Is Your Business Visible in AI Search? How to Check in 2 Minutes

When someone wants a local business — a med spa, a dentist, a salon — they used to Google it. More and more, they ask an AI instead: "What's the best option near me?" If ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews don't know you exist, or describe you wrong, you're losing customers before they ever see your name. Here's how to check where you stand, in about two minutes.

Why AI search matters now

AI assistants are becoming a real front door for local discovery. People ask them for recommendations the way they used to scroll search results — and the AI answers with a short, confident shortlist. If you're not on it, you're invisible, no matter how good your reviews are.

The catch: AI tools build those answers from what they can read about you online — your website, your business profile, your reviews, and your structured content. Most local businesses have never optimized for this, which means there's a real first-mover advantage right now.

The 2-minute check

Open ChatGPT (and Perplexity or Google if you want to compare). Ask two questions:

• •"What are the best [your service] in [your neighborhood or city]?" — for example, "best med spa for Botox in Ballard, Seattle."
• •"Tell me about [your business name]."

Then look for three things: Did you show up at all? Is what it says accurate and flattering? And who showed up instead of you?

What your results mean

• •You weren't mentioned: AI doesn't have enough clear, readable information about you. Fixable.
• •It described you wrong or with old info: your online presence is sending mixed signals.
• •A competitor showed up and you didn't: they're feeding the AI better signals than you are.

What actually moves the needle

A handful of practical things shape how AI describes a local business:

• •Clear, question-answering content on your site — FAQs and service pages that read like real answers.
• •A complete, consistent Google Business Profile.
• •Strong, recent reviews — and a website that actually surfaces them.
• •Structured data that helps AI read and trust your pages.
• •A consistent name, services, and location across the web.

None of this requires being technical. It requires knowing which gaps matter for your business and fixing the few that count.

The shortcut

Running the check yourself takes two minutes and tells you a lot. Turning the findings into a prioritized plan — and actually fixing the gaps — is what our AI Marketing Audit does. We run the AI Visibility Check across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI, then hand you a 1-page plan of the exact fixes that get you recommended.