Last month, I ran an experiment. I queried ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overview on the kinds of questions my clients’ customers might ask.
“What’s a good wellness clinic in the GTA?”
“Who offers fractional CMO services in Ontario?”
“Recommend a therapist who specializes in anxiety.”
The results were eye-opening. Businesses I know are excellent, with strong reputations and decades of experience, but weren’t being mentioned. Meanwhile, competitors with less expertise but strategic copy and better-structured information were getting recommended.
This isn’t about traditional SEO. It’s a different game with different rules.
I’ve been digging into this shift, testing tools, and developing a service that helps established businesses understand where they stand in AI-driven discovery.
Here’s What I’ve Learned
- Most small businesses have an AI visibility score of 45 out of 100.
- Some businesses that have already been investing in SEO have gotten a head start in AI visibility, but still need more help to increase their visibility score.
- You can track your AI visibility score as you continue optimizing your website.
- Brands that actively optimize for AI visibility are up to three times more likely to be cited in AI-generated answers for their priority queries than brands that do not.
- Companies that implement structured FAQs, schema, and entity cleanup commonly see 30–50% increases in AI answer visibility within 3–6 months.
- Early adopters of AI visibility optimization often capture roughly double the AI “share of voice” (portion of mentions vs. competitors) in their niche.
The Shift from Search to Ask
For the past fifteen years, “getting found online” meant ranking on Google. You optimized for search intent, keywords, built backlinks, and hoped to land on page one. That model still matters, but it’s no longer the whole picture.
More people are skipping the search results entirely. Instead of scrolling through ten blue links, they’re asking AI assistants directly:
“Who’s the best accountant for small businesses near me?”
“Recommend a physiotherapist who works with athletes.”
“What marketing agency specializes in AI visibility?”
When someone asks these questions, the AI doesn’t show them a list of websites to click through. It synthesizes information from across the web and generates a direct answer, often with specific recommendations.
If you’re not in that answer, you’re invisible to that potential client.
Why Traditional SEO Isn’t Enough
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you can rank on page one of Google and still be completely absent from AI-generated recommendations.
That’s because AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews don’t evaluate websites the same way traditional search does. They’re looking for:
Clarity — Can the AI easily understand what you do, who you serve, and what makes you different?
Structure — Is your information organized in ways AI can parse? (Think FAQs, schema markup, clear service descriptions.)
Credibility signals — Are you mentioned on other sites? Do authoritative sources reference your expertise?
Entity recognition — Does the AI recognize you as a distinct entity in your field, or are you just noise in the background?
Most websites were built to impress humans and rank on Google. They weren’t built to be understood by AI systems that are synthesizing information to make recommendations.
What I’m Seeing with My Clients
When I started testing AI visibility for businesses I work with, the pattern was consistent:
The Good News
Businesses that had already invested in solid SEO foundations, clear messaging, well-structured sites, and high-quality content had a head start. They weren’t starting from zero.
The Bad News
Some of them weren’t appearing in AI recommendations for their key services. The SEO work helped, but it wasn’t enough on its own.
The businesses that were showing up in AI answers often weren’t the best in their field. They were simply the ones whose websites happened to be structured in ways AI could easily understand and cite.
That’s fixable. But first, you have to know where you stand.
The Three Things That Actually Matter
After testing dozens of businesses across different industries, I’ve found that AI visibility comes down to three core factors:
1 Answerability
When someone asks AI a question about your type of service, can your website provide a clear, citable answer?
Most business websites are written like brochures; they describe services in general terms and hope visitors will call to learn more. AI needs direct, specific answers it can pull from and cite.
If your website doesn’t clearly answer questions like “What does [your business] specialize in?” or “What makes [your business] different from competitors?”, the AI has nothing to work with.
2 Structured Data
AI systems parse structured information more easily than flowing prose. This means:
- FAQ sections that directly address common questions
- Schema markup that tells AI exactly what your business does
- Clear categorization of services, locations, and specialties
- Consistent information across your website and other platforms
If your website is a wall of marketing copy without a clear structure, AI will struggle to extract and cite the relevant details.
3 Entity Recognition
Does AI recognize your business as a distinct, credible entity in your field?
This is influenced by mentions on other websites, citations in articles or directories, and consistent information across the web. If the AI has never encountered your business name in contexts related to your expertise, it won’t think to recommend you.
This is where established businesses actually have an advantage; you likely have years of mentions, reviews, and references across the web. The question is whether that information is structured in a way that AI can connect to your current website.
Why This Matters Now
I’ve been in marketing for over twenty-five years. I’ve watched the yellow pages give way to websites, websites give way to Google rankings, and now Google rankings are being supplemented by AI recommendations.
The pattern is always the same: early adopters gain an advantage while everyone else scrambles to catch up.
Right now, AI-powered discovery is still in its early stages. Most businesses aren’t optimizing for it. Most don’t even know it’s happening.
That’s an opportunity.
The businesses that start paying attention now, understand where they stand, and make strategic improvements will capture visibility that their competitors are losing. And once you’re established as a trusted recommendation in AI systems, that position tends to compound over time.
Wait too long, and you’ll be playing catch-up while your competitors own the AI-recommended spots in your niche.
What You Can Do About It
If you’re curious about where you stand, here’s a simple test you can run yourself:
- Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google (and look at the AI Overview at the top)
- Ask the question a potential client might ask when looking for your services
- See if you appear in the response, or if your competitors do
That will give you a rough sense of your current AI visibility. But to get a complete picture, you need to:
- Test across multiple AI platforms (they don’t all give the same answers)
- Check a range of queries your potential clients might ask
- Understand why you’re appearing or not appearing
- Know what specific changes would improve your visibility
That’s what I’ve built my AI Visibility Check to do.
A New Service for an Emerging Problem
I’m now offering AI Visibility services to help established businesses understand and improve how they appear in AI-powered discovery.
If you’ve been in business for a decade or more, you’ve already done the hard work of becoming excellent at what you do. AI visibility is about ensuring that excellence is recognized in the new ways people are finding services.
Book Your AI Visibility Check →