Is Your Business Showing Up in ChatGPT and AI Overviews?

For twenty years, “getting found online” meant one thing: ranking on Google. Today, a growing share of people are asking ChatGPT, typing into Google’s AI Overviews, or using Perplexity to get a direct answer — often without ever clicking through to a website. If you’re a plumber, an attorney, a contractor, or a course provider, the question isn’t just “do I rank on Google” anymore. It’s: when someone asks an AI assistant for a recommendation in your space, does your business get mentioned at all?

For most small businesses right now, the answer is no — not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because almost nobody is optimizing for this yet. That’s an opportunity.

Part 1What AEO and GEO Actually Mean

You’ll start seeing these terms more, so here’s the plain-English version:

• AEO (AI Engine Optimization) — making sure AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can find, understand, and confidently recommend your business when someone asks a relevant question.
• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — the broader practice of shaping your content so generative AI systems pull it into the answers they construct, rather than just linking to it.

Traditional SEO optimizes for a ranked list of blue links. AEO and GEO optimize for being the answer — or part of the answer — an AI gives someone directly.

Part 2Why This Is Different From SEO

AI systems don’t work like the Google of ten years ago. A few things matter more than they used to:

Clear, structured information wins. AI models favor content that’s easy to parse and extract — clean headings, direct answers to specific questions, and well-organized service descriptions.

Structured data and schema markup matter more, not less. Schema tells search engines and AI systems exactly what your business is, what you offer, and where you operate — in a format machines can read instantly instead of inferring.

Consistency across the web carries more weight. AI tools often cross-reference multiple sources — your website, your Google Business Profile, review sites, industry directories — before deciding you’re a trustworthy answer.

Being specific beats being broad. “We provide excellent legal services” tells an AI system nothing usable. “We handle title and lien disputes for Pennsylvania consumers dealing with repossession” gives it something to actually match against a real question.

The business that shows up is the one whose information was structured, specific, and consistent enough for the AI to confidently surface it.

Part 3What This Looks Like in Practice

A few examples of the shift:

• Someone asks ChatGPT “who’s a good SEO consultant near Philadelphia” instead of Googling it.
• A parent asks an AI assistant to compare dog training certification programs instead of scrolling through ten tabs.
• A homeowner asks “what should I do if my car got repossessed in PA” and gets a direct answer — with or without your firm mentioned.

Part 4What You Can Do About It

You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start here:

• Audit your existing content for vague, generic language and rewrite the highest-value pages to be specific about who you serve and what problem you solve.
• Add or clean up schema markup on your key pages — service, location, and organization schema in particular.
• Standardize your business information across your website, Google Business Profile, and major directories so nothing conflicts.
• Build content around real questions your customers actually ask — not just keywords, but real phrasing.
• Test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview the kinds of questions your customers would ask, and see whether your business shows up.

Where Ten Ninety Media Fits In

This is exactly the gap our AI Visibility & Optimization service is built to close — auditing how AI systems currently see your business, fixing the structural and content issues holding you back, and building a presence that shows up whether someone’s Googling you or asking an AI assistant for a recommendation.