How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Other AI Platforms

How businesses can improve their visibility in AI-powered search by building authority, creating useful content and making their expertise easier for intelligent systems to understand

For more than two decades, businesses wanting to be discovered online have concentrated heavily on Google. Search Engine Optimisation became an essential part of digital marketing because appearing prominently when a potential customer searched for a relevant product or service could generate valuable website traffic, enquiries and sales.

That behaviour is beginning to change.

Customers can now ask AI platforms detailed questions about the products they should buy, the services they need, the companies they should consider and the differences between potential suppliers. Instead of typing several short searches into a traditional search engine and opening multiple websites, someone can have a conversation with an AI assistant and progressively refine what they are looking for.

A business owner might ask for the factors they should consider when choosing a digital marketing agency, then ask which UK agencies specialise in B2B organisations, before narrowing the conversation towards companies with particular capabilities or experience. A consumer might ask for recommendations for a particular type of product based on their requirements, budget and preferences.

Platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini are therefore becoming another layer within digital discovery. They do not eliminate Google, social media, marketplaces, review websites or traditional recommendations, but they can influence which businesses and brands customers investigate next.

Understandably, this has created a new question for marketing teams:

There is no legitimate switch businesses can activate that guarantees a recommendation. Nor is there a single piece of code, AI-specific keyword or marketing trick that makes a company the preferred answer. Different AI products use different systems, data sources, retrieval methods and ranking or recommendation processes, and those systems continue to evolve.

The more useful objective is to make your business easier to discover, understand, verify and trust across the digital environments AI systems can draw upon.

That requires many familiar digital marketing disciplines—SEO, content, branding, PR, reviews, structured information and thought leadership—but increasingly brings them together around a wider concept: digital authority.

AI is changing the customer research journey

Traditional search usually presents customers with choices. Someone enters a query, receives a page of results and decides which links to investigate.

AI can take a more active role in that research process.

A user can describe a situation in considerable detail and ask for guidance. The system may summarise different approaches, explain terminology, suggest evaluation criteria or, depending on the platform and query, surface particular products, services, organisations or sources for further investigation.

This changes the relationship between discovery and content.

Previously, a business might primarily optimise a page around a particular search phrase because it wanted that page to appear when someone searched those words. AI-driven discovery places greater emphasis on whether the wider digital presence provides enough information to understand what the organisation does and why it might be relevant to the user’s question.

Customers are also likely to ask much more specific questions.

Instead of “accountants London”, someone could ask for an accountancy firm suitable for a growing technology business with international operations. Instead of “commercial vehicle hire”, a fleet manager might ask about suitable suppliers for expanding a mixed fleet while reducing capital expenditure.

Those conversations contain considerably more context than traditional keywords.

Businesses therefore need to communicate considerably more context about themselves.

Start by understanding what AI needs to understand about your business

Before thinking about AI optimisation tactics, ask a much simpler question:

Many businesses would be surprised by the answer.

Websites frequently contain vague statements such as “innovative solutions”, “trusted partnerships” and “delivering excellence” without clearly explaining the actual products or services being provided. Company profiles use different descriptions. Social media accounts contain outdated information, while service pages assume visitors already understand industry terminology.

Humans can sometimes piece together this information.

Machines also need context.

Your digital presence should make several fundamental facts clear: who the organisation is, what it provides, which customers it serves, where it operates, which areas it specialises in and what evidence exists to support those claims.

This does not mean creating a page titled “Information for AI”.

It means communicating your business more clearly for everyone.

Clarity is one of the strongest foundations for both traditional search and AI discovery.

Your website should become a knowledge resource

A five-page brochure website containing a homepage, brief service descriptions, an about page and contact form provides relatively little information from which customers or intelligent systems can understand the depth of an organisation’s expertise.

Businesses increasingly need to think of their websites as knowledge resources.

Service pages should explain what the organisation provides in meaningful detail. Industry pages can demonstrate experience within particular sectors. Case studies can show how expertise has been applied. Articles can answer the questions customers ask throughout the buying journey.

This creates depth.

Imagine two businesses offering the same specialist service. One has a short page containing a few hundred words explaining that it provides the service. The other has detailed service information, expert articles, implementation guides, customer case studies, videos, FAQs and named specialists discussing the subject.

