Whether ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity name your business when a customer asks for the best option nearby — what it is, why it matters now, and how to earn it.
AI visibility is whether AI assistants — ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity — name your business when someone asks them for the best option in your category and area. You earn it the same way you earn trust: a complete, consistent presence across the web (especially Google Business Profile and Bing Places), genuine recent reviews, clear answer-shaped content, and structured data the engines can read. Most businesses see AI citations improve within 60–90 days of fixing those fundamentals.
Classic SEO gets your page into a list of blue links. AI visibility — what the industry calls GEO, generative engine optimization — is about being named inside the assistant's answer itself, where there's often no list of links at all. When a customer asks an AI for a recommendation and acts on it, the businesses it names are the only ones that existed for that customer.
This isn't a someday problem. Traffic sourced from large language models has been growing roughly 800% year over year, and your customers are already asking AI where to eat, who to hire, and which provider to trust.
Each engine pulls from different sources, so you can be named in one and invisible in another. That's why it's worth measuring all five.
There's no form or fee that makes an engine recommend you. You earn it with the fundamentals — most of them free and entirely in your control.
ChatGPT leans heavily on Bing. If your business isn't in Bing Places, ChatGPT often can't find you at all — yet almost no one does this. It's the single biggest quick win.
Google is the most trusted source for local AI recommendations. Fill in every field — categories, hours, services, photos, website — and keep it current.
Your name, address, and phone must match exactly across your site, directories, and social profiles. Inconsistencies confuse both people and AI, and split your entity into several weak ones.
Recent, genuine reviews — and visible responses to them — are a core trust signal AI engines weigh. Aim for a steady cadence rather than a one-time burst.
Lead with the answer (bottom line up front), then support it. Clear, fact-dense pages that directly answer customer questions are far easier for an LLM to quote.
Schema.org markup tells engines exactly what your business is, where, and what you offer. It's one of the strongest machine-readable signals — and most local sites have none.
It's whether AI assistants name your business when a customer asks them a question like “what's the best dentist near me?” or “top Italian restaurant in Austin.” Classic SEO is about ranking in a list of links; AI visibility is about being the answer the assistant gives directly.
Run a free snapshot — Sonar checks all five AI engines and shows you exactly where you're named, where you're not, and what to fix first.