Learn · How-To

How to Check If Your Business Appears in ChatGPT and AI Overviews

Before you can improve your AI visibility, you need a baseline. This guide walks through a simple, repeatable monthly process for testing whether — and how — AI assistants talk about your business.

1. 1

   Write down your core "buyer prompts"

   List 5-10 questions a potential customer might type into an AI assistant when looking for a business like yours — for example, "best [service] in [city]" or "who can help with [specific problem] near me". These are your test prompts, and you'll reuse the same ones every month.

2. 2

   Test each prompt in ChatGPT

   Open ChatGPT in a fresh conversation — logged out or in an incognito-style chat if possible, to avoid personalisation skewing results — and run each prompt. Note whether your business is mentioned, how it's described, and which competitors appear instead.

3. 3

   Test each prompt in Google AI Overviews

   Search each prompt in Google and check whether an AI Overview appears above the organic results. If it does, note whether your business or website is cited as a source, and click through to see which pages are being referenced.

4. 4

   Test each prompt in Perplexity

   Perplexity is popular with research-oriented users and shows its sources clearly alongside each answer. Run the same prompts and pay attention to which websites are cited — these are often the same sites that rank well for related searches.

5. 5

   Record what is said about your business — or your competitors

   Keep a simple spreadsheet with one row per prompt and columns for each AI system: mentioned (yes/no), how described, and sources cited. If a competitor appears instead of you, note which of their pages is being cited — that's often a clue about what content gap to fill.

6. 6

   Check Search Console for AI Overview impressions

   In Google Search Console, some AI Overview appearances are now reflected in search performance data. While reporting here is still evolving, periodically reviewing impressions and clicks for your target queries can reveal shifts linked to AI Overview rollouts.

7. 7

   Repeat monthly and track changes

   Run the same test on the same day each month using the same prompts. GEO results build gradually — a single month of no change isn't a failure, but a consistent upward trend in mentions and citations over 2-3 months is a strong sign your GEO work is paying off.