You keep the screenshots whether or not we ever speak again.
A real example
What it looks like when it works.
BlankSlate Innovation sells nuclear track detectors and helium-3 testing from Lubbock. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Mode where to buy CR-39 detectors, or who can test a gas well for helium-3, and BSI comes up first — five times out of five in our last check, logged out, on questions that never mention it.
It is also the clearest argument for checking rather than assuming. Two of those five answers quoted prices or sizes BSI had already changed. Assistants lag, and you only find out by asking.
And it is where the orders come from: about 90% of BSI’s CR-39 orders now arrive from people who found it through Google or an AI assistant.
Where it fits
Part of the Growth Package, not a separate bill.
AI search depends on everything else being right, so it lives inside the $850/mo Growth Package with the website, local SEO and review system it relies on, and the visibility check runs every month. Locally owned businesses may qualify for up to 50% off.
Free · 15 minutes · No obligation
Book your free strategy call
Pick a time below. We will look at your Google Business Profile and your current site together, live, and tell you exactly what is holding the calls back.
- We audit your Google Business Profile live on the call
- You get a straight answer on what it costs
- No contracts, no pressure, no sales script
Grab a time that works for you.
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Questions
What owners ask about AI.
Can you get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Nobody can guarantee it, because nobody controls what an assistant says. What we can do is make you easy to recommend — a complete profile, steady reviews, consistent facts, mentions on the sites assistants read — and then measure the answers every month so you can see whether it is moving.
Is AI search replacing Google?
No. For most local services people still end up on Google Maps or on the phone, and Google now puts its own AI answers at the top of many searches anyway. Think of AI assistants as an extra front door that rewards the same fundamentals, rather than a replacement for the old one.
Do I need a separate “AI SEO” service?
No. Most of it is local SEO done properly, and the extras are small. That is why it is part of the Growth Package instead of being sold on its own.
What is llms.txt, and do I need one?
A proposed plain-text file that summarises your site for AI tools. It is not an official standard and Google has said it does not use it. It is cheap, so we add one for Growth clients, but it is a nice-to-have, not the reason anyone gets recommended.
Which assistants do you check?
ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, all logged out so your own history does not colour the results. Those four cover most of what people use. If your customers lean on something else, tell us and we will add it.
How long before changes show up in AI answers?
It varies. Assistants that search the web live can pick up a change once the page is re-read, which can be days. Answers that lean on what a model already learned move far slower. BSI is a real example: a week after it changed a detector thickness, ChatGPT was still quoting the old one.
Why is the check free?
Because it is the most honest way to start. You see exactly what assistants say about you and your competitors before anyone talks about money, and the screenshots are yours to keep whether or not you hire us.
Let’s get your phone ringing.
Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you will leave knowing exactly what to fix first.