How to get your business recommended by AI assistants

People are increasingly asking AI assistants to do the searching for them. "Find me a reliable plumber in Maidstone." "Recommend a therapist in Manchester who takes new patients." "What's a good photographer for weddings in Kent?" If your business isn't showing up in those answers, you're missing a new kind of customer who has already decided they want this type of service and just needs to know who to call.

Understand how AI makes recommendations

AI assistants pull from multiple sources: your website, your Google Business Profile, directories like Yell and Yelp, review sites, and anything else that has been published about you online. The businesses that show up tend to have consistent, complete, and credible information across all of those sources. It's not about gaming an algorithm. It's about giving AI enough reliable information to feel confident recommending you.

The sources that matter most

• Google Business Profile, especially for local searches. ChatGPT uses Bing for web searches, and Bing Maps syncs with Google Maps data, so a well-maintained GBP flows through to multiple AI systems.
• Your own website, particularly service pages with clear descriptions of what you offer and who you work with.
• Review platforms: Google, Trustpilot, Facebook. Both the number and recency of reviews carry weight.
• Directory listings: Yell, Thomson Local, Checkatrade for trade businesses, and any sector-specific directories relevant to your industry.
• Press, mentions, or featured content. If a local publication has written about you, or you've been quoted in an article, that kind of third-party signal helps.

Give AI something to work with

The single biggest gap most small businesses have is this: AI simply cannot find basic information about them. What do you charge? Where exactly do you work? Do you take new clients? What qualifications do you hold?

You don't need to redesign your website. You need to make sure the answers to those questions are findable. Ideally in a format AI can read directly (structured data), but even having them clearly written on your site is a meaningful improvement over nothing at all.

Pricing is the unlock most people miss

AI assistants are often used to research options before making contact. "Find me a therapist in Bristol, budget around £70 a session." If your website doesn't show a price, or even a rough starting point, AI can't include you in that kind of filtered result. Adding "sessions from £X" somewhere on your site, even in background structured data invisible to visitors, is often enough to change that.

It feels counterintuitive to publish pricing when you prefer to quote individually. But a signal is enough. You're not committing to a fixed price. You're giving AI what it needs to put you in the running.

Consistency matters more than perfection

If your Google Business Profile shows one address, your website shows another, and Yell has a different phone number, AI gets confused and often skips you in favour of a business with consistent information. Auditing your listings for NAP consistency (name, address, phone number) is unglamorous work, but it has a direct impact on whether AI includes you in its recommendations.

You don't need to be on every directory. You need the directories you're on to agree with each other.

This is what Agent Optimisation addresses

AO is the process of auditing and fixing exactly these gaps. What AI can see about you, what it can't see, and what needs to change. It's not about gaming the system. It's about giving AI the information it already needs in order to recommend you accurately. The businesses that do this now will have a meaningful advantage as AI-assisted search continues to grow.