Can ChatGPT Find Your Business? 7 Things to Check

September 28, 2026


For years, businesses have worried about one basic question:


Can customers find us on Google?


That question isn't going away. But there's now another one worth asking:


Can AI find us, understand what we do, and confidently recommend us?


More people are using tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI experiences to research products, compare businesses and decide where to spend their money. Instead of searching through ten websites themselves, they can simply ask a question.


“Who installs impact windows near me?”


“What's the best accounting firm for a small ecommerce business?”


“Find a restaurant nearby that's open late and has vegetarian options.”


“Which companies offer this service, and how are they different?”


That creates a new challenge for businesses. It isn't enough for information about your company to exist somewhere online. AI systems need to be able to find it, understand it and have enough confidence in it to use it.


The good news is that you don't necessarily need an expensive AI visibility platform to discover some of the biggest problems.


Here are seven things you can check yourself.


1. Can AI Access Your Website?


Start with the most basic issue: can automated systems actually reach the information on your website?


A website can work perfectly well for a human visitor while creating problems for crawlers.


One place to start is your robots.txt file. You can usually see it by adding /robots.txt to the end of your domain.


Look for rules affecting AI-related crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended. Blocking a crawler isn't automatically wrong. Businesses may have legitimate reasons for controlling how their content is accessed or used.


The important thing is knowing what your website is actually doing.


Then look at the website itself.


Cookie walls, geographic selectors, language prompts and other interstitials can make accessing information more complicated. If important information is difficult to reach without interacting with the page first, that's something worth investigating.


Before worrying about how well AI understands your business, make sure the information you want discovered is actually accessible.


2. Is Your Business Easy to Understand?


Visit your website as if you know absolutely nothing about the company.


Within a few moments, can you answer:


What does this business do?


What does it sell?


Who does it serve?


Where does it operate?


How does someone buy, book or contact it?


Businesses often assume these answers are obvious because everyone inside the company already knows them.


They aren't always obvious to someone, or something, encountering the company for the first time.


Create clear pages for your major products and services. Explain locations and service areas. Document important policies.

Make contact information easy to find.


If you operate locally, geographic context becomes particularly important. Don't assume that listing a city somewhere in the footer provides everything needed to understand where you operate.


The goal isn't to stuff pages with keywords.


It's to remove ambiguity.


3. Can Your Claims Be Verified?


Now look at the language you use to sell the business.


“Leading.”

“Best.”

“Trusted.”

“Award-winning.”

“Industry-leading.”


These phrases appear on thousands of websites. By themselves, they don't provide much evidence that distinguishes one company from another.


If your business has something impressive to say, support it.

If you've won an award, identify the award.

If you've generated a measurable result, document it.

If you're certified, explain the certification.

If customers consistently praise a particular part of your service, make sure those reviews exist somewhere credible.


Case studies, certifications, awards, customer reviews, original research and reputable third-party mentions can all create stronger evidence around what your company claims to be.


The question to ask isn't simply:

“Does our website say we're good?”


It's:

“What exists online that gives someone else a reason to believe it?”


4. Do Your Business Details Match Everywhere?


Your website isn't the only source of information about your company.


Depending on the business, information might also appear on Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, industry directories, review platforms and dozens of other websites.


Put the important details side by side.


Check your:

Business name

Address and service area

Phone number

Opening hours

Website

Products and services

Business categories

Important policies


You may discover that your website says you close at 6:00, Google says 5:00, and another directory has hours from three years ago.


For a customer, that's annoying.


For a system trying to determine the correct answer, it's conflicting evidence.


Cleaning up those inconsistencies is one of the simplest improvements a business can make.


5. Does Your Website Use Structured Data?


This part sounds technical, but the idea is straightforward.


Your website is designed primarily for people. Structured data provides additional machine-readable information that helps systems understand what parts of a page represent.


It can identify things such as an organization, local business, product, service, address, article or other defined information.


You can inspect the source code of your website and search for application/ld+json, which is commonly used for JSON-LD structured data.


Finding it is only the beginning.


The structured information should be accurate, sufficiently detailed and consistent with what the rest of your website says.


If you don't know what you're looking at, this is one area where getting someone technical to review the implementation makes sense.


6. Does Google Clearly Understand Who You Are?


Search your company's exact name.


What appears?


Does your website rank prominently?


Is there a Google Business Profile or Knowledge Panel?


Are the social profiles, directory listings and other results actually about your company?


Could another organization with a similar name easily be confused with yours?


This is essentially an identity test.


A business with a consistent name, website, profiles, contact information, descriptions and third-party references creates a much clearer digital footprint than one represented differently across the internet.


AI systems have a similar problem to human researchers: before deciding what is true about a company, they first need to determine which company the information belongs to.


7. Ask AI Directly


This may be the simplest test of all.


