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Not long ago, when customers went looking for “the best bakery near me” or a “trustworthy plumber,” they would turn to Google and get pages of links. 

Today, they’re more likely to ask an AI tool like ChatGPT or Gemini — and in turn, receive three or four names. If your business isn’t on that short list, the customer never sees you.

That’s why optimizing for AI is now mission critical for small businesses. You must be recommended.

How? As the founder of a PR firm, I’ve spent a lot of time understanding this problem. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude pull from different datasets, so a business can show up in one but barely register in another. (For example, OpenAI has a licensing deal with Reddit, while Anthropic doesn’t.) It’s impossible to know exactly what data a chatbot pulls from, but there are certain steps you can take to improve your chances.

Here are seven tips I always suggest to clients. 

Step 1: Be the same business everywhere. 

The most basic signal is boring and completely free: Make sure your name, address, and phone number are identical everywhere they appear. That includes your website, Google, Yelp, Facebook, and that old directory you forgot about. AI treats these platforms as native inputs, and when it finds three different phone numbers for you, it doesn’t know which to trust and instead recommends a competitor whose details line up. 

Step 2: Keep your website and reviews fresh.

AI reads your Google reviews the way a potential customer does — just faster. Volume and recency both matter. Forty reviews from this year beat 200 from 2019. To boost your volume, just ask every happy customer to leave a review, and reply to the ones you have. A business that responds to reviews looks alive and accountable, and the bots notice.

Step 3: Transparency is your friend. 

AI recommends businesses that answer questions clearly. If you run an HVAC company, your website should plainly say, “Here’s what an AC repair typically costs and why.” Include your pricing, your process, and honest answers to FAQs right on the page. Transparency isn’t just good ethics; it’s now algorithmically rewarded.

Step 4: Show your human side. 

Recommendation engines trust businesses that show real people. An “About” page with your actual team, your story, your values, and a real way to reach you signals a legitimate operation. This is the easiest place for a small business to beat a faceless national chain.

Step 5: Be present where people talk. 

AI doesn’t only read your website. It reads Reddit threads, local Facebook groups, and social posts where your name comes up. You can’t fake this, but you can participate. Answer questions in your local community online, be genuinely helpful, and let people mention you naturally. Those unpaid, third-party mentions are gold.

Step 6: Seek out earned media.

Media coverage from reputable publications is heavily weighted by chatbots. We’ve seen the impact of our work increase greatly over the past few years, and companies’ PR budgets have grown to reflect that. When a credible outlet, podcast, or publication writes about you, it boosts your chatbot mentions by about 80%, based on data from our 500-plus clients.

Step 7: Measure results. 

You can’t improve what you can’t see, so you need some way to check whether AI is actually mentioning you and how you stack up against competitors. Many agencies can help with this, as well as subscription monitoring tools (like GetMentioned or Ahrefs Brand Radar). You can also simply ask the AI platform you’re using, but be warned that the results will be very biased if you’re using your own account. 

This space is changing every day, so don’t stress about being on the cutting edge. Just cover the fundamentals and put yourself out there a little more each month.