In short
AI assistants now name businesses in their answers. What ChatGPT and Google's AI tools look for, and how to become the easy business to recommend.
You get recommended by ChatGPT and other AI assistants by making your business easy for them to find, understand and trust. That means a website these tools are allowed to read, clear facts about what you do, where you do it and who for, and other trusted sites that say the same things about you. The work is called GEO, short for generative engine optimisation, and it builds on good SEO rather than replacing it.
Nobody can force an AI assistant to name a particular business. What you control is the evidence it finds when it goes looking, and that's where the effort belongs.
Are customers really asking AI who to use?
Yes, and in fast-growing numbers. Ofcom's Online Nation research from 2025 found that ChatGPT had 1.8 billion UK visits in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million in the same period of 2024. The same report says "about 30% of searches now show AI overviews, and more than half (53%) of adults say they see these summaries often", which puts AI answers in front of customers whether they went looking for them or not.
So even customers who never open ChatGPT are reading AI answers, because Google now puts one above the links on a large share of searches. When the question is who to use, the answer is short and names a handful of businesses. If you're not one of them, you've missed the moment the customer was deciding who to call.
How do AI assistants decide which businesses to mention?
They build their answers from what they can read. OpenAI's crawler documentation, checked in October 2026, says its OAI-SearchBot crawler is used to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features, and that sites which opt out of it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers". Google's AI Overviews work from Google's own index. Google Search Central's guidance on AI features, updated in December 2025, says a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet before it can appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that there are no additional technical requirements.
Access is only the first step. Once these tools can reach you, they weigh what your website says, any structured information about your business, and what other sites, directories and reviews say about you. When all of that is clear and agrees, you're an easy business to recommend. When it's vague or contradictory, you give them less reason to name you.
Is your website shutting AI tools out?
Check this first, because it stops everything else from working. Your robots.txt file tells crawlers which parts of your site they can visit. A rule added years ago, or a setting in a security plugin, can block a crawler without anyone in the business knowing. If it blocks OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI says your pages won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers, however good they are.
The same logic applies to Google. A page Google hasn't indexed can't be one of the links in an AI Overview, so broken pages and accidental "noindex" tags cost you twice: once in normal search and again in AI answers. Every website we build is SEO and GEO ready from day one, with clean code, fast loading and the structure Google and AI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini need.
What should your website say so AI can recommend you?
AI assistants answer questions, so your website has to answer them too, plainly. Take an electrician covering Dundee and Angus as an example. A homepage line like "quality solutions for all your needs" gives an AI tool nothing to repeat when someone asks who does electrical work in Angus. A line like "We install and test domestic wiring across Dundee and Angus" gives it a fact it can use.
The content AI tools pick up on is specific and factual:
- What you do, in the words customers use, with a page for each main service
- The areas you genuinely cover
- Plain answers to the questions customers ask before they buy, including prices where you can give them
- Structured data (schema) that spells out your business name, services and location
- The same name, phone number and details you use everywhere else.
None of this is writing for robots. It's the same information a customer wants before they pick up the phone, laid out so a machine can't misread it.
Why does it matter what other websites say about you?
Your own website is half the evidence. AI tools also weigh what the rest of the web says about you, from other websites to directories and reviews. When your name, address, services and contact details match everywhere, the tools see one consistent business. When an old directory lists a phone number you stopped using and a trading name you dropped, you look less certain.
Reviews do two jobs here. They persuade the customer, and they give AI tools independent proof of what you do and how well you do it. A steady flow of reviews that mention the actual work, such as a rewire, a new roof or a set of year-end accounts, backs up the claims on your website far better than your own words can.
How do you know if AI assistants are recommending you?
You ask them. Put the questions your customers ask into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, then note whether you're named, how you're described and which competitors turn up instead. AI answers shift over time, so a single check tells you very little. Run the same questions every month and you'll see the trend.
Your website traffic adds the other half of the picture. We track how many visitors reach your site from AI tools, so you can see whether the people reading those answers are clicking through to you. We put both into our clients' reporting, so they can see the change for themselves rather than taking our word for it.
Where should you start?
If you want to know where you stand before committing to anything, our GEO and AI search visibility audit checks how often and how accurately your business appears in tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, compares you with competitors and sets out the content, authority and technical changes to make first. It's a standalone piece of work with no ongoing contract.
If you'd rather hand the work over, GEO runs alongside SEO in the DLR Growth Engine, together with Google Ads, Meta Ads and a free custom website worth £4,500, for £1,499 a month + VAT on a 12-month term. Our GEO page explains the work in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO different from SEO?
Yes. SEO decides where you rank in Google's list of results, while GEO decides whether AI tools name you and describe you correctly. The groundwork is shared, from a site that can be crawled to consistent details across the web, so we run the two together.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend my business?
No. Nobody controls what an AI assistant says, and anyone promising otherwise is overselling. What we control is the evidence: your site, your details across the web and your reviews, and we report on how you're mentioned each month.
Do I need a new website to show up in AI answers?
No, not if your current site can be crawled, loads quickly and says clearly what you do and where. If it can't, the Growth Engine includes a free custom website that's SEO and GEO ready from day one.
How long does GEO take to work?
It depends on three things: how much your website needs fixing, how competitive your market is and how much trusted evidence about you already exists online. Access and content fixes come first, then reviews and mentions build month by month.
Find out what AI says about you
Want to know what ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews say about your business today? Call us on +44 1382 699595 or book a GEO audit.