Open several AI tools and behave like a potential customer.


Don't just type your business name.


Ask the questions customers would actually ask.


For example:


“What are the best [type of business] in [city]?”

“Where can I buy [product] near me?”

“Does [company] offer [service]?”

“What are [company's] opening hours?”

“Which companies offer [service] in [area]?”

“What's the difference between [your company] and [competitor]?”


Then look at the answers.


Is your business mentioned?

Is the information correct?

Does the AI understand what you actually do?

Are important services missing?

Does it confidently state something that's outdated or wrong?


Try multiple AI platforms because the answers and underlying information sources can differ.


You're not trying to produce a perfect scientific measurement.


You're looking for obvious gaps.


AI Visibility Is Becoming Part of Your Online Presence


Businesses spent years learning that they needed to think beyond their own websites.


Google Business Profiles mattered. Reviews mattered. Maps mattered. Social profiles mattered. Directory information mattered.


AI adds another layer.


The companies that are easiest for AI to understand aren't necessarily the ones producing the most content. They're often the ones leaving the clearest trail of consistent, accessible and verifiable information about who they are and what they do.


That makes the first step surprisingly simple.


Check whether AI can access your website.


Make your business easy to understand.


Document the things you want to be known for.


Keep important facts consistent.


Give machines structured information where appropriate.


Make your company's identity clear across the web.


Then ask the AI tools themselves what they know.


Because the question businesses have asked for decades is starting to change.


It isn't only:


“Can customers find us?”


It's also:


“Can AI find us, understand us and confidently recommend us?”

Your Next Marketer Might Need to Code

October 26, 2026
Marketing is becoming more technical. As businesses adopt AI tools, automation and increasingly complex software, a new kind of specialist is emerging: the marketing engineer. For years, businesses have built marketing teams around familiar responsibilities: advertising, content creation, search engine optimization, social media and lead generation. Those responsibilities haven't disappeared. But the technology behind them has become increasingly complicated. Businesses now rely on advertising platforms, customer relationship management systems, email automation, website analytics, e-commerce software and AI tools. Making those systems work together is becoming an important part of marketing performance. That's where the marketing engineer comes in. What Is a Marketing Engineer? A marketing engineer combines marketing knowledge with technical skills. Traditional marketing specialists might develop a campaign strategy, create content or manage advertising budgets. A marketing engineer can help build the technical systems that make those activities more effective. That might involve connecting a CRM to advertising platforms, automating reporting, improving conversion tracking, integrating customer data or developing workflows using APIs and AI tools. The role connects marketing strategy with technical execution. Rather than relying entirely on separate developers, analysts and software specialists, businesses can use technical marketing expertise to bridge those functions. The Problem With Disconnected Marketing Systems Many businesses already have the technology they need. The challenge is getting it to work together. A company might use Google Ads to attract customers, Shopify to process orders, Klaviyo for email marketing and a CRM to manage relationships. Each platform collects information, but that doesn't necessarily mean the information is connected. Employees may still need to download reports, transfer leads between systems, update spreadsheets or manually compare campaign results against actual sales. Those disconnected processes can make marketing slower and more difficult to measure. Marketing engineering focuses on improving the connections between systems. When information moves reliably between platforms, businesses can reduce repetitive work and make decisions using more complete data. AI Search Is Changing How Businesses Get Discovered Technical marketing is also becoming more relevant as AI-powered search develops. Traditional search engine optimization focuses on helping websites appear in organic search results. But customers increasingly use AI-powered tools to research products, compare services and find answers. That has brought greater attention to two related concepts. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) focuses on making information clear, accessible and useful for answer-based discovery. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) focuses on improving how content can be discovered, understood and potentially referenced by generative AI systems. These approaches overlap with established SEO practices, including technically accessible websites, useful content and clear information architecture. They do not guarantee inclusion in AI-generated answers. For businesses, the practical lesson is that website content and technical structure need to support more than traditional search rankings. Automation Can Eliminate Repetitive Marketing Work Another opportunity is workflow automation. Marketing departments often spend considerable time on tasks that don't require much creative judgment. Downloading reports, updating spreadsheets, transferring customer information, preparing campaign summaries and moving data between applications are common examples. Many of these activities can be automated when systems are properly connected. That doesn't eliminate the need for marketers. It can give them more time to focus on strategy, creative development, customer relationships and improving campaign performance. The objective isn't to automate everything. It's to identify which tasks can be handled more reliably and efficiently through technology. Better Data Can Lead to Better Marketing Decisions One of the biggest challenges in marketing is understanding which activities actually contribute to revenue. A campaign might generate thousands of impressions, hundreds of clicks and dozens of leads without producing profitable customers. Marketing engineers can help businesses connect advertising activity with customer and sales information. That includes improving conversion tracking, integrating data sources and identifying where potential customers drop out of the buying process. The goal is to move beyond reporting what happened on an advertising platform and develop a clearer understanding of what happened across the business. Does Your Business Need a Marketing Engineer? Not every company needs to hire a full-time technical marketing specialist. For smaller businesses, the first step is identifying where disconnected systems, manual processes or unreliable data are creating problems. Consider whether your advertising and sales platforms share information, whether campaign performance can be connected to revenue and whether repetitive reporting tasks could be automated. It is also worth reviewing whether your website is technically accessible, well structured and capable of answering the questions potential customers are asking. Depending on the complexity of the business, these improvements might be handled by an internal employee, an outside specialist or a combination of both. The important decision isn't necessarily who to hire. It's determining which capabilities the business actually needs. The Future of Marketing Is More Connected Creative thinking, compelling messaging and customer relationships remain essential to effective marketing. But those strengths increasingly depend on the technology supporting them. Businesses need systems that communicate, data that can be trusted and processes that allow teams to work efficiently. Marketing engineering represents one approach to bringing those capabilities together. The next competitive advantage may not come from producing more content or launching more campaigns. It may come from building a marketing operation where everything works together.

