How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

To get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, make it easy for each tool to find you and describe you correctly. Let their crawlers into your website, complete your Google and Bing listings, answer customers’ questions plainly on your pages, and earn reviews and mentions on other sites. Then ask the tools yourself.

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1. Why does an AI tool recommend one business and not another?
2. Where does each AI tool get its business information?
3. How do you get recommended by AI tools, step by step?
4. What does not help you get recommended?
5. Can you do this yourself, or should you hire help?
6. Key takeaways
7. FAQs

Why does an AI tool recommend one business and not another?

An AI tool recommends the businesses that the pages and listings it finds describe as a good fit for the question. If your details are missing, vague or contradicted elsewhere, it has little reason to name you over a competitor.

Ask ChatGPT for “a good aircond servicing company in Puchong” and it does not pick from memory. Like Gemini and Perplexity, it searches first, reads what comes back and writes a short answer that names a few businesses. Our guide What is AI SEO? explains how each tool searches.

So the question is not how to impress the AI. It is whether the places it reads say, clearly and in agreement, that you do this job, in this area, and do it well.

Where does each AI tool get its business information?

ChatGPT uses web search and local listings from outside providers, Gemini uses Google Maps and Google Search, Perplexity runs a live web search, and Copilot uses Bing. Each one points to a different first fix.

Where each AI tool looks for businesses, and what to fix first

From OpenAI (opens in a new tab), OpenAI Help (opens in a new tab), Gemini Apps Help (opens in a new tab), Perplexity (opens in a new tab), Microsoft Support (opens in a new tab) and Google Search Central (opens in a new tab), checked October 2026.

Two details matter for a local business. Gemini’s help pages say it uses public information from Google Maps to give a place’s address, website, ratings and opening hours. OpenAI says ChatGPT may share your general location with trusted third-party providers for local information such as nearby business listings, but it does not name them.

Because OpenAI does not say which listings it uses, the safe course is to keep your name, address, phone number and hours correct on every listing you can find, not only on Google.

How do you get recommended by AI tools, step by step?

Work through six steps in order: open your website to AI search crawlers, complete your Google and Bing listings, give each service a clear page, collect detailed reviews, get onto the pages the answers already cite, and check the results every month.

Step 1: Let the AI search crawlers in

A website can turn these tools away without its owner knowing, through its robots.txt file or a security setting at its host. OpenAI says plainly that sites which block OAI-SearchBot (opens in a new tab) will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and that a change to robots.txt takes about 24 hours to count. Perplexity reads the web with PerplexityBot (opens in a new tab) in the same way.

If your website runs through Cloudflare, look at its AI settings. Since July 2026 Cloudflare lets every plan control AI crawlers by purpose (opens in a new tab): search, agents acting for a person, and training. Its Block setting now also stops Googlebot and Bingbot (opens in a new tab), which crawl for both search and training. To refuse training but stay in search, Cloudflare points to its Disallow AI Training setting instead.

If you are not sure how your site is set up, ask whoever built it to check these two places. It is a ten-minute job, and nothing else on this list works while the door is shut.

Step 2: Complete your Google and Bing listings

Your Google Business Profile feeds Google Maps, which Gemini reads, and Google’s own AI features. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information (opens in a new tab) are more likely to show up in local results, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help. Fill in every field: categories, services, areas you serve, hours, photos and a description in plain words.

Copilot answers from Bing, so claim your listing on Bing Places for Business (opens in a new tab), which controls how you appear in Bing Maps, and add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools. Then match the same details on Facebook and any directory that lists you.

Step 3: Give each service a clear page

A home page that says “we do all kinds of aircond work” gives a tool little to quote. A page that says “We service, repair and install aircond units for homes and shops in Puchong, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam, from RM80 a unit, seven days a week” answers who, what, where and how much in one breath.

Give each main service its own page, write the headings as the questions customers ask, and answer each in the first sentence or two. Microsoft says assistants such as Copilot judge a page in small pieces (opens in a new tab), so each piece should make sense on its own. Google asks for important content to be in text, not only in pictures (opens in a new tab), so keep prices and service areas out of image-only banners.

Step 4: Collect reviews that say what you did

Gemini can read a place’s reviews and sum them up, so the words in your reviews become part of how you are described. “Great service!” says little. “They fixed our leaking aircond in Bandar Puteri the same day” tells a tool the job, the place and the speed.

After a job, send the customer your review link and ask them to mention what you did for them. Never pay for reviews, offer discounts in return for them or write them yourself: Google’s Maps content policy (opens in a new tab) bans all three and removes them.

Step 5: Get onto the pages the answers already cite

When an AI tool answers, it usually shows the sites it used. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, and note the sources. If the same directory, association or “best of” article keeps appearing, that is where the tools are looking for your trade.

Make sure you are listed there with correct details, ask to be considered where a list takes suggestions, and fix any old address or phone number you find. Local news coverage and membership of a trade association also give the tools more ways to confirm who you are.

Step 6: Check every month

Ask the same customer questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot once a month, in English and Bahasa Malaysia if your customers use both, and keep a note of who is named. AI answers change from one try to the next, so look for a pattern over months rather than reading much into one answer.

Bing Webmaster Tools’ free AI Performance report (opens in a new tab) shows how often Copilot cites your pages. Our free AI search readiness check opens the AI tools with a customer’s question for you and scores the rest of this list.

What does not help you get recommended?

Shortcuts do not help: special AI files, hidden text written for chatbots, bought reviews and paying for a better place. Google says its AI features need no special files or markup, and that a better local ranking cannot be bought.

• AI text files. Google says you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup (opens in a new tab) to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Your time is better spent on the pages themselves.
• Hidden text for chatbots. Words placed where visitors cannot see them, such as white text on a white background, break Google’s spam policies (opens in a new tab) and can cost you your place in Google altogether.
• Bought or swapped reviews. They break Google’s Maps content policy and are removed when found.
• Paying for a better place. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking (opens in a new tab). Be wary of anyone who promises a guaranteed mention by ChatGPT.

Schema, the code that labels your business for machines, is still worth adding to a website for ordinary search. It just is not a switch that makes AI tools recommend you. Our guide to SEO, AEO and GEO explains where it helps.

Can you do this yourself, or should you hire help?

You can do most of it yourself: listings, reviews and monthly checks need time rather than skills. Crawler settings, page rewrites and schema are where a web designer or SEO specialist saves you the most time and mistakes.

Steps 2, 4, 5 and 6 are mostly patience and a spreadsheet. Steps 1 and 3 touch your website’s settings and content, which is where small mistakes, such as a security rule that blocks Googlebot, can cost you more than they save.

If you would rather hand it over, Chapter’s SEO and AI SEO services start with an audit of these same six steps. Nobody can promise a recommendation from ChatGPT, so we will not either; we can make sure nothing on your side stands in the way.

Key takeaways

• AI tools recommend the businesses that the pages and listings they find describe clearly and consistently.
• ChatGPT uses outside listing providers, Gemini uses Google Maps, Perplexity searches the web and Copilot uses Bing.
• Check first that OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot can reach your website, including in Cloudflare.
• Complete your Google and Bing listings, give each service a clear page and ask for reviews that say what you did.
• Skip AI text files, hidden text and bought reviews, and check the tools every month for a pattern.