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Is Your Business Visible in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity? Here’s How to Check

Hamish Lister

May 7, 2026

If a potential customer asked ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours in your area right now, would your name come up?

For most UK businesses, the answer is probably not. According to SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index, which analysed hundreds of thousands of business locations, ChatGPT recommends just 1.2% of local businesses. The same study found that strong performance in Google’s local results does not automatically translate into AI visibility. In retail, fewer than half the brands performing well in traditional local search also appeared in AI recommendations. Your Google ranking and your AI visibility are two different things, measured in two different places.

ChatGPT processes over 2.5 billion daily queries. Perplexity is growing fast. Google AI Overviews now appear on around 25% of all searches, though this varies significantly depending on query type. For UK businesses that have invested in local SEO, the signals that determine AI visibility are largely the same ones already being built. The gap tends to be in whether those signals are sent consistently enough across all platforms these AI tools draw from.

 

Open ChatGPT (chat.openai.com), Perplexity (perplexity.ai) and Google in separate windows. Use a private/incognito window if you want to reduce personalisation, but be aware that some Google features, including AI Overviews, may not always appear in private mode or for every user in the UK.

Then search for your service and location the way a customer would:

  • “Best [your service] in [your town or city]”
  • “Who should I call for [your service] near [your area]”
  • “[Your service] + [your town]”

On Google, look for an AI Overview box at the top of the results. If it appears, check whether your business is mentioned there and whether the details are accurate.

What to look for

  • Does your business appear at all?
  • Is the name, address and phone number correct?
  • Are your services described accurately?
  • Are reviews mentioned, and are they recent?

 

Perplexity shows its sources in a panel alongside every answer, making it the most straightforward to audit. If your website or directory listings appear in that panel, the platform is drawing from them.

ChatGPT often relies on Bing data and other web results for local searches, so your visibility in Bing and other major search engines, plus a complete Bing Places listing, can improve your chances of being mentioned.

Google AI Overviews are closely connected to organic rankings. Studies suggest that a significant share of AI Overview citations come from pages that already rank well organically, so strong organic performance remains one of the most reliable routes to AI visibility on Google.

Gemini is integrated with Google’s ecosystem and responds well to businesses with well-maintained Google Business Profiles and websites with clear, specific content about their services and locations.

Google AI Mode is a separate, opt-in tab on Google Search that works more like ChatGPT or Perplexity, giving a fully conversational AI answer instead of a traditional results page. It launched in the UK in July 2025 and draws on different sources to AI Overviews, so optimising for both is worthwhile. The same signals apply: a strong Google Business Profile, clear website content, and consistent information across the web.

 

The signals AI tools use when deciding which businesses to recommend are largely the same ones that have always driven good local SEO. This is something worth knowing before assuming this requires an entirely new approach.

 

1. Your Google Business Profile

The majority of the most important local ranking factors come directly from the Google Business Profile, and that data feeds AI summaries across every major platform. A complete, accurate and active profile is doing two jobs at once: it determines where you appear in the map pack and whether you get cited in AI-generated answers above it.

For many customers, the GBP is where the entire interaction with a business happens. They search, see a listing, and call or get directions without ever visiting the website. An incomplete profile hands those customers to a competitor who spent twenty minutes filling theirs in properly.

What to check and maintain:

  • Business name, address and phone number identical across every directory, social profile and website listing
  • Primary category reflects the main service generating your revenue
  • Service descriptions, opening hours and Q&A sections complete and current
  • Photos updated regularly: fresh images send stronger activity signals
  • Posts published consistently: Google and AI tools both read regular activity as a freshness signal

 

2. Your website

AI tools build their picture of a business from what the website says and how clearly it says it. Dedicated service pages that describe what you do and where, in the direct language customers actually use, consistently outperform vague homepage content. This is the core principle behind generative engine optimisation, or GEO: structuring content so AI systems can read, understand and cite it confidently. Our guide to optimising for AI-powered search covers the content signals worth prioritising.

 

3. Your reviews

AI tools read reviews, not just count them. A business with recent, detailed reviews mentioning specific services and locations gives AI systems considerably more to work with than one with a high star rating and no accompanying text. A steady flow of current reviews consistently outperforms a large volume of older ones across every platform.

 

4. Consistency across the web

AI systems verify businesses by cross-referencing information across multiple sources. Inconsistent name, address or phone number across directories, social profiles and the website creates ambiguity, and that ambiguity tends to mean omission rather than a qualified mention.

 

5. Third-party mentions

Coverage in local press, industry directories and community publications carries authority that self-published content cannot replicate. AI tools weight third-party references heavily when assessing which businesses are credible enough to recommend.

Are you getting everything you should from your local search presence? We work with businesses across the UK on AI search optimisation and can help you improve your online visibility.
Talk to our team

 

The bigger picture

AI search is not replacing Google, but it is running alongside it in a way that is changing how a meaningful share of customers discover local businesses. The businesses appearing consistently across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews tend to share the same characteristics: a well-maintained Google Business Profile, a website that answers the questions customers are actually searching, and consistent information across the web.

For businesses that have already invested in those areas, the shift to AI-powered search is less disruptive than it might appear. For those with gaps, addressing them now has a direct impact on visibility across both traditional and AI-driven results.

Our article on the decline of the local 3-pack covers how local search is changing more broadly, and our AI marketing glossary explains terms like GEO, AEO and AI Overviews in plain English.

 

See how your business appears in AI search

LOCALiQ manages SEO and AI search visibility for businesses across the UK. Get in touch and we will show you how your business currently appears across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and what is worth prioritising to improve it.

 

Hamish Lister
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Hamish Lister

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