Everyone’s Googled themselves, but have you ChatGPTed yourself? More specifically, your business?
If your business has been around for a while, chances are that it will know of you, it might even be able to tell a little bit about you, but does it know your business and recommend it to people who ask?
Have you asked “Where can I get fish and chips in Wakefield?” “I need to get my car serviced in Runnymede — where should I go?” “I need a wiring loom for a Ford short block V8 — where’s the best place to buy from?”
What did it say?
The change
Back in the old days (2024), you could Google “fish and chips near me” and you’d get a list of links on the first page of your search. Let’s be honest: no one ever clicks page two, so if you had a good SEO game, you’d be on the first page and in with a fighting chance. AI has changed that journey. You ask ChatGPT for a recommendation and it gives a short answer. If your name is not in there, your potential customer may never know you exist.
The stats
A 2026 analysis by SOCi covered more than 350,000 business locations. In SOCi’s tests, ChatGPT included the brand being checked in just 1.2% of responses. That is a finding from a large multi-location brand dataset, not a claim that 98.8% of all businesses are absent from every ChatGPT answer. The practical point is simpler: when an AI answer names only a few options, clearer and better-corroborated competitors can be chosen instead of you.
One single-client study published by Seer Interactive observed a 15.9% conversion rate from ChatGPT-referred visitors, compared with 1.76% from Google organic. It is an interesting directional result, not an industry-wide benchmark; conversion rates will vary by business, audience and how they are measured.
Why does it do this?
AI answer engines do not work in exactly the same way as a traditional list of search results. They need clear, specific information that can be retrieved, understood and supported elsewhere on the web. That means:
- Structured, specific content. If an FAQ says “Fred’s Boat Hire is open from 9am until 5pm and you can choose from five kinds of boats,” an answer engine has something useful to work with. Vague marketing language that looks like everyone else’s is less helpful.
- Recognition outside your website. Relevant reviews, trusted directories, forum discussions and press can corroborate what your own site says.
- Consistent basic information. If your name, address or phone number varies across Google, directories and your website, systems have less reason to be confident they have identified the right business.
Do it yourself, now
Ask ChatGPT, Google’s AI results or Perplexity about your area. See whether it recommends you. If you appear, great — but check whether the answer reflects what you actually do and what customers value. If you do not appear, who does? What clear, credible presence do they have that you do not?
Quick fixes
You can do these right now:
- Rewrite your top product or service page with specific, concrete details instead of “high quality” language.
- Make sure your name, address and phone details match everywhere.
- Add an FAQ page using the real questions customers ask.
Get the LLMs to help you with this — not write it all for you. As useful as they are, they can produce the same generic copy for you that they can for everyone else.
Deep Domain does this systematically across several AI engines, measuring what answer engines say about you, your competitors and where the gaps are. Get in touch for a chat.