Ask ChatGPT Who You'd Hire. Then Check Whether It's You.
A customer who needs an accountant, a plumber or a physio used to type a few words into Google and scroll through the results. More and more of them now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity the whole question - "Who's good for salary packaging in Sydney?" - and they get back a short list of names. Most of them never look past it.
For most of this year I've been putting real customer questions to five AI platforms for businesses in Australia, Canada and the US - ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overview. Fifteen questions per business, 75 checks in all. And three patterns keep coming up.
1. Known by name, missing by question
Type the business name in and the AI describes it well - good reputation, correct address, sometimes even a quote from one of their reviews. Then ask the question a customer would actually ask, like "Who should I trust to sell my home in this suburb?", and completely different names come back.
The AI knows who you are. It just hasn't connected you to the problem the customer is trying to solve.
2. Strong overall, weak where it counts
It's common for a business to show up well for its main service and barely appear for the one it most wants to grow. Often it's because the page that explained that service was removed in a tidy-up, or never existed in the first place, so the AI has nothing to read.
3. The door is locked from the inside
Some websites tell AI crawlers to stay out. It's a line or two in a file called robots.txt, often added by a developer or a plugin years ago and long forgotten. If crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot or PerplexityBot are blocked, you're closing the door on some of the ways those platforms learn about you - however good your site is.
Why it happens
None of this is a brand problem. AI answers are built from your website plus everything around it - directories, review sites, your Google Business Profile, industry listings. When those pieces don't answer the questions customers ask in plain words, the AI fills the gap with someone else.
Which is good news, because it's fixable. Most of the time it's a content layout job, not a rebrand.
Try it tonight
Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity in a private window and ask:
- "Who are the best [your service] providers in [your city]?"
- "Who should I call for [the job you most want more of] in [your area]?"
- "What does [your business name] do, and who is it for?"
If you show up in the third one but not the first two, you've found the gap.
Want the full picture?
An AI Visibility Audit runs all 75 checks for your business and shows you where you appear, where you don't, and which fixes to do first. You can request one here: https://smartechsystems.com/ai-audit
Chris