Which organisation provides the stronger body of evidence that it genuinely understands the topic?

That distinction matters to customers and increasingly matters within AI-driven discovery.

Build topical authority rather than chasing individual prompts

One of the biggest mistakes businesses can make is attempting to optimise for specific questions they imagine people might ask ChatGPT or Gemini.

AI conversations are extraordinarily varied. Customers can phrase the same underlying question in thousands of ways.

Trying to target every possible prompt individually is therefore unrealistic.

A stronger strategy is to build topical authority.

If your organisation wants to become associated with a particular service, technology or problem, create a comprehensive body of useful information around that subject.

Cover fundamental questions as well as advanced ones. Explain terminology, costs, implementation, benefits, limitations, common mistakes, comparisons and emerging trends. Publish customer examples and original perspectives.

Over time, this creates a connected knowledge base demonstrating that the organisation consistently understands the subject.

The objective is not to mention a keyword more frequently than competitors.

It is to become one of the most useful digital resources within your area of expertise.

Answer the questions customers actually ask

A strong AI visibility strategy often begins with information already available inside the business.

Sales teams know what prospects ask before buying. Customer service teams know where confusion occurs. Technical employees understand common implementation problems. Leadership teams know which industry developments customers are concerned about.

These questions should become part of the content strategy.

If customers regularly ask how much something costs, create a detailed cost guide. If they struggle to understand the difference between two approaches, publish a balanced comparison. If implementation time is a concern, explain the process honestly.

Businesses sometimes avoid these subjects because they worry about giving too much information away.

In reality, helpful answers often build trust.

The organisation willing to explain a complicated purchasing decision clearly can become more useful during the research process than a competitor whose website simply asks visitors to contact sales.

Create content with depth, not just volume

Generative AI has dramatically reduced the cost and effort involved in producing basic written content.

That creates both an opportunity and a problem.

Businesses can publish more frequently, but so can everyone else. The internet is increasingly filled with competent but generic articles summarising information that already existed elsewhere.

Publishing fifty shallow AI-generated articles does not automatically create authority.

Businesses should instead concentrate on adding information that reflects genuine experience.

Include expert perspectives, original examples, customer questions, practical lessons, proprietary data, research, photographs, demonstrations and detailed case studies.

AI can still assist with research, organisation, editing and repurposing, but the underlying expertise should come from the business.

As generic content becomes easier to create, genuine experience becomes more distinctive.

Case studies can become some of your strongest AI visibility assets

Case studies provide something generic informational content often cannot: evidence.

A business can claim to specialise in a particular sector, but a detailed case study showing how it solved a relevant problem for a customer provides much stronger support.

Good case studies explain the situation, challenge, approach and outcome. They provide enough detail for readers to understand what was actually delivered rather than simply presenting a testimonial and company logo.

They also help create associations.

If your organisation repeatedly publishes examples of successful work within manufacturing, for example, its digital footprint contains stronger evidence connecting the business with that sector.

Case studies therefore support conversion, SEO, sales and AI visibility simultaneously.

They demonstrate not only what the organisation says it can do but what it has actually done.

Make the experts behind your business visible

Expertise becomes more credible when customers can see who possesses it.

Businesses should consider whether their website clearly identifies the people responsible for important knowledge and services. Expert profiles, author biographies, interviews, webinars and videos can help connect individuals with subjects they genuinely understand.

LinkedIn can reinforce these relationships.

If a technical director regularly publishes knowledgeable commentary about a specialist field while the company website contains detailed resources on the same subject, those activities create a more coherent digital picture.

This also makes the organisation more human.

Customers rarely want to purchase expertise from an anonymous collection of web pages. They want confidence that knowledgeable people exist behind the company.

As AI-generated content becomes increasingly common, visible human expertise can become an important differentiator.

Brand authority matters alongside content authority

AI visibility is not purely an on-page optimisation exercise.

The wider reputation of the organisation matters.

A business that publishes hundreds of articles but is almost never referenced anywhere else online may present a weaker authority signal than an organisation regularly discussed by customers, industry publications, professional bodies, event organisers and other credible sources.

