Some of your customers no longer type keywords into Google; they ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity: “Can you recommend a good children’s dentist in Hamburg?”
These assistants rely heavily on what they can find online: websites, map listings, reviews, directories. Whether they mention you depends on how clear and consistent the information about you is in those sources.
An important caveat: no AI company fully explains why it recommends one business over another, and nobody can guarantee a mention. But there are clear steps that improve your chances.
1. State the basics plainly on your site
Write, as text rather than inside images: what you do, where, when you are open and how to reach you. Most systems can’t read text that is part of a picture.
2. Answer common questions in plain language
People ask assistants questions, and assistants use question-and-answer content easily. Add your customers’ real questions to your site: “Do you take walk-ins?”, “Which districts do you cover?”
3. Use structured data
It lets search engines and AI systems read your name, business type, address and contact details reliably.
4. Give the same details everywhere
If your website, Google profile and social media show different phone numbers, an assistant can’t tell which is right.
5. Keep reviews and your Google profile active
Assistants often draw on map and review data too, so a current, complete Google Business Profile helps here as well.
6. A summary file for machines (llms.txt)
Some sites now publish an llms.txt file that summarises the site for AI systems. It isn’t an official standard and not every system uses it, but it is easy to add and does no harm. Ours has one.
In short
The secret of AI search is the secret of good local SEO: clear, consistent, current information. The difference is that an assistant turns that information into a sentence, and the clearer your details, the more likely you are to be in it.