Search changed

Getting found by AI

More of your customers now ask an AI assistant who to hire instead of scrolling through search results. Here’s what changed, how those assistants decide which businesses to name, and what you can do about it this week.

By Kable Record · Updated October 17, 2026 · Get a free report on your website

What we found when we checked

4 Phoenix-area business websites checked so far.

  • 3 of the 4 went unnamed when we asked an AI assistant for their trade in their city.
  • All 4 were missing their own website from the top results when we searched the business by name.
  • 3 of the 4 had nothing that answers a visitor after hours, only forms or messages that wait for a person.

As of October 17, 2026. That’s too few to call a pattern yet. This fills in on its own as we check more websites, and switches to percentages once we pass 30.

What changed in search

For twenty years, finding a roofer meant typing “roofer Peoria” into Google and picking from a page of links. If your website was on that page, you had a shot.

Now a lot of people skip the links. They ask a question, “who’s the best roofer in Peoria?”, to an AI assistant on their phone, or they read the AI-written answer that now sits above the links on many Google searches. The answer names a handful of businesses, and there is no page two.

If you aren’t one of those names, the customer may never see your website at all. The old question was “where do I rank?” The new one is “am I named?”

How AI assistants decide who to name

Nobody outside those companies knows the exact recipe, and it keeps changing. But when we ask them who to hire and read where their answers come from, the same four things keep showing up.

Reviews

How many, how good, and how recent. A lot of people ask for a trade “with good reviews”, and the answers lean on the ratings Google and the review sites show.

Directories and listings

Your Google Business Profile, Yelp, the BBB, Angi, Nextdoor, your chamber of commerce. In our checks, when an assistant did know a business, it usually knew it from listings like these, not from the business’s own website.

“Best of” lists

Local roundups like “the 14 best roofers in Peoria” get quoted a lot. In several of our checks the answer was close to a copy of one of these lists, so a business missing from the list was missing from the answer.

Pages that answer the question

When someone asks “how much does a new water heater cost in Glendale?”, an assistant quotes a page that answers it in plain sentences. Words inside pictures don’t count, and neither does text that only appears after the page runs its scripts.

And they have to be able to read your site in the first place. Some sites block the crawlers that feed these assistants without the owner ever knowing.

What you can do this week

  1. 1

    Claim and fill in your Google Business Profile

    It’s free at business.google.com. Fill in everything: your main category, every service, the cities you serve, your hours (including emergency hours) and your website. Add real job photos every month.

  2. 2

    Ask every happy customer for a review, the day the job is done

    Text them your direct review link, so one tap opens the review box. Reply to every review, good or bad, within a few days. Never pay for reviews or offer anything for them: Google removes them and can suspend the listing.

  3. 3

    Use the exact same name, address and phone everywhere

    Website, Google, Yelp, BBB, Angi, Facebook, Nextdoor. Small differences split you into what looks like separate businesses. Put your website link in every profile, and claim the free ones you don’t have yet, including Bing Places and Apple Business Connect.

  4. 4

    Get onto the lists the answers lean on

    Ask an AI assistant “who is the best (your trade) in (your city)?” and note who it names. Then search for those businesses: the directories and “best of” lists that mention them are the ones to get onto. Many lists take nominations; ask.

  5. 5

    Answer your customers’ real questions on your site

    Add four to six common questions with short answers, in your own words: “How much does a new water heater cost in Glendale?” These are the exact questions people ask AI assistants. Put them on the page as text, not in an image.

  6. 6

    Add a business record to your site

    A short block of code nobody sees (it’s called LocalBusiness schema) tells Google and AI assistants your name, phone, address or service area, and hours. Many site builders write it for you from your business settings. Test it free with Google’s Rich Results Test.

  7. 7

    Make sure the crawlers can get in

    Add your site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools (both free) and submit your sitemap; Bing’s results feed some AI assistants. If your site’s robots.txt file blocks AI crawlers, remove those lines unless you blocked them on purpose.

  8. 8

    Check again in 60 days

    Ask the same question you asked in step 4. Reviews and listings build up over weeks, not days.

Get a free report on your website

My company checks a website the same 12 ways every time and writes up what it finds, with how to fix each item yourself. It’s free, and you don’t have to talk to anyone to get it. The report has:

  • A score out of 100, with each of the 12 checks marked pass, partial or fail
  • What an AI assistant said when we asked for your trade in your city, and who it named instead
  • How to fix each item yourself, step by step, with a line for your site builder when we can tell which one you use
  • Your one-tap Google review link and a printable QR code, when we find your Google listing
  • A business record filled in and ready to paste, when your site is missing one

In the words a customer would use.

Where the report goes.

One email with your link, usually within a few hours. No sales call, no mailing list.

Full disclosure: OSQR is my company. It makes phone and website assistants for local businesses.

Questions people ask

How do I get my business to show up in ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity?

The same way for all of them: be easy to recommend. That means a steady stream of reviews, the same name, address and phone in the directories they read, a spot on the local “best of” lists, and a website that answers customers’ questions in plain sentences. The steps above are the short version. The free report shows which ones your site is missing.

Is this different from SEO?

It overlaps a lot: a site Google can read well is easier for an AI assistant to read too. The difference is how much an AI answer leans on what other sites say about you (reviews, directories, lists). Work off your website counts as much as work on it.

How long does it take to start getting named?

Weeks to months, and nobody can honestly promise it. Reviews and listings build up over time. Make the changes, then ask the same question again in about 60 days.

What does the free report check?

Twelve things: your business name, your page title and description, your main headline, how much readable text your homepage has, your business record for Google and AI, photo descriptions, whether search and AI crawlers can get in, speed and tap-to-call on a phone, whether your website comes up when someone searches your name, whether an AI assistant names you when asked for your trade in your city, your Google listing and reviews, and whether a visitor can get an answer after hours.

Is it really free? What’s the catch?

It’s free. My company, OSQR, makes phone and website assistants for local businesses, and I’d rather people meet us by getting something useful. You get one email with your link: no sales call, no mailing list. The report mentions our products in two places, and says so where it does.

Who can see my report?

It’s an unlisted page at osqr.ai/report/your-business, kept out of search engines. Anyone you share the link with can open it.

Where do your numbers come from?

Each report loads the homepage the way a phone and a search crawler do, reads its code, and asks an AI assistant with web search the questions a customer would ask. A report counts toward the numbers only after its main finding was double-checked against the live site. Search answers change by day and by location, so every number here is a snapshot.

Kable Record

I'm a contractor in the West Valley, and my software company, OSQR, makes phone and website assistants for local businesses.