Open ChatGPT and ask it who the best accountant in Parramatta is. Go on, I'll wait.

It won't give you ten blue links. It'll give you three names, maybe four, with a reason to call each one. If your business isn't on that list, as far as that customer is concerned, you don't exist.

That was the starting point for "Is ChatGPT recommending your competitors?", a Business NSW member webinar I presented this month as Founder of Unjumble, alongside Nathan Broadbridge, Founder of Polar Web Agency (and a freelancer on Unjumble). Dan Macais, General Manager, Membership, Strategy & Partnerships at Business NSW, kicked us off. 266 small and medium businesses signed up, one of Business NSW's biggest educational webinar sign-ups this year. One attendee called it "one of the most useful webinars from Business NSW at the moment" (which I'll be framing).

Here's the short version. AI recommends businesses it can find, trust and quote. Big businesses already have teams working on this. Most small businesses haven't started. That gap is your window.

 

What you need to know

  • Your customers are asking AI first: 75% of Australians already use AI search to help make purchase decisions, and 61% of them found businesses they hadn't considered (WPP Media, Aug 2026).

  • AI gives a shortlist, not a page of results: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity name a handful of businesses. If you're not named, you're invisible.

  • It comes down to three tests: AI recommends businesses it can find, trust and quote. Six pillars cover all three, and most of the first steps are free.

  • You can start this afternoon: about an hour of free work gets the basics in place. Start now, because AI visibility builds on itself.

 

What has changed?

For twenty years, getting found meant ranking on page one of Google. Now buying decisions start with a question typed into a chatbot, and the chatbot answers with names. That isn't one niche audience. It's the locals, the visitors and the businesses that small and medium businesses sell to.

Consumers are asking AI what to buy, and who from.

  • 75% of Australians use AI search to help make purchase decisions. Of those, 61% discovered businesses they hadn't considered and 26% completely changed what they planned to buy (WPP Media, 2,500 Australians, Aug 2026).

  • 82% of Australians are more likely to trust a business that shows up in AI results (WPP Media, Aug 2026).

  • 13.6 million Australians, 58% of people aged 14 and over, used an AI tool in an average four weeks. Use peaks at 72 to 74% among 25 to 49 year olds (Roy Morgan, Jan to Mar 2026).

  • Using AI for local business recommendations jumped from 6% to 45% in a year (BrightLocal, US, Feb 2026).

Tourists are planning trips with it. Plenty of small businesses rely on visitors, from cafes and wineries to accommodation and tour operators. Roughly 40 to 80% of travellers now use AI tools to find holidays and plan itineraries (Accenture 2025; Phocuswright 2025; global). If you're not in the itinerary, you're not on the trip.

B2B buyers have moved too. 51% of B2B buyers now start research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% (G2, 1,076 buyers, global, Apr 2026). Selling to other businesses doesn't get you out of this one.

And it changes where the clicks and the sales go. When Google shows an AI summary, clicks on regular results fall from 15% to 8% (Pew Research, US, Mar 2025). The visitors who do arrive from AI convert 31% better (Adobe, US retail, holiday 2025). Meanwhile, 26% of businesses get zero mentions in Google's AI Overviews (Ahrefs, 75,000 brands). Not a few. Zero.

 

Find, trust, quote: the three tests

Think about how a mate recommends a tradie. They have to know you exist, trust that you're good, and be able to say what you actually do. AI works much the same way, it just does it for millions of people at once.

  1. Find: can AI see you? Is your website up to date? Is your Google Business Profile complete? Can AI crawlers and Bing actually see your site?

  2. Trust: does the internet vouch for you? Do you have recent reviews (aim for 20+ in the last three months)? Are you rated on independent sites like Trustpilot or ProductReview? Are your business details the same everywhere?

  3. Quote: can AI repeat what you do? Does your site say exactly what you do, where and for how much? Have you been mentioned in news or trade press? Do you have a FAQ that answers the questions customers really ask?

If you answered "not really" or "not sure" to a few of those, you're in good company. Most small businesses would

 

The six pillars

The first three are your core assets in the age of AI: your website, your Google Business Profile and your socials. Get these right first. The last three are supporting signals that make the core work harder. Anything marked (easy win) you can do yourself, usually for free.

