How AI systems decide who to recommend

Start with the honest part

There is no setting that makes ChatGPT recommend you. There is no schema tag that guarantees a place in a Gemini answer. Guaranteed positions in AI answers are not currently possible.

AI systems differ from each other. They change. Some search the live web when answering, some rely mostly on training, and some blend both. What is true in one system this month may not hold in another next month.

What does not change is the underlying problem the system is trying to solve: it needs to name a specific business, in a specific place, that does a specific thing, and be reasonably confident that business is real and competent.

What a recommendation actually requires

Think about what you would need in order to recommend a plumber in a town you don't live in. You would need to know the plumber exists, know what they specialize in, know where they work, and see some independent evidence that other people were glad they called them.

AI systems are doing a mechanical version of the same thing. Every principle below is about making one of those four things easier.

• Clear identity — one consistent name, address, phone number and description everywhere you appear.
• Clear expertise — specific pages about specific services, not one page listing forty things.
• Clear geography — the places you genuinely serve, stated plainly and backed by real local work.
• Independent evidence — reviews, mentions, listings and profiles you do not control.
• Useful original content — answers to real questions that only someone who does the work could write.
• Structured, accurate, current information — hours, services and contact details that are actually right.

Why search visibility still matters

Many AI systems retrieve live web results while composing an answer. If you are invisible in conventional search, you are frequently invisible to the retrieval step too.

This is the practical reason the Ask AI Who system does not treat 'AI visibility' as a separate discipline. The work that makes you findable and understandable to a search engine is largely the same work that makes you nameable by an AI.

Test, record, repeat

Because nobody can promise you a result, the only responsible approach is observation. Write the ten questions your customers would realistically ask. Ask them on each platform. Record whether you appeared, who did, and what the answer said about them.

Do it monthly with the same questions. One test is an anecdote. Twelve tests is a direction.