How do you show up in ChatGPT and other AI assistants?

How does an AI assistant find a business?

It does it in two ways. Part of what it knows comes from the texts it was trained on, months ago. For the rest, it searches the web at the moment someone asks the question, reads a few pages and writes its answer, citing its sources.

For a self-employed professional or a small business, the second way is the one that counts. When someone asks “which heating engineer should I call in Etterbeek”, the assistant runs a search, as you would. It can only cite the businesses whose pages it finds and whose work it understands.

Is “AI SEO” a separate discipline?

You may be offered “GEO”, short for Generative Engine Optimisation. The abbreviation refers to the work done to appear in the answers given by AI.

In 2026 Google published an official guide on the subject. In it, Google writes that, from its point of view, optimising a website for AI search amounts to doing SEO. Its AI answers rely on the same ranking systems as its usual search. What you do to rank well on Google therefore also works for its AI Overviews, available in Belgium, and for its AI Mode.

Can you pay to appear in ChatGPT?

Yes, for an ad. Since the end of August 2026, businesses established in Belgium can run ads in ChatGPT. OpenAI explains that these ads appear below the answer, that they are labelled as advertising, and that they are only shown to users on the Free and Go plans. Another format, shown while images are being created, is being tested.

The answer itself cannot be bought. OpenAI writes that advertising “does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides”. To be cited in it, you need to meet the five conditions that follow.

What conditions do you need to meet?

1. Let the assistants’ robots in

Each assistant sends a robot to read websites. The one used by ChatGPT search is called OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI states that a website that blocks it is not shown in ChatGPT search answers. Perplexity and Claude each have their own, and the principle is the same.

A small file on your website, called robots.txt, tells robots what they are allowed to read. Some hosting providers and some protection tools also block these robots without telling you. This is the first thing to have checked.

OpenAI uses another robot, GPTBot, to train its models. The two are set separately. You can therefore agree to appear in the answers while refusing to let your texts be used for training.

2. Be known to Google and Bing

Assistants rely on search engines. For its AI answers, Google requires a page to be indexed, meaning stored in its database, and to be eligible to appear in its results with a snippet. Copilot, Microsoft’s assistant, relies on Bing, and OpenAI states that ChatGPT search sometimes uses other search engines.

Google and Bing each offer a free tool, Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, which shows you whether they read your website properly.

3. Write pages that could not describe any other business

An assistant looks for an answer, and it cites the page that gives it most clearly. A page that says “We install condensing boilers in Etterbeek, Ixelles and Woluwe, with servicing every year” teaches it something. A page that promises “innovative, high-performance heating” teaches it nothing.

Google says so in its guide. According to Google, unique and useful content will have more influence over the long term on your presence in its AI answers than all its other advice. Write what you do, for whom, in which municipalities and how quickly. Answer the questions your customers ask you on the phone, in their own words, and write the answers as text, because a robot has trouble reading what is inside an image.

4. Give the same information everywhere

An assistant cross-checks what it reads. When your name, address, opening hours and services are identical on your website, on your Google Business Profile, in directories and on your social media, it can describe you without making mistakes. When they contradict each other, it may give out an old phone number or confuse you with another business.

Google also names the Business Profile among the things that can improve a business’s visibility in its AI answers.

5. Be cited elsewhere, by real people

Your customers’ reviews, an article in the local press, the page of a professional federation or that of a partner also talk about you. These are all pages an assistant can read in addition to your own. Google points out that trying to manufacture fake mentions is less effective than it seems, and that its protections against abuse also apply to its AI answers.

What does not help?

Be wary of “guaranteed AI SEO”. Nobody controls an assistant’s answer. It changes from one question to the next, and sometimes from one day to the next for the same question.

The llms.txt file does not work miracles either. It is a 2024 proposal for presenting a website to AI tools in a simple format. Google writes that its search does not use it, including for its AI answers. We publish one on our own website, because it costs nothing and may be useful to other tools, but it does not replace any of the five conditions.

You also do not need to cut your pages into small blocks, or to rewrite them in a style made for machines. Google writes that this is unnecessary, and that there is no ideal page length.

Finally, be wary of tools that announce your “ranking in AI”. Google points out that no outside tool has access to its systems.

How can you tell if an AI is talking about you?

Ask the assistants the questions your customers would ask, without mentioning your name. Ask, for example, “which heating engineer should I call in Etterbeek for a broken boiler”. Do it in several assistants, and note which businesses are cited and which pages are used as sources. Repeat the test every two or three months.

Three free ways of measuring complete this test.

• In Search Console, Google has offered a report on generative AI performance since the end of August 2026. It counts the times a link to your website was shown in its AI Overviews and its AI Mode.
• Bing Webmaster Tools has a similar report for Copilot.