1. Your website is your core asset

58% of the sources ChatGPT uses for local recommendations are business websites (BrightLocal). If your site is thin, out of date or vague, AI has nothing to work with.

  • Create one page per service and one per location.

  • Add a FAQ page (easy win).

  • Add LocalBusiness schema, code that tells AI your name, address, hours and services in a format it can read.

  • Check your robots.txt file lets AI crawlers in (easy win).

 

2. Nail your Google Business Profile

74% of consumers only care about reviews from the last three months (BrightLocal, Feb 2026). A five-star review from 2022 is doing less for you than you think.

  • Fill in every field (easy win).

  • Post an update every month (easy win).

  • Ask happy customers for reviews (easy win).

  • Reply to every review, the good and the grumpy.

  • Get professional, up-to-date photos and video.

 

3. Social gives AI more to find

Reddit is the most-cited domain in Gemini's answers (Muck Rack, May 2026). Social platforms aren't only for likes anymore. They're source material.

  • Use the same business name, description and location everywhere (easy win).

  • Link every profile back to your website (easy win).

  • Post proof: before-and-afters, customer stories and how-tos.

  • Write captions like SEO by naming the service, the suburb and the keywords. "Kitchen renovation in Leichhardt for a young family" beats "Love this one!" every time.

 

4. Quality, fresh information

Pages that AI cites are 26% fresher than regular Google results (Ahrefs, Jul 2025). AI prefers a page updated last month to a better one that hasn't been touched since launch.

  • Add "last updated" dates to key pages (easy win).

  • Write the way customers ask, with real prices, suburbs and results.

  • Refresh your top pages every few months.

 

5. PR and press

84% of what AI cites is earned media, while paid content makes up just 0.3% (Muck Rack, May 2026). You can't buy your way onto the shortlist. You have to be talked about.

  • Get into association newsletters like Business NSW's (easy win).

  • Pitch local news and trade press.

  • Enter awards, get on podcasts and get onto "best of" lists.

 

6. Connect the free tools

These tools show you what search engines and AI can see, and they feed the systems AI relies on. Google Search Console feeds Gemini and AI Overviews. Bing Webmaster Tools matters because ChatGPT search leans on Bing's index. Google Analytics lets you track traffic arriving from AI.

  • Verify your site in each one and submit your sitemap (easy wins).

 

Do it this afternoon

Six pillars sounds like a lot. It isn't, if you start with the free stuff. Block out about an hour:

  1. Ask AI (10 minutes). Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity who they'd recommend for your service near you. Write down who shows up, and who doesn't.

  2. Fix your Google Business Profile (30 minutes). Fill in every field, add fresh photos and reply to your recent reviews. If you haven't had professional photos taken in years, get new ones. It makes a real difference.

  3. Connect the free tools (20 minutes). Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, then submit your sitemap.

Bonus: delegate it. Send the six pillars to your agency, freelancer or marketing lead and ask them where you stand on each one.

 

Why start now?

Because AI visibility compounds. The businesses that get cited early tend to keep getting cited, and the ones that wait have more ground to make up.

It also moves faster than you'd expect. In testing, Google AI Mode cited 56% of new pages within a week, and ChatGPT cited 42% within 30 days (Semrush, Dec 2025). Pages that already rank in Google are 7 times more likely to stay cited (Ahrefs, Oct 2026), so the work you put into the basics pays off twice.

Right now, most of your competitors haven't started. That won't last forever.

Where to from here Start with the free AI visibility audit from Unjumble. Enter your URL (or a competitor's, we won't tell) and it scores your site on five dimensions: Visible, Clear, Trustworthy, Speedy and Local. It checks the website structure you need to show up in AI. It's the foundation, not the whole picture.

Then pick your two weakest pillars and start there. If you'd rather hand it to someone who does this every day, Unjumble has 1,509+ local, ABN-connected freelancers across 170+ services, including AI engine optimisation, SEO, web design and marketing strategy. It's free to post a gig and get quotes. Business NSW members pay no platform fee on their first three gigs.

So, go back to ChatGPT