Check what ChatGPT says about your business
- ChatGPT
- AI visibility
You check what ChatGPT says about your business by asking it a handful of pointed questions in a private window, signed out: ask for the best business of your type in your town, ask directly about your business name, and ask about your opening hours and services. Note what comes back each time: are you mentioned, are the details correct, or does it recommend a competitor? Then repeat the same questions in Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. Within fifteen minutes you know where you stand.
Test fairly: private window, signed out
AI assistants personalise. If you regularly chat about your own business with ChatGPT, or you are signed in with an account full of history, you will not get the answer a complete stranger gets — and the stranger's answer is exactly the one you want to see.
So do three things before you start:
- Open a private window (incognito mode) in your browser.
- Do not sign in, or use an account you have never used to talk about your business.
- If you can, test on another device too — your partner's phone, for instance.
It will never be perfectly neutral, but this gets you close enough to draw useful conclusions.
The questions to ask
Ask five kinds of question, from broad to specific. Swap in your own trade and town:
- The open question. "What is the best fish and chip shop in Leeds?" or "Which café in Manchester would you recommend?" This is the question real customers ask. Check whether you are named — and who is.
- The task question. "I'm looking for a barber in Sheffield where I can walk in without an appointment." The more specific the question, the more it tests whether the assistant knows your services and strengths.
- The direct question. "What do you know about [business name] in [town]?" Now you see what the assistant has actually stored or found about you — and whether it is right.
- The facts question. "What are the opening hours of [business name]?" or "Does [business name] deliver?" Wrong answers here are the most dangerous kind: a customer standing at a closed door on a Sunday does not come back.
- The comparison question. "What is the difference between [your business] and [your biggest competitor]?" Confronting, but instructive: you see straight away where the assistant rates your competitor more highly.
Ask each question in different words too. "Best pizzeria in Leeds" and "where can I get a proper pizza in Leeds tonight?" can produce different answers.
Do not stop at ChatGPT
Every assistant drinks from different sources, so a single test tells you little:
- ChatGPT combines what it knows from training with — for questions needing current information — web search results, which lean heavily on Bing's index.
- Gemini is Google's and draws on the Google ecosystem, including your Google Business Profile.
- Perplexity searches the live web and shows its sources — extra useful, because you can see exactly where wrong information comes from.
- Copilot is Microsoft's and is built directly on Bing. Why that matters more than you would think is covered in why Bing Places suddenly matters again.
If one assistant names you and another does not, you know immediately which data source to update first.
What to write down
Keep it simple: a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet, three columns per assistant per question.
- Mentioned? Yes, no, or only when asked directly.
- Correct? Do the name, address, opening hours, services and description all hold up?
- Who instead? Which competitors get named, and with what arguments?
That last column is gold. The reasons an assistant gives for recommending a competitor — "lots of positive reviews", "clear range of services", "convenient location" — tell you exactly which signals it weighs.
Why you get a different answer twice
Ask the same question twice and you will often get two slightly different answers. That is normal: an AI assistant generates its answer fresh every time and decides per conversation whether to search the web or rely on what it already knows. Timing, wording and the preceding question all play a part too.
So never draw conclusions from a single answer. Ask each question two or three times, spread over a few days. What counts is the pattern: are you named consistently, occasionally, or never? A business that never appears in any session has a visibility problem — not bad luck.
From finding to first fix
Here is how to turn your notes into action:
| Finding | What it means | First fix |
|---|---|---|
| Your business is never mentioned | The assistant does not know you, or does not trust what it found | Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect and Bing Places |
| Details are wrong (hours, address, phone) | Stale information is circulating somewhere and the assistant picks it up | Track down the source: old directory listings, an outdated website, an unclaimed profile |
| A competitor is recommended and you are not | Their data is more complete or consistent, their reviews stronger | Compare both profiles point by point; start with category, completeness and reviews |
| You are mentioned but described vaguely or incompletely | There is too little clear information about what you actually do | Describe your services concretely on your website and in your profiles |
| Answers differ wildly between assistants | Each assistant uses different sources; some know you, others do not | Update the profile feeding the weakest assistant: Bing Places for Copilot, Apple for Siri |
The common thread: almost every fix starts with your business profiles. For the most important one, we wrote a complete checklist for your Google Business Profile.
Repeat the test — and measure wider
One test is a snapshot. Put a note in your diary to repeat this every quarter, and certainly after changes: new opening hours, a move, a new service. That way you can see whether your fixes filter through into the answers.
And if you want to look beyond what you can test by hand — every data source at once, including the directories and profiles you would never check yourself — the free scan does that for you in a few minutes.