This is where branding, PR and SEO increasingly overlap.

Media coverage, awards, event appearances, partnerships, industry memberships, customer references and legitimate backlinks can all strengthen the wider digital footprint surrounding an organisation.

The objective should not be manufacturing mentions simply for AI.

It should be building a business that is genuinely visible and respected within its market, then ensuring that reputation is represented accurately online.

Strong brands leave evidence across the web.

Reviews can strengthen trust and reputation

Customer reviews can provide useful independent evidence about a business, particularly for local services, professional organisations, hospitality, retail and other sectors where customers frequently compare suppliers using review platforms.

Businesses should therefore encourage genuine customers to leave honest feedback on relevant platforms.

This should be an ongoing process rather than a sudden campaign to collect dozens of reviews at once.

The content of reviews can also provide valuable insight into what customers actually value. They may repeatedly mention responsiveness, expertise, product quality, reliability or particular members of staff.

Those patterns can help businesses understand which aspects of their reputation are strongest.

Reviews should never be manipulated or fabricated.

The objective is credible third-party evidence, not artificially creating the appearance of popularity.

Consistency across the web matters

A business should describe itself consistently across its website, social profiles, directories, industry platforms and other important digital locations.

This does not mean copying exactly the same paragraph everywhere.

It means maintaining a coherent identity.

Company names should be accurate. Services should be described consistently. Location information should be current. Leadership details should not contradict one another across different platforms.

This becomes particularly important following acquisitions, rebrands or major changes in business direction.

If one website describes an organisation as a software company, another says it is a consultancy and its own LinkedIn page still reflects a service it stopped providing five years ago, the digital picture becomes unnecessarily confusing.

Clear entities are easier for both humans and machines to understand.

Structured data can provide additional context

Structured data gives search technologies machine-readable information about particular types of content and entities.

Depending on the website, this might help describe an organisation, product, article, event, person, FAQ or other information in a standardised format.

Structured data should not be treated as a magic GEO switch.

Adding schema markup does not guarantee that an AI platform will recommend a business.

Its value is contextual.

When combined with clear website content and strong technical foundations, structured information can make important relationships easier for machines to interpret.

Businesses should therefore include structured data within a broader technical SEO strategy rather than expecting it to compensate for weak content or limited authority.

Traditional SEO still matters

The growth of AI search has led some commentators to suggest that traditional SEO is becoming irrelevant.

That conclusion is premature.

Search engines remain enormously important, and many AI experiences also interact with web search, indexes, sources and other forms of retrieval.

The technical foundations that help websites perform in traditional search remain valuable: crawlability, indexability, logical site architecture, useful content, internal linking, page performance and authority.

Businesses should therefore think of AI optimisation as an expansion of search strategy rather than a replacement for SEO.

SEO helps your business become discoverable.

Answer Engine Optimisation helps information become easier to surface when people ask questions.

Generative Engine Optimisation focuses more broadly on whether generative systems can understand and potentially use your organisation or expertise within generated responses.

The boundaries overlap considerably.

Don’t forget Bing and the wider search ecosystem

Businesses historically concentrating almost exclusively on Google should recognise that AI-driven discovery can involve a wider range of search technologies and information sources.

This reinforces the value of maintaining strong technical SEO across the web rather than optimising solely for one platform.

Search visibility, accurate business information, accessible content and authoritative external references can all contribute towards a healthier overall digital presence.

The important strategic shift is moving from “How do we rank on one search engine?” towards “How do we make our organisation discoverable wherever customers conduct research?”

That includes traditional search engines, AI assistants, social platforms, video platforms, marketplaces and industry-specific environments.

The future of search is increasingly distributed.

LinkedIn can reinforce expertise

For B2B organisations, LinkedIn can play an important role in building the digital authority surrounding both the company and its people.

Company pages can demonstrate activity, customer success and expertise, while individual specialists can provide deeper perspectives around relevant topics.

This content also reaches people directly.

A potential customer might encounter an expert on LinkedIn before ever searching for the company. They may then visit the website, read several articles and eventually ask an AI assistant to compare potential suppliers.

These channels influence one another.

Businesses should therefore avoid treating GEO as an isolated technical project.

