How to Check What ChatGPT Says About Your Business
To check what ChatGPT says about your business, run five to ten buyer-intent prompts in your category and city, log which competitors get named and why, then repeat across Gemini and Perplexity. AIrecommend.ai's free scan automates six-platform sampling and maps gaps to Growth Engine fixes.
Why you need to check — not assume
Founders assume AI "probably knows" their business. Then a prospect says, "ChatGPT told me to call someone else."
You need a repeatable audit, not a one-off curiosity query. This guide covers manual methods and the structured scan we built at AIrecommend.ai.
Step 1: Write buyer-intent prompts
Do not ask "Is [Your Business Name] good?" Real customers ask category + intent + geography:
- "Who's the best emergency plumber in [city]?"
- "Recommend a dentist for anxious adults near [neighborhood]"
- "Top-rated HVAC company for same-day AC repair in [metro]"
Write 5–10 prompts per location you serve. Avoid brand-leading questions unless testing reputation repair.
Step 2: Run prompts in ChatGPT
For each prompt:
- Open a fresh chat (reduces carryover bias)
- Note whether browsing/search is active — record the mode
- Copy the full answer
- List every business named, in order
- Capture stated reasons ("highly rated," "fast response," "popular locally")
Create a simple spreadsheet:
| Prompt | You mentioned? | Competitors named | Reasons cited | Browsing on? | Date |
Step 3: Repeat on other platforms
ChatGPT alone is insufficient. Industry overlap analyses suggest ~11% shared citation domains across major assistants — different engines, different winners.
Minimum additional checks:
- Gemini — Google ecosystem signals
- Perplexity — explicit citations
- Claude — grounding behavior
Or run all six in one pass: free AI visibility scan.
Step 4: Compare to competitors
Pick 3–5 competitors you lose to in real life. Run the same prompt set. Calculate:
- Mention rate — % of prompts naming you
- Share of AI voice — your mentions ÷ total mentions of tracked businesses
If competitors appear on 8/10 prompts and you appear on 1/10, you have a systematic gap — not bad luck.
Deeper framework: AI visibility tracking.
Step 5: Diagnose why
When models name competitors, reasons usually cluster:
| Cited reason | Likely signal gap |
|---|---|
| "4.9 stars with 500 reviews" | Review velocity / volume |
| "Highly rated on Google" | GBP + review themes |
| "Known for emergency service" | Review text + service labels |
| "Located in [area]" | Service area clarity in listings/schema |
| Specific wrong facts about you | Listing conflict — accuracy repair |
Step 6: Map fixes to modules
At AIrecommend.ai, scan results map to Growth Engine modules:
- Reviews → Review Engine
- NAP drift → Listings + Apple Business Connect
- Thin facts → Entity Profile (llms.txt, JSON-LD)
- Stale GBP → Google Business Autopilot (Dominance)
- No quotable stats → Data Studies (Dominance)
- Wrong AI facts → AI Accuracy Repair (Dominance)
You approve every draft before publishing.
The faster path: automated scan
Manual audits teach intuition. Automation produces shareable baselines.
Our free scan at /#scan:
- Enter business category and market
- Sample buyer-intent prompts across six platforms (ChatGPT included)
- Return mention rate, competitor table, platform blind spots
- Map prioritized fixes to modules
- Generate a report link for your team
No credit card. Same methodology our paid programs resample monthly.
Related service: ChatGPT optimization.
Common mistakes
Leading prompts — "Why is [Your Name] the best?" trains nothing useful.
Single-session conclusions — one answer is anecdote; ten prompts are data.
Ignoring browsing mode — document settings or results are not reproducible.
ChatGPT-only — platform overlap makes multi-engine checks mandatory.
Panic without fix plan — measurement should end in NAP, reviews, entity work — not content spam.
Reviews: the fastest lever after listings
Once NAP is clean, review themes often move mention rates over 60–90 days. Do it ethically: Google reviews the right way — no gating, same link for every customer.
Ongoing monitoring
| Cadence | Action |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Spot-check 2 prompts if market is hyper-competitive |
| Monthly | Full rescan or dashboard scorecard (paid tiers) |
| Quarterly | Expand prompt library for new services/locations |
Paid programs include continuous tracking, Super Pixel attribution on AI traffic, and approval-queue delivery.
Public pricing now runs from AI Starter $97/mo to Category Authority $29,999/mo — see the full ladder on pricing.
What checking cannot do
Audits do not control ChatGPT. They inform work on signals models may read. No ethical vendor guarantees placement after a scan.
Next steps
- Run 10 manual prompts today — log results
- Run the free scan for six-platform baseline
- Fix NAP and entity facts this week
- Plan review velocity for next 90 days
- Resample and compare mention rate trend
Also read: How AI assistants choose businesses · AEO services.