Think about how often you, or the people around you, now ask an AI for things you used to Google. "Write a reply to my boss." "Help me request leave." "What's the address of that place in town?" "What's the best rest home near Tauranga?"

That last one matters enormously if you're a business. People aren't just searching anymore. They're asking, and an AI is answering with a short, confident recommendation. If your business isn't part of that answer, you're invisible to a fast-growing group of customers. This article explains how to fix that.

New to SEO in general? Start with What is SEO and How It Helps Your Business Get Found on Google, then come back here. This is the next chapter.

The shift: from searching to asking

For 20 years, "getting found" meant ranking on Google's results page, a list of ten blue links you scrolled through and chose from. That's still huge, but a second front has opened up fast.

Now millions of people open ChatGPT, Google's AI answers, Gemini, Copilot, or Perplexity and simply ask. Instead of ten links, they get one answer, often naming one, two, or three specific businesses. The AI has already done the scrolling and comparing for them.

This changes the game in one critical way: there's far less room on the shelf. Ranking 4th on Google still gets you seen. Being the 4th-best option an AI considered usually means you're not mentioned at all. So the new question isn't just "do I rank?" It's "does the AI know I exist, and does it trust me enough to recommend me?"

What this is called: GEO and AEO

You'll hear a few terms for optimising your business for AI. They mean roughly the same thing:

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation): making your business show up well in answers from generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity).
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): making your content the direct answer to a question, rather than just a page that ranks.
"AI SEO" or "ChatGPT SEO": the everyday way people describe all of the above.

Don't get hung up on the acronyms. The goal is simple: be the business AI recommends.

How does an AI actually decide what to recommend?

To optimise for it, it helps to know where AI gets its answers. There are two main sources:

What it learned during training. Large models were trained on a huge slice of the public internet. If your business is well-described across the web, the model may already "know" you.
What it looks up live. Most modern AI tools can now search the web in real time while answering. They fetch current pages, pull facts, and often cite their sources. This is the part you can influence quickly.

In both cases, the AI is doing the same thing: gathering information about you from across the internet and deciding whether it's clear, consistent, and credible enough to put its name behind. Your job is to make that an easy "yes".

Does normal SEO still matter? Yes, it's the foundation

Here's the good news. Most of what makes you findable by AI is the same work that makes you findable on Google. A fast, well-structured, trustworthy website with clear information is the foundation for both. Good SEO is good AI SEO. GEO doesn't replace SEO. It builds on top of it.

So if you've already done the basics from our first article, you're ahead. The sections below are what you add on top.

How to get your business recommended by AI

1. Answer real questions, directly and clearly

AI loves content that answers a specific question in plain language. Instead of a vague "Our Services" page, publish content that mirrors how people actually ask:

"How much does X cost in New Zealand?"
"What's the difference between X and Y?"
"What should I look for when choosing a [your service]?"

Lead with the answer in the first sentence or two, then explain. This is exactly what an AEO ("answer engine") wants to lift into its response. A good FAQ page is one of the highest-value things you can add.

2. Make your facts easy to extract

AI builds its answer from clear, unambiguous facts. Make yours impossible to miss and identical everywhere:

Business name, location, and service area
What you do, in specific terms (not buzzwords)
Opening hours, phone, and email
Pricing or "from" pricing where you can

State them plainly on your site. The clearer the facts, the more confidently an AI can repeat them.

3. Use structured data (schema)

Structured data is hidden code that spells out, in a format machines read perfectly, exactly what your business and pages are: a local business, an article, an FAQ, a product. It removes guesswork for both Google and AI crawlers. (Our own blog uses it. Every article here ships with Article and LocalBusiness schema.)

4. Be consistent and present across the web

AI doesn't just read your website. It reads everything about you. Your Google Business Profile, local directories, industry listings, and review sites all feed the picture. Two rules:

Be everywhere that matters for your industry and region.
Be consistent. Conflicting names, addresses, or phone numbers make AI uncertain, and uncertain AI leaves you out.

5. Earn mentions and reviews

When trustworthy websites mention or link to you, and when customers leave genuine reviews, you become more credible in the AI's eyes, just as you do in Google's. AI tools increasingly summarise sentiment ("customers praise their friendly staff and fast response"), so reviews don't just build trust with people. They shape what AI says about you.

6. Keep everything accurate and up to date

Outdated or contradictory information is the fastest way to get mis-described, or skipped entirely. Old hours, a closed location, a price that changed: fix these everywhere they appear. Consistency over time is what earns an AI's trust.

A 2-minute test: does AI already know you?

Open ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity and try:

"Tell me about [your business name] in [your town]."
"What are the best [your service] options in [your region]?"

If it gets you wrong, or doesn't mention you when it clearly should, that's your starting point, and exactly the kind of gap the steps above are designed to close.

Realistic expectations

AI search is new and moving fast, so the tools and best practices will keep shifting. But the foundation doesn't change: clear, accurate, well-structured, credible information about your business, everywhere people (and AIs) look. That work compounds, just like traditional SEO. The businesses that start building it now will be the ones AI confidently recommends as this becomes the default way people search.

Want to be the business AI recommends?

Getting found on Google and in AI answers is exactly what we help New Zealand businesses do at Automate Workflow, from technical SEO and structured data to a clean, credible web presence and, of course, AI itself.

Get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat and we'll tell you how your business currently shows up, and where you could grow.

ChatGPT SEO: How to Get Your Business Found and Recommended by AI