Brand visibility is created through an ecosystem.

YouTube and video can strengthen your knowledge footprint

Some subjects are easier to demonstrate visually than explain entirely through text.

Video allows businesses to show products, demonstrate processes, interview specialists and answer customer questions in an accessible format.

Transcripts and supporting website content can also help turn video expertise into information that is easier to discover through search.

Most importantly, video provides evidence of genuine human knowledge.

An engineer explaining a technical process, a consultant discussing an industry challenge or a customer describing a successful project can communicate credibility that generic written marketing copy often struggles to achieve.

Businesses should think about their knowledge in multiple formats.

The objective is not simply publishing more content.

It is making expertise available wherever customers prefer to consume it.

Digital PR is becoming increasingly connected with GEO

PR has traditionally focused on awareness, reputation and media coverage.

Those benefits remain important, but digital PR can also contribute towards the broader information environment surrounding a brand.

If respected publications discuss an organisation’s research, quote its experts or reference its work, those mentions create independent evidence connecting the company with particular subjects.

Original research can be especially valuable.

Businesses with access to useful industry data can publish reports, surveys, benchmarks and insights that other organisations genuinely want to reference.

This creates something much stronger than another promotional article.

It creates a source.

Becoming a source of useful information is one of the strongest positions a business can occupy in both traditional and AI-driven search.

Local businesses need to strengthen local signals

AI recommendations are not limited to national or global businesses.

Customers can also ask AI assistants for nearby suppliers, restaurants, professional services and other local recommendations.

Businesses serving particular geographic markets should therefore maintain accurate local information across their digital presence.

Location, service areas, opening information, reviews and relevant local content can all help create a clearer picture of where the organisation operates.

Local SEO and GEO increasingly overlap because both depend upon clear entity information and credible evidence.

The question remains the same: can a customer or intelligent system understand what you do, where you do it and why you are relevant?

Product businesses should provide richer product information

For e-commerce businesses, product information becomes increasingly important as customers use AI to compare purchases.

A basic product page containing a title, price, photograph and short manufacturer description provides limited information for meaningful comparison.

Detailed specifications, dimensions, compatibility information, use cases, FAQs, photography, video, customer reviews and buying guides can create a much richer product knowledge environment.

Businesses should think about the questions customers ask before purchasing.

Will this product fit? Who is it suitable for? How does it compare with another model? What accessories are required? What is included? How should it be maintained?

Answering these questions improves the customer experience regardless of whether the visitor arrives from Google, ChatGPT, Gemini or somewhere else entirely.

Don’t hide your best information inside PDFs

PDFs remain useful for reports, brochures, technical documentation and downloadable resources, but businesses should think carefully before making them the only location where important information exists.

Key service information, expert insight and customer questions should usually also be represented within accessible website content.

The same principle applies to images and video.

If an important technical explanation exists only inside an image, supporting text can make that information more accessible to both customers and search technologies.

The objective is to make useful knowledge easy to discover and interpret.

Your website should not force people—or machines—to work unnecessarily hard to understand your expertise.

Build connections between related content

A strong knowledge resource should not consist of hundreds of isolated pages.

Related information should be connected logically.

A detailed service page might link to relevant case studies, articles, FAQs and expert profiles. An educational article could connect naturally to deeper guides or commercial services.

Internal linking helps customers continue their research and can help search technologies understand relationships between subjects.

This creates a clearer information architecture.

Rather than publishing randomly, businesses begin building clusters of expertise around strategically important topics.

Over time, the website becomes easier to navigate, more useful to customers and more coherent as a representation of the organisation’s knowledge.

Give AI something original to discover

One of the biggest opportunities in the age of generative AI is originality.

If every company publishes variations of the same ten articles, none of them becomes particularly distinctive.

Businesses possess information AI cannot independently manufacture: their own experience.

What have you learned from hundreds of customer projects? Which mistakes do you see repeatedly? What does your internal data reveal? Which predictions are your experts willing to make? What processes have you developed? Where do you disagree with conventional industry thinking?

These perspectives make content more valuable.

Originality does not require producing groundbreaking academic research every week.

It requires adding something that comes from your organisation rather than simply rewriting what already exists.