P&G Rebuilt Its Operations and Saved $600 Million. Here's How.

October 23, 2026
Procter & Gamble didn't simply outsource its support operations. It first rebuilt how they worked, then brought in outside partners. By 2008, its business-services transformation had generated approximately $600 million in cumulative savings. In the late 1990s, Procter & Gamble faced a problem familiar to businesses of almost every size: too many teams performing similar work. Finance, human resources and other support functions were spread across different parts of the company. That meant duplicated activities, inconsistent processes and unnecessary costs. Instead of continuing to expand those departments independently, P&G decided to fundamentally change how its business operated. First, P&G Fixed Its Internal Operations In 1999, P&G began bringing its support functions into a single global organization. Over the following three years, the company consolidated and standardized more than 70 services. It also established shared-service centers to support operations around the world. The goal was to replace fragmented systems with a more consistent and efficient operating structure. Importantly, P&G didn't begin by handing all these functions to outside companies. It first reorganized how the work was performed internally. That foundation would make the next phase possible. Then Came $4.2 Billion in Outsourcing Agreements In 2003, P&G entered into outsourcing partnerships valued at approximately $4.2 billion. Outside specialists took responsibility for selected operations, including IT infrastructure, payroll support, accounts payable and facilities management. Rather than maintaining every capability internally, P&G could rely on partners with specialized expertise, established systems and the scale to manage these activities. But it didn't outsource everything. The company retained control of functions it considered strategically important, including procurement, logistics, IT architecture and technology-driven innovation. This distinction was central to the strategy. P&G wasn't trying to eliminate internal operations. It was deciding which activities made sense to manage itself and which could be handled more effectively by partners. The Benefits Went Beyond Cost Savings One of the clearest examples came during P&G's integration of Gillette. According to P&G's business-services leadership, its established systems and outsourcing partners helped the company mobilize approximately 750 additional people within weeks. The business-services integration was completed in 15 months, a process its leadership believed could otherwise have taken three to four years. That flexibility mattered. P&G could draw on existing capabilities and outside resources without having to build every part of the operation from scratch. By 2008, the company's broader business-services transformation had produced approximately $600 million in cumulative savings. Those savings came from a combination of internal consolidation, standardized processes and selective outsourcing, not outsourcing alone. What Smaller Businesses Can Learn Most businesses aren't managing P&G's scale or negotiating multibillion-dollar agreements. But the underlying decision is surprisingly relevant. As companies grow, they often add employees and departments without reconsidering how work gets done. Over time, the same problems can emerge: duplicated tasks, fragmented responsibilities, rising administrative costs and employees spending too much time on activities outside their core expertise. The first step isn't necessarily outsourcing. It's understanding the operation. Which processes are inefficient? Which functions require direct internal control? Which activities could a specialist handle more effectively? Customer support, bookkeeping, administrative work, creative production and certain technology operations may be candidates for outside support, depending on the business. But outsourcing a poorly defined process can simply transfer the problem to someone else. P&G's experience illustrates a more disciplined approach: improve the system, identify which capabilities are strategically important and use external partners where they offer a genuine advantage. You Don't Have to Build Everything In-House The most important lesson from P&G's transformation isn't that every business should outsource more. It's that growth doesn't require owning and managing every operational function. By combining stronger internal processes with carefully selected partners, businesses can reduce unnecessary complexity and concentrate their resources where they create the most value. Sometimes the smartest way to grow isn't to build another department. It's to rethink how the work gets done. Sources McKinsey & Company, From internal service provider to strategic partner: An interview with the head of Global Business Services at P&G (2008). Procter & Gamble, 2008 Annual Report.