What is AI visibility for a local business?

It is whether an AI engine names your business when somebody in your area asks it for the kind of work you do. Ask ChatGPT or Google for a home theater installer, a weight loss clinic or an electrician and you can get a written answer naming specific companies, not just a list of links. AI visibility for a local business is whether you are one of the names, and how high up you appear when you are. It is a different question from where your website ranks, because the answer names businesses directly.

Which AI engines matter most for a local business?

indextr weights the engines by our estimate of each one's share of consumer AI search: ChatGPT 32%, Google AI Overview 30%, Gemini 20%, Claude 10%, Perplexity 8%. Google AI Overview appears above the ordinary Google search results, so the customer does not have to open an AI app to see it.

Do AI engines use the same sources for local recommendations?

Mostly, with differences at the margins. Across 3,490 citations in our scans to 5 September 2026, mostly home-technology searches in the US and Canada, every engine drew most of its citations from ordinary websites, mostly those of the businesses being recommended (about 86% on ChatGPT, 85% on Gemini, 73% on Google AI Overview). ChatGPT cited Yelp and Google Business Profile none of the time, Angi 4.8% and Houzz 2.9%. Google AI Overview cited Business Profile cards in 12.3% of its citations. Gemini cited YouTube pages in 6.6%, and Angi and Houzz under 1%. So websites are most of what every engine cites, a Business Profile gives Google AI Overview a card to cite, and no single directory was a large share on every engine.

Why does a local search phrase need to name a city?

Because a phrase without a place is not a national measurement, it is an unscoped one. "Best home theater installer" asks the engine to pick from everywhere, so nothing ties the answer to your town. "Near me" is worse in a tool: a person's phone supplies their location, an automated check has none, and the engine may simply ask which city you mean and name nobody at all. Naming the city — "best home theater installer denver" — is what makes the answer about your market.

What kind of question makes AI name businesses at all?

Questions that ask for somebody. "Best smart home installer in Denver" returns a list of companies. "How do I fix my wifi" returns advice and names nobody, so it scores zero for you and your competitors alike. If you are checking your own visibility by hand, the shape of the question decides whether the check can tell you anything.

Does a local business need schema markup for AI visibility?

No. Google states plainly that structured data is not required for generative AI search and that there is no special schema.org markup you need to add. If you already have it, keep it — it still earns rich results in ordinary search. We would not buy schema work as an AI visibility fix.

Guide

AI Visibility for Local Businesses

Ask an AI engine for a home theater installer, an electrician or a weight loss clinic and it names a few companies. This is what we have measured about where those answers come from, and what a local business can change.

The answer is written above the links

Search for a local service on Google and the first thing on the page can be an AI Overview: a written answer naming specific companies, above the links. Ask the same question in ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude and the answer is the main thing you see.

That changes what “being found” means. Ranking first still puts your website on the page, but the answer above it names a handful of businesses and there is no second page of it. Either you are in that handful or you are not, and a report of where your website ranks does not tell you whether you were named.

Each engine reads different sources

Measured across 3,490 citations in our scans to 5 September 2026, mostly home-technology searches in the US and Canada. Websites were most of what every engine cited; the engines differed at the margins. Weights are our estimate of each engine’s share of consumer AI search.

ChatGPT

32%

Websites

About 86% of its citations were ordinary websites, mostly those of the businesses being recommended. Yelp and Google Business Profile: none. Angi 4.8%, Houzz 2.9%.

Google AI Overview

30%

Websites, then Business Profile cards

Appears above the ordinary Google results. About 73% of its citations were ordinary websites; Business Profile cards were 12.3%, YouTube 5.1%.

Gemini

20%

Websites, then YouTube pages

About 85% of its citations were ordinary websites; YouTube pages were 6.6%. Angi and Houzz under 1%.

Claude

10%

Websites, then Yelp

About 83% of its citations were ordinary websites; Yelp was 6.4%.

Perplexity

Websites, and can fetch a page live

About 85% of its citations were ordinary websites; HomeAdvisor 3.6%, Yelp 1.8%. Perplexity documents that it can fetch a page at the moment someone asks, so a change to your site can be reflected almost immediately.

The practical consequence: websites are most of what every engine cites. Where they differ is at the margin: Google AI also cites Business Profile cards, Gemini and Google AI cite YouTube pages, ChatGPT cites a little Angi and Houzz, and Perplexity can read a page at the moment someone asks. No single directory was a large share on every engine.

A phrase without a city measures almost nothing

If you are checking this yourself, the question you type decides whether the answer can tell you anything. Three shapes fail before they start:

No place.“Best home theater installer” asks the engine to choose from everywhere, so nothing ties the answer to your town. It is not a national measurement, it is an unscoped one.
“Near me” in a tool.A person’s phone supplies their location. An automated check has none, so the engine may simply ask which city you mean and name nobody at all.
A question that wants advice.“How do I fix my wifi” returns instructions and names no business — so it scores zero for you and for every competitor.

What works is plain: the service, and the city. More on this in choosing search phrases.

What a local business can change

Each step rests on something an engine documents or we have measured. We have not measured how much any of them moves a score, so the order is our suggestion.

Write down what your work is, in words

If your best page is a photo gallery, an AI answer cannot quote it: ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews build answers from text on pages they can read, and text in images is not available to them. Two or three sentences per project, naming the room, the brands, the town and what made it different, turns work you have already done into text an engine can read.

Claim your Business Profile, then the listings the engines cite

Google Business Profile first: Google AI Overview cited Business Profile cards in 12.3% of its citations, and it appears above the ordinary results. Beyond that, directories were a small, engine-specific share: on ChatGPT, Angi 4.8% and Houzz 2.9%. If you belong to a certification or trade body, a complete listing there is worth having: on the home-technology searches we scan, those sites were 9.9% of ChatGPT's citations.

Ask for reviews that name the service

What a review says appears on your Business Profile card, which Google AI cites. A review that names the work — "installed a 7.1.4 surround system with acoustic treatment in our basement" — puts what you actually do into that text. We have not measured whether review recency or volume makes a difference.

Check whether the crawlers can reach you

OpenAI and Perplexity document their own named crawlers, separate from Google's, so a site that is healthy for Google can still block them. A firewall or CDN can block a crawler by name, and so can robots.txt. Your server logs, or indextr's check, show whether they are reaching you.

Two things that are not the answer

Schema markup

Google states plainly that structured data is not required for generative AI search and that there is no special markup to add for it. Keep what you have — it still earns rich results in ordinary search. We would not buy it as an AI fix.

Paying for placement

We know of no way to buy a place in the recommendation itself. It comes from what the engines can read about you.

How long it takes

These are our estimates of when to check, not promises. No engine publishes a recrawl schedule and we have not measured one. Reviews and Google Business Profile updates are worth re-checking after two to four weeks. New pages and written descriptions, three to eight. Directory listings and press, six to sixteen. We would be wary of anyone giving you a date.

See where you stand before changing anything

A free scan checks how ChatGPT answers real searches for your kind of business in your area, and shows you which companies it names instead. No card, and the free plan has no end date.

Run a free scan

We measure locations in United States, Canada and the United Kingdom today. If you are elsewhere, we will tell you rather than hand you a score we cannot stand behind.