When someone asks ChatGPT or Google AI for "a good electrician in Plymouth", the answer comes from what AI can read and verify about you: your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and structured data most businesses have never heard of. Getting recommended is mostly groundwork, and hardly any local businesses have done it yet.
How AI decides who to recommend
AI tools do not rank pages the way Google traditionally did. They assemble an answer from sources they trust: your website copy, your Google Business Profile, review platforms, directories, and structured data embedded in your pages. Then they name the businesses they can describe most confidently.
That confidence is the whole game. A business whose services, areas, and reputation are stated clearly and consistently across the web is easy for AI to recommend. A business with a vague website and a half-empty profile is a risk the AI quietly skips.
Say the same thing everywhere
Pick one canonical description of what you do and where: "emergency electrician covering Plymouth, Plympton, and Saltash", and use it on your website, your Google Business Profile, Checkatrade, and every directory that lists you.
Mismatches are worse than gaps. If your profile says Plymouth but your website says Devon, an AI summarising you has to guess, and systems built to avoid wrong answers respond to guessing by leaving you out.
Structured data: the part your competitors skipped
Schema markup is a machine-readable layer in your website code that states your business type, services, prices, service areas, and FAQs as plain facts. People never see it. AI reads it before anything else on the page.
A LocalBusiness schema with your services and areas, plus FAQ schema on your common questions, turns your site from prose an AI must interpret into data it can quote. This site runs both, and it is standard in every KGStudio build.
Reviews are the evidence AI trusts most
AI systems treat customer reviews as the closest thing to ground truth about a local business. Detailed ones carry far more weight than star ratings alone: "rewired our three-bed in Plympton, tidy and on schedule" gives an AI a specific, quotable fact.
So shape the ask. When a job goes well, ask the customer to mention the job type and the town. Ten reviews like that make you the concrete, verifiable option in a sea of vague competitors.
Write for the question, not the keyword
People ask AI full questions: "how much does a cleaner cost for an office in Plymouth" or "who does event security in Devon". Pages that ask and answer those questions in plain English are exactly what AI lifts into its responses.
An honest FAQ page and straightforward service pages beat keyword-stuffed copy in AI results. Write like you are answering a customer on the phone, because that is effectively what the AI is doing with your words.
- AI assistants recommend businesses they can verify from consistent public information
- Your name, services, and areas must match everywhere: website, profile, directories
- Structured data (schema markup) lets AI read your services and prices directly
- Detailed reviews that mention specific jobs and towns are quoted by AI almost verbatim
- Plain-English FAQ content answers the exact questions people ask AI tools
- The window is open now: most local competitors have done none of this
Questions, answered
Is AI search actually sending customers to local businesses yet?
Yes, and it is growing fast. Google now shows AI Overviews above normal results for many service searches, and a meaningful share of younger customers ask ChatGPT directly for recommendations. The businesses cited are the ones with clean, consistent public data.
Do I need to rebuild my website for AI search?
Usually not. Most sites need structured data added, copy tightened to state services and areas plainly, and an FAQ section. A rebuild only makes sense if the site is too old or slow to bother retrofitting.
Is this the same as SEO?
It overlaps. Traditional SEO earns rankings, answer engine optimisation (AEO) earns citations in AI answers, and both feed off the same foundations: clear content, structured data, reviews, and consistency. Work done for one strengthens the other.
How do I check what AI says about my business?
Ask it. Type your trade and town into ChatGPT and see who gets named, then ask specifically about your business. If the answer is wrong or empty, that is your gap list: profile, schema, reviews, consistency.
