More customers now ask an AI assistant before they ask Google. In Roy Morgan's March quarter 2026 data, 45 percent of Australians aged 14 and over used ChatGPT in an average four weeks. If ChatGPT has never heard of your business, or has your old phone number, those people may never reach you.
This guide shows you how to test that for yourself. You get the prompts to try in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Microsoft Copilot, how to read what comes back, and what to fix when an answer is wrong or your business is missing.
Success looks like this: each assistant names your business correctly, with the right address, phone number, services and suburbs, and links to your own website as a source. You will not control every answer. You can control most of the facts the answers are built from.
1. Ask ChatGPT about your business by name
Start with the easy test. Open a new chat in ChatGPT and ask about your business directly, using its trading name and the suburb you work from. You are checking whether ChatGPT can find you at all, and whether the facts it gives are right.
What do you know about (your business name) in (your suburb)?
What are (your business name)'s phone number, address and opening hours?
What services does (your business name) offer, and which areas do they cover?Look for a list of sources under the answer. OpenAI says ChatGPT can search the web for current information and link to the sources it used. If no sources appear, the answer may come from what the model learned in training, which can be months or years out of date. Ask it to search the web and try again.
2. Ask the questions your customers actually ask
Customers rarely type your name. They describe the job and the area. These prompts test whether ChatGPT recommends you, which is harder than knowing you exist.
Who are the best (your service) in (your suburb)?
I need a (your service) near (your suburb) who can (a common job) this week. Who would you recommend?
How does (your business name) compare with other (your service) in (your area)?Always name the suburb. OpenAI says ChatGPT may estimate your rough location from your IP address to give local results, so a question asked from your shop may get a different answer from one asked by a customer across town. Naming the suburb makes the test closer to what your customers see.
Ask each question two or three times. AI answers vary between runs, so one missing mention is not a verdict. A pattern across several runs is.
3. Run the same test in Perplexity, Google and Copilot
Each assistant has its own way of finding pages, so check them separately. Use the same prompts from steps 1 and 2.
- Perplexity: it shows numbered sources beside each answer. Perplexity says its search crawler, PerplexityBot, is what surfaces and links websites in its results.
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: search your prompts on Google and look for the AI summary at the top, or open the AI Mode tab. AI Overviews only appear for some searches. Google says these features draw on its normal search index, and that Business Profile details can show up in them.
- Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Guidelines say Bing and Copilot search experiences rely on the same crawling, indexing and ranking as Bing search. If you are missing from Bing, expect to be missing from Copilot too.
4. Read the answers: four results and what each means
Most businesses land in one of four places. Each one points to a different fix.
- Named, with correct details: good. Check the sources it cites. If your own website is among them, keep it current. If only directories are cited, your site may not be reaching the assistant.
- Named, with wrong details: an old phone number, a closed location or a service you stopped offering. Open the cited sources. The wrong fact almost always comes from somewhere specific, such as an old directory listing or an outdated page on your own site.
- Known by name, but not recommended: the assistant can find you but has more reason to name a competitor. That usually means thinner service pages, fewer recent reviews or less consistent listings.
- Not known at all: the assistant cannot find or read your site, or there is too little about you online. Start with step 5.
Be honest about what nobody knows. OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Perplexity explain how their crawlers and indexes work, but none of them publishes the rules for which local business gets recommended. What you can see is which sources an answer cites, and those sources are where to act.
5. Fix your website so AI assistants can read it
Your website is the one source you fully control, so fix it first. OpenAI says sites that opt out of its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Its help centre adds that your host or content delivery network must also allow traffic from OpenAI's published search crawler IP addresses. Some security settings block unfamiliar bots without telling you.
Open yourdomain.com.au/robots.txt in a browser. If you see a Disallow rule for OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Bingbot, or a rule blocking every bot, ask whoever manages your site to change it. A robots.txt that welcomes them looks like this:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
User-agent: Bingbot
Allow: /- State the facts in plain text: business name, address, phone number, hours, services and the suburbs you cover, written on the page, not only inside images.
- Give each main service its own page: one clear heading, what is included, where you do it and, if you can, a starting price.
- Add structured data that matches the page: a short block of code stating your business details. Google and Bing both say it must match what visitors can see.
Our guide to why your website isn't showing up on Google covers the other common reasons a site cannot be found.
6. Fix your Google, Bing and directory listings
AI answers lean on listings as well as websites. Google says keeping your Business Profile information up to date is one of the basics for its AI features. If you have not set one up, our guide to setting up a Google Business Profile walks through it.
Bing matters more than most owners think. OpenAI's help centre says ChatGPT search may send rewritten search queries to the Bing search engine, and Copilot is built on Bing's index. Search for your business on Bing Maps. If it is missing or wrong, claim or add it through Bing Places for Business, which Microsoft lists as free. Then add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. OpenAI does not say how much weight ChatGPT gives Bing results, so treat this as sensible coverage rather than a guaranteed fix.
- Use one version of your details everywhere: the same business name, address and phone number on your website, Google, Bing, Facebook and every directory.
- Fix or remove old listings: the wrong facts you found in step 4 usually trace back to one of these.
- Keep earning recent reviews: BrightLocal's 2026 survey of US consumers found 97 percent of people who use AI for local recommendations sometimes double-check them against real reviews.
7. Check again each month and track what changes
Changes take time to show. Google says recrawling a page can take anywhere from days to months. Run the same prompts once a month, in the same order, and add the answers to your spreadsheet.
- Google Search Console: the Generative AI performance report shows how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says it reached all websites by 31 August 2026.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: the AI Performance report shows which of your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and AI summaries in Bing.
- Google Analytics: visits from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai appear as referrals, so you can see whether AI answers send people to you.
For the wider picture of how AI tools choose which businesses to name, read how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT.
Key takeaways
- (01)
Test ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI features and Copilot with the same prompts, always naming your suburb.
- (02)
Read the sources each answer cites. Wrong facts usually trace back to one specific page or listing.
- (03)
Allow OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Bingbot in robots.txt, and make sure your host does not block them.
- (04)
Keep your Google and Bing listings current and your details identical everywhere, then recheck monthly.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't ChatGPT know about my business?
The usual reasons are that its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, is blocked by your robots.txt or your host, your site states its facts poorly, or there is little about you on other sites and listings. Fix your website first, then your Google and Bing listings.
How do I get found by ChatGPT?
Allow OAI-SearchBot to crawl your site, put your name, address, phone, services and suburbs in plain text on your pages, keep your Google and Bing listings accurate, and keep earning recent reviews. Then test again with the prompts in this guide.
How long does it take for ChatGPT to notice changes?
OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to reach its search systems. Changes to your pages and listings depend on when they are next crawled, and Google says recrawling can take days to months. Check again after a month.
Can I ask OpenAI to correct what ChatGPT says about my business?
We are not aware of a form for businesses to edit ChatGPT's answers. You can report a bad answer with the feedback buttons, but the reliable fix is correcting the sources it cites: your website, your listings and old directory entries.
More answers on price, hosting and timing in our FAQ.