Does your business exist for ChatGPT? The 15-minute test
Your customers now ask ChatGPT for advice before they call you. Here is how to check in 15 minutes whether AI recommends you, and what to fix if it doesn't.
A manager looking for an accountant, an HR manager looking for a seminar venue, a homeowner who wants a new kitchen: more and more people no longer type three words into Google. They describe their need to ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini, and the assistant answers with three to five names.
If yours isn’t one of them, you don’t lose a position in a list. You don’t exist in the answer.
The good news: checking where you stand takes a quarter of an hour and costs nothing. Here is the method we use with our clients.
Why this isn’t classic SEO
Google shows ten links and lets people choose. An AI assistant does the sorting for them: it reads what it finds on the web, summarizes it, and recommends.
What it reads isn’t only your website. It pieces together:
- your website, if it is clear and up to date;
- your Google Business Profile and your reviews;
- the directories and platforms of your industry;
- third-party pages that mention you: partners, tourist office, trade body, local press.
This work is called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): making sure generative engines find you, understand you and cite you correctly.
The test, step by step
1. Write three questions the way a customer would
Not your company name: a customer who doesn’t know you yet won’t type it. Write the need, the place and a constraint, the way you would say it to a friend:
- “I’m looking for a firm to automate invoicing for my SME in Marseille, who would you recommend?”
- “A seminar venue for 30 people, 2 days, less than an hour from Aix-en-Provence?”
- “Plumber in Aix-en-Provence who comes out on Saturdays for a leak?”
Take one core-business question, one question about a specific offer, and one with a constraint (budget, timing, size).
2. A fresh conversation for each question
An account’s history steers the answers. Open a new conversation for each question, ideally in a private browsing window or on an account that has never talked about your business.
3. At least two assistants, at least twice
Answers vary from one run to the next. One try is not a measurement. Ask each question to two assistants (for example ChatGPT and Perplexity), and do it again a few days later.
4. Write everything down in a grid
| Question | Assistant | Cited? | Rank | What it says about you | Sources cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core business | ChatGPT | No | – | – | 3 competitors’ websites |
| Specific offer | Perplexity | Yes | 3rd | Wrong capacity | A directory |
The most useful column is often the last one: where the assistant got its information. Those are the pages to fix first.
What we see in our tests
We run this test at the start of every engagement that touches customer acquisition. A few findings come back almost every time.
The first businesses cited publish a “packaged” offer. Duration, what is included, capacity, price or price range: the assistant can reuse the answer as is. In a recent test in group accommodation, the player with the largest capacity in its area appeared in none of the recommendations, while the first one cited spelled out a complete package, line by line.
The assistant often cites third-party pages rather than your website. A directory, a platform, a partner’s page. If those pages are incomplete, that incomplete version of you is the one that travels.
Contradictory information costs you places. A different capacity on two directories, opening hours that don’t match, two names for the same company: the assistant hesitates and cites someone clearer.
Several sites or brands blur the message. A company that runs several locations is often presented as separate places, never as one overall offer.
A missing or unclaimed Google Business Profile is a gap. It is one of the most reused sources for anything local.
What you can fix yourself
None of the following needs an advertising budget.
- One page per offer, answering the questions a customer asks: for whom, how long, what is included, the price or a range, the area covered, how soon you can start.
- The same facts everywhere: name, address, capacity, opening hours, services. On your website, your Google Business Profile, your industry’s directories and your social networks.
- A claimed and complete Google Business Profile, with replies to reviews, including negative ones.
- An FAQ written from your customers’ real questions, with short answers, backed by numbers when possible.
- Structured data (schema.org markup) on your pages, and possibly an
llms.txtfile that summarizes your business for AI. It is useful and cheap, but not magic: not every assistant reads it. - Mentions on credible third-party sites: trade body, partners, local press, chamber of commerce.
- Run the test again every month, with the same questions, to see what moves.
What this test doesn’t tell you
It doesn’t give you a stable ranking: answers change with the assistant, the day and the wording. It doesn’t measure your revenue either. It shows how an AI presents you today to someone who doesn’t know you, and that is enough to know what to fix first.
Nobody can guarantee that you will be cited. But a business whose offer is clear, priced and consistent everywhere gives the assistant every reason to recommend it.
We apply it to ourselves
We did this work on our own website: pages that say what we do and where (Bouches-du-Rhône, Paris, the rest of France by video), public prices, structured data, an llms.txt file. We will run the test again in a few weeks and publish the result, good or bad.
