How artificial intelligence is changing the way people find businesses online
· AI visibility · 9 min
More and more people use AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity to find services and products. What does this mean for your business, and how can you make sure you get mentioned?
In recent years, we have witnessed a fundamental shift in how people search for information online. Where Google was once the undisputed first choice for all types of questions, we now see a growing share of users turning directly to AI-based services like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini and similar tools. This development has significant consequences for businesses that want to be found by potential customers.
From ten blue links to one answer
Traditionally, search engine optimization has been about securing good positions in Google's search results. Companies have worked with technical optimization, content production and link building to climb the rankings. But as users increasingly ask questions directly to an AI assistant rather than typing keywords into a search box, the rules of the game are changing. AI assistants typically provide a single, summarized answer rather than a list of ten blue links. The question then becomes: is it your business that gets highlighted as the answer?
Everything points to the share of searches that start in an AI service continuing to grow in the years ahead. For businesses in the European market, this is particularly relevant because smaller languages represent a niche. Many AI models have better coverage in English, which means that businesses actively working on their digital presence can gain an advantage during this transition period.
How AI models find their answers
To understand why this matters, it helps to think about how AI models actually work. Language models like GPT-4 are trained on enormous amounts of text from the internet. When a user asks about, for example, the best accounting firms in their city, the model will base its answer on what it has learned from websites, articles, directories, reviews and other content that existed in its training data. If your business has clear, structured and well-written content online, the probability of being mentioned in such answers increases.
But it does not stop there. Newer AI services like Perplexity and Google's own AI overviews perform real-time searches on the web to find updated information. This means that even if the model did not learn about your business during training, it can still find and present information from your website. Here, traditional SEO becomes important again, but with some additional requirements.
Make your business easy for AI to understand
Structured data is one example. By marking up your content with schema.org markup, you make it easier for both search engines and AI services to understand what your website is about. A clearly marked business profile with name, address, industry, services and opening hours gives machines a clear picture of who you are and what you offer.
Another important aspect is the quality and relevance of the content. AI models are trained to assess credibility and authority. Content that is well-written, professionally solid and relevant to the target audience has a greater chance of being used as a source. This means that superficial content with many keywords but little substance no longer measures up. What counts is genuine expertise that comes through clearly in the text.
For businesses in smaller markets, it is also worth thinking about multilingual content. Even if you primarily serve a local market, having some content in English can help with visibility in international AI services. This is especially true for industries with foreign customers or where English terminology is widely used.
Reviews and mentions build credibility
Reviews and mentions also play a role. When an AI assistant is asked to recommend a business, it will often emphasize positive reviews from credible sources. Google reviews, business directory listings and editorial mentions all contribute to building the digital credibility that AI models evaluate.
Why you should start now
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of starting this work now. The sooner you ensure that your business has a clear, well-structured and authoritative digital presence, the better positioned you are for the future. Businesses that wait risk becoming invisible in a world where an increasing number of potential customers never visit a traditional search engine.
Fortunately, much of this work is complementary to traditional SEO. Good technical optimization, quality content and a clear website structure are valuable regardless of whether traffic comes from Google, ChatGPT or Perplexity. The difference is that you should now think broader than just search engine rankings and actively monitor how your business appears in AI-generated answers.
Tools that analyze both traditional search visibility and AI visibility give you a complete picture of your digital presence. By understanding how your business is presented across different channels, you can make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts to reach potential customers where they actually search.
