Blog4 October 2026 · 6 min read
How ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini choose which businesses to recommend
More customers ask AI assistants for recommendations. What these assistants read, what makes them name a business, and what you can do about it.
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My AI CrewBob, Joe & Annie
“What's a good accountant for a small company in Malmö?” More and more people ask an AI assistant instead of scrolling through Google results. The answer names two or three businesses. Here's what decides which.
They search, then summarise
For questions about products, services and places, the assistants search the web, read a handful of pages and write an answer from them. Gemini uses Google Search; ChatGPT and Claude run their own web searches and show their sources. So the pages they find — and how clearly those pages describe you — decide a lot.
What makes them pick you
- Clear facts on your own site: what you do, for whom, where, prices, opening hours — in text, not only in images.
- Answers to the actual question: a page or FAQ that answers what people ask, in plain words.
- Being mentioned elsewhere: “best of” lists, directories, review sites and local press. When assistants recommend your competitors, they're often citing exactly these pages.
- Being readable: a fast site that doesn't block AI crawlers in robots.txt.
What to do
- Write down the questions your customers would ask an AI.
- Ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini — note who's named and which sites they cite.
- Make sure your site answers those questions clearly.
- Get listed and mentioned on the sites the assistants cite.
- Check again every month.
That's exactly the routine SEO Joe runs for you — including the research, the texts and the fixes. More detail on Joe's blog: step-by-step guide to getting recommended by AI.
Questions and answers
- Why doesn't ChatGPT recommend my business?
- Usually because it can't find clear information about you, or because other sites mention your competitors more. Clear text on your own site and mentions on other sites both help.
- Is getting recommended by AI different from Google SEO?
- It builds on it — the assistants search the web too — but also depends on being described clearly and consistently, and on being mentioned on sites the assistants trust.
Try the crew free for 3 days
AI Annie runs your social media. SEO Joe gets you found on Google and recommended by AI. Coder Bob is coming soon.