Global AI Academy

How to check what ChatGPT says about your business

By Gaone Dixon, 20 October 2026, 7 min read

Some of your customers now ask an AI assistant before they search, call or visit. They type "Is [your business] any good?" or "Who does [your service] near me?" and read whatever comes back. If that answer is out of date, mixes you up with someone else, or leaves you out, you won't hear about it unless you look.

You can look. It takes about 30 minutes a month, a list of questions and a simple log. This guide walks through it. It won't promise you a place in AI answers, because nobody can honestly promise that. What it gives you is a clear picture of what people are being told, and a short list of things on your own website you can fix.

What you're actually checking

There are three different things, and it helps to keep them apart:

  • Mentioned: the answer names your business.
  • Cited: the answer links to your website (or a page about you) as a source.
  • Correct: what it says about you is true and current: what you sell, where you work, prices or price range, hours, how to contact you.

A wrong answer that names you is often a bigger problem than no mention at all, so "correct" gets its own column in your log.

Step 1: Write ten questions your customers really ask

Split them into two groups.

Questions about you by name (5):

  1. What is [Business name] and what do they do?
  2. Is [Business name] in [town or area] any good? What do customers say?
  3. What are [Business name]'s opening hours / delivery areas / prices?
  4. How do I contact [Business name]?
  5. [Business name] vs [a competitor you're often compared with]?

Questions about what you sell (5), without your name:

  1. Best [your service] in [your area]
  2. How much does [your service] cost in [your area]?
  3. [A problem your customers have], what should I do?
  4. Where can I buy [your product] online?
  5. The question new customers most often ask you on the phone

Use the words customers use, not your marketing words. Your enquiry emails, reviews and phone notes are the best source. Write the ten questions down once and reuse them every month, so you're comparing like with like.

Step 2: Run them in a fair, clean way

AI answers change from person to person and from day to day. A few habits make your check more useful:

  • Use a clean session. Log out, or use a private/incognito window, or the tool's temporary chat option, so your own past chats don't shape the answer.
  • Make sure the tool is searching the web. ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity can answer from the live web or from what the model already knows. For questions about a real, current business you want the web version, so look for sources or links in the answer. If there are none, note "no sources".
  • Ask each question twice, in two separate sessions. If the two answers disagree, write down both. That tells you the answer is unstable, which is normal.
  • Write down the date and the tool. "ChatGPT, 20 Oct" is enough. Answers in March won't match answers in October, and that's the point of keeping a log.

You don't need every AI tool. Four cover most of what customers use: ChatGPT, Google (AI Overviews at the top of normal results, and AI Mode), Microsoft Copilot (which uses Bing) and Perplexity. If your customers skew younger or more technical, add Claude or Grok.

Step 3: Keep a simple log

A spreadsheet with one row per question per tool is plenty. Use these eight columns:

  1. Date
  2. Tool (and whether it showed sources)
  3. Question
  4. Mentioned? (yes/no)
  5. Cited? (which URL, if any)
  6. Correct? (yes/no/partly)
  7. Other businesses named
  8. Notes

Fill in Notes with exactly what was wrong: "says we close at 5, we close at 6", "lists the old address", "confuses us with a business with a similar name in another city". Those notes become your to-do list.

The "Other businesses named" column matters too. If the same two competitors keep coming up, look at their websites. They usually have a clear page that answers the exact question in plain words.

Step 4: Check the AI tools can read your website

Before you change any content, make sure nothing is blocking the tools from reading your site at all. This is the one technical step, and it's quick.

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a browser. This short file tells crawlers what they may read.

  • ChatGPT search uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that block it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers", though they can still appear as plain navigation links. It also says changes to robots.txt take about 24 hours to take effect for search.
  • GPTBot is a separate crawler used for training OpenAI's models. OpenAI treats the two as independent settings, so you can allow search and block training if you prefer.
  • Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode use ordinary Google Search crawling. Google's guide to AI features and your website says a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in normal Search, with "no additional technical requirements".

If your robots.txt has a line like Disallow: / under User-agent: * or under one of those names, that's worth a conversation with whoever built your site. Some hosting and security services also block crawlers without touching robots.txt; Google's guide mentions checking "any CDN or hosting infrastructure" for exactly that reason.

One thing you don't need: Google says you don't need new machine-readable files, special "AI text files" or extra schema markup to appear in its AI features. Be wary of anyone selling you one as a shortcut.

Step 5: Use the free official reports

Two free tools show real data rather than spot checks. Both need you to verify that you own your site, which is a one-time job.

  • Google Search Console. Google says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in the normal Performance report, under the "Web" search type. It isn't broken out separately, but it tells you which searches show your pages and whether anyone clicks.
  • Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance report. Since February 2026 Bing has offered an AI Performance report (in public preview) that shows how often your pages are cited as sources in Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and some partner AI tools, which pages are cited, and sample "grounding queries". Bing is clear that it counts citations only, not rankings or traffic, and that low activity may not show up.

If you only have time for one, set up Search Console first. Your normal Google visibility is still the foundation for Google's AI answers.

Step 6: Fix what you control

Most fixes are ordinary website work, which is good news: you don't need a specialist to start.

If the facts are wrong or out of date:

  • Put your core facts on one page in plain text: business name, what you do, where you work, hours, price range, how to contact you. An About page is fine. Make sure it says the same thing as your footer, your Google Business Profile and any directory listings.
  • Update your Google Business Profile. Google's guide specifically lists keeping Merchant Center and Business Profile information up to date.
  • Put the most important answer near the top of the page in a sentence a stranger could understand. "We deliver within 15 miles of the town centre, Monday to Saturday" beats "Delivery options available".

If you're not mentioned for questions about what you sell:

  • Check you actually have a page that answers that question. Many small-business sites have a homepage and a contact form, and nothing that explains prices, areas or the common problems customers bring.
  • Write a clear page or FAQ for each of your top three customer questions, in the words customers use. Link to it from your main menu or homepage so it's easy to find.
  • Keep the important words as text, not inside images or PDFs only.

If you're confused with another business:

  • Use your full business name consistently, and add your area ("[Name], [town]") on your About and Contact pages.
  • Make sure your site, social profiles and listings link to each other.

Then wait. Crawling and updates can take days or weeks, and Google notes that indexing isn't guaranteed. That's why this is a monthly habit rather than a one-off.

Step 7: Repeat monthly, and compare

Same ten questions, same tools, roughly the same day each month. After three months you'll see patterns: which facts keep coming back wrong, which pages get cited, which competitors keep appearing. Those patterns are far more useful than any single answer, because single answers vary.

What we're doing on our own site

We run this same check on globalaiacademy.online, starting with five questions our readers ask (how to start using ChatGPT, good prompts for small business, what not to share, whether ChatGPT is safe for work, and how to write a first prompt). Our robots.txt allows the search crawlers named above. We'll report what we find honestly, including the months when the answer is "not mentioned yet", because a new site has to earn its place like anyone else.

We're also writing a fuller workbook on this: fill-in worksheets for your facts page, your question list and your monthly log. It isn't on sale yet. Join the list below to hear when it is.

Not ready to buy? Start with the free guide, Your first week with AI: ten prompts and a privacy checklist, plus a five-day email course.

Want AI to describe your business in your own words when you write with it? How to make ChatGPT sound like your business covers the one-page brief that keeps your facts and tone consistent.