How do you check whether AI assistants recommend your business?

You check whether AI assistants recommend your business by asking them the questions your customers ask, in your customers' words, and recording who gets named. Do it across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google, repeat it every month, and back it up with your analytics so you can see whether those answers send you visitors. Once your question list is set, the monthly check is the same routine every time.

Typing your own company name into ChatGPT tells you almost nothing. Here's how to do it properly.

Why isn't searching your own name enough?

Because your customers don't search for you by name until they already know you. They ask "who's the best accountant for a small limited company" or "which plumbers near me do boiler servicing". The test that matters is whether you appear in the answer to those questions.

It matters because AI use is growing fast. Ofcom's December 2025 report on how the UK goes online found ChatGPT had 1.8 billion UK visits in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million in the same period of 2024. For many searches, an AI answer now appears before any website.

Which questions should you test?

Write down 15 to 20 questions your customers ask before they buy. The best source is your own inbox and phone: the questions people ask when they first get in touch. Add the obvious buying questions for each service and each town you cover.

Mix three kinds:

• Who to use: "Which accountant in Leeds is good for small businesses?"
• What it costs: "How much does a new boiler cost in Bristol?"
• How to choose: "What should I look for in a solicitor for a house purchase?"

Keep them in a spreadsheet so you ask exactly the same questions every month. If the wording changes, you can't compare one month with the next.

How do you run the test without skewing the results?

AI assistants can tailor answers to the person asking, so test in a way that's as close as possible to a new customer. Use a private browser window, sign out where the tool lets you, and turn off memory or personalisation settings if you're signed in.

Ask each question in each tool you care about: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google Search, where AI Overviews appear above the results. For each answer, record four things:

• Were you named, and in what position?
• How were you described, and was it accurate?
• Who was named instead of you?
• Which websites did the tool cite or link to?

That last column is the most useful one. If an AI tool keeps citing the same directory, review site or article when it names your competitors, that's a source you need to be on.

AI answers change from one day to the next, so don't panic over a single result. Look at the pattern across all your questions, month on month.

How can you see AI traffic in your analytics?

Being named is good. Being named and clicked is better, and your analytics can show it.

ChatGPT makes this easy to track. OpenAI's publishers and developers FAQ says ChatGPT automatically includes utm_source=chatgpt.com in referral URLs, so visits from ChatGPT search show up by that source in Google Analytics and similar tools. Set up a report that filters for it, along with referrals from perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com.

Google is less direct. Its guidance on AI features and your website says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in the Search Console Performance report, under the "Web" search type, alongside the rest of your Google traffic. So you see the clicks, but not split out from ordinary results. Watch for longer, question-style queries in that report.

What if AI tools can't see your site at all?

Check this before anything else. OpenAI's crawler documentation is clear that a site opted out of OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT search answers, and it says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to reach its search systems. GPTBot is a separate crawler used for model training, and blocking it is a different choice.

Open yoursite.co.uk/robots.txt and look for a rule that blocks OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Bingbot or Googlebot. Ask your developer or host whether a firewall or CDN setting turns AI crawlers away. Google lists allowing crawling in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure as one of the SEO basics that still applies to AI features.

A blocked crawler keeps a good business out of AI answers, and it's the easiest thing on this list to fix.

Can a tool track your AI mentions for you?

Yes. Prompt tracking tools run a set list of questions through AI assistants on a schedule and record who gets named, so you don't have to do it by hand. They're worth it once your list grows past a few dozen questions or you want daily data.

A tool still needs the right questions, though, and it won't tell you why a competitor is named instead of you. That part takes a person reading the answers and the sources behind them.

What should you do with the results?

Sort your questions into three groups: named and described accurately, named but described wrongly, and not named at all.

Wrong descriptions come from wrong facts somewhere. Find where the AI tool got them (an old listing, a stale price on your site, an outdated directory profile) and fix it everywhere. Questions where you're missing need pages on your site that answer them clearly, and a presence on the sites the AI tools keep citing.

That's the work of GEO, and it's what we run every day for clients inside the DLR Growth Engine, at £1,499 a month + VAT on a 12-month term, with a monthly report on where you're named, how you're described and who appears instead. If you want a one-off picture first, our GEO audits are scoped and priced before we start, with no ongoing contract. For the full background on getting named, read our guide on how to get recommended by ChatGPT and other AI assistants.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find out if AI assistants recommend my company?

Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google the questions your customers ask, in a private window, and record who gets named. Repeat the same questions every month and track referrals from those tools in your analytics.

How often should I check?

Monthly. AI answers shift from day to day, so a monthly check on a fixed set of questions shows the real trend without chasing every change.

Can I see ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics?

Yes. OpenAI says ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links, so ChatGPT search visits show up under that source.

Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?

Check which sites ChatGPT cites for that question and what they say about your competitor. Then make sure your own pages answer the question and your details are on those sources too.

Want us to run the check for you? Call us on +44 1382 699595.