Some people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot where to find a hairdresser, a plumber or a restaurant nearby, instead of typing it into Google. Whether your business appears in that answer, nobody knows for sure, because the providers say little about how their systems choose. Below is what they write in their own documentation, plus what you can do about it as a local business owner.
Where do these assistants get local answers from?
No provider publishes a complete list. This is what has been said openly:
- Google. AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google show links to pages that can already appear in ordinary search results. Google writes that a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet, and that there are no extra technical requirements. It also recommends keeping your Business Profile details up to date.
- OpenAI. For ChatGPT search, OpenAI uses its own crawlers and, as the announcement puts it, third-party search providers and content from partners. OpenAI does not say which provider that is.
- Microsoft. Bing has its own index and its own listing for local businesses, Bing Places. Whether and how Copilot uses that data, Microsoft does not describe in detail.
So the honest answer is: from your website, from the listings platforms hold about you (Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps) and from what the rest of the web says about you. How much each part weighs, nobody outside the providers knows.
Do I need to do anything special for Google AI Overviews?
No, and Google says so itself. According to its documentation on AI features, there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimisations. No separate schema.org markup is needed either, and no new file for AI. Google names the same basics as ever: allow crawlers in robots.txt, make pages findable through internal links, and use structured data that matches the visible text. What that means for your site is in the guide to SEO.
What does OpenAI say about its crawlers?
OpenAI describes three different bots. OAI-SearchBot is used to show websites in ChatGPT’s search features. GPTBot collects content that may be used to train models. ChatGPT-User visits when a user asks for it, and is not meant for crawling the web automatically.
What to take from that: if OAI-SearchBot is blocked in your robots.txt, then according to OpenAI your site will not appear in ChatGPT search answers, although an ordinary link to you can still show up. A change can take about 24 hours to take effect. Many websites block bots without knowing it, through a security plugin or a default setting from the hosting provider. I always check this.
What does Microsoft ask for with Bing and Copilot?
Bing asks for the same basics: a sitemap with a correct last-modified date, and IndexNow, a way of telling Bing straight away that a page is new or changed. Microsoft itself adds that no tool can guarantee when or how your content will appear in AI answers.
For your local details there is Bing Places. You claim your business and verify it with a PIN (by phone, post, email or text).
What can I influence myself?
Five things, and none of them is new:
- Name, address and phone number identical everywhere. On your site, your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps and in business directories. Write them the same way every time. An assistant that finds two versions of your address has to guess.
- A site that can be read. No robots.txt blocks for the bots you want to let in, important text as plain text on the page and not only inside an image, and a sitemap.
- Clear facts in plain text. What you do, where, for whom, your opening hours, a price range if you want to show one. One page per service, in your customers’ language. “Open on Saturdays” tells a machine more than “also available outside office hours”.
- Structured data that is correct. A small block of code with your name, address, opening hours and type of business. Google writes that markup must reflect the visible text, and that it does not guarantee a feature will appear. It removes guesswork, nothing more.
- Keeping your profiles up to date. Claim your Google Business Profile, Bing Places and your location with Apple (Apple lets you claim your place on Maps and manage your logo, hours and photos). The Google Business Profile guide goes through it step by step. Reply to your reviews too: they sit on those profiles, and what is written there can be read and repeated by others.
When I review a business, it is rarely the text that is missing. Usually there is an old phone number in a directory, or the site is not accessible to a crawler.
What can nobody promise?
- That you will appear in an answer. Google writes that AI Overviews only appear when the system finds they add something to ordinary search results, and that for many searches this does not happen. Microsoft writes that no one can guarantee when or how your content will appear in AI answers.
- That you will rank above a neighbour. No provider fully publishes how its answers are put together.
- That a particular file or markup helps. Google writes that no special file or markup is needed for its AI features.
- That traffic will go up. Whether people click a source or just read the answer is decided by the assistants, not by you.
Anyone who does promise you this is guessing or selling something else. What can be promised is the work: correct details, a readable site and up-to-date profiles.
How does Ovrick handle this?
With every site, I build something crawlers can read, with clear text. From Orbit, correct structured data is added. With Orbit, I set up your Google Business Profile or review the one you have. The SEO and AI page shows exactly what I do and for whom. Want to know where you stand first? The free SEO check looks at your Business Profile, your reviews, the speed of your site and whether your business appears in answers from Google and ChatGPT. I check every report myself, for businesses in Belgium, and you get an honest report, not a sales pitch.