Build a brand people search for by name

One of the strongest signs of digital authority is when customers stop searching only for a category and begin searching for the organisation itself.

Brand demand matters because it demonstrates recognition.

Content, social media, PR, events, partnerships, customer experience and advertising can all contribute towards that recognition.

This highlights why AI visibility cannot be separated from wider brand building.

Businesses that become well known within their specialist markets create stronger digital footprints than organisations relying entirely upon keyword optimisation.

SEO can help customers discover a brand.

Great marketing makes them remember it.

Measure AI visibility carefully

Measuring visibility within generative AI is considerably more complicated than checking a traditional search ranking.

AI responses can vary depending upon the question, context, platform and other factors. Businesses should therefore be cautious about reporting simplistic metrics suggesting they “rank number one in ChatGPT”.

Instead, AI visibility should be considered alongside broader indicators.

Are important pages gaining visibility? Is branded search increasing? Are referral patterns changing? Are prospects mentioning AI platforms during sales conversations? Is the organisation increasingly referenced for strategically important topics?

Specialist monitoring tools may also help businesses track appearances across selected prompts and platforms, but these measurements should be treated as indicators rather than absolute rankings.

Most importantly, businesses should connect visibility with commercial outcomes.

Being mentioned by AI has little value if it never contributes towards relevant customers discovering the organisation.

Don’t try to manipulate AI recommendations

Whenever a new discovery channel becomes commercially important, tactics inevitably emerge promising shortcuts.

Businesses should be cautious.

Artificially creating reviews, publishing misleading comparison pages, producing huge volumes of low-value content or attempting to manufacture authority can damage trust rather than strengthen it.

The sustainable strategy is remarkably familiar.

Be genuinely useful.

Demonstrate real expertise.

Build a respected brand.

Provide accurate information.

Earn legitimate references.

Create good customer experiences.

Technology changes, but these principles remain remarkably resilient.

Think in terms of an authority ecosystem

The strongest AI visibility strategies do not depend upon one page, one platform or one optimisation technique.

They create an ecosystem.

The website explains the organisation clearly. Service pages demonstrate capability. Articles answer customer questions. Case studies provide evidence. Experts publish useful perspectives. Social media builds visibility. Video humanises the business. Reviews create independent proof. PR generates external references, while technical SEO makes information accessible.

Each component reinforces the others.

This is why GEO should not sit in isolation inside an SEO department.

Marketing, PR, content, web development, social media and sales all contribute towards the digital reputation AI systems and customers encounter.

The objective is not simply to optimise content for machines.

It is to build an organisation whose expertise is difficult to overlook.

Don’t Optimise for ChatGPT – Build a Business AI Can Understand and Trust

The question “How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT or Gemini?” is likely to become increasingly common as AI plays a larger role in customer research.

But businesses should be cautious about searching for a simple technical answer.

There is no guaranteed formula that forces an AI platform to recommend a particular organisation, and the systems determining how information is discovered and presented will continue evolving.

The stronger long-term strategy is to build digital authority.

Make it completely clear what your business does and who it helps. Create detailed content around the subjects where you genuinely have expertise. Answer real customer questions. Publish case studies showing what you have achieved. Make your experts visible. Strengthen reviews and third-party references. Maintain consistent information across your digital presence and ensure your website has strong technical foundations.

Then keep doing it.

The businesses most likely to succeed in AI-driven discovery will not necessarily be those publishing the most content or attempting to reverse-engineer every new platform.

They will be the organisations creating the clearest and most credible body of evidence around their expertise.

For years, digital marketing focused heavily on getting businesses into the search results.

AI introduces another challenge:

That is the opportunity behind Generative Engine Optimisation.

And the businesses investing in authority, expertise and trust today will be considerably better prepared for however customers choose to search tomorrow.

Scott Jones is the CEO of a full service, leading and award winning SEO & Digital Marketing Agency. 123 Internet® – Digital Marketing Growth Agency support a local, national and international client base with AI-led digital marketing strategy, web design and e-commerce, creative branding, design and print, social media, lead generation, SEO/PPC, AI Search Optimisation and videography focused on ROI.

For more information about our services or advice on how to improve your online marketing activities please reach out and connect with us via our website or our social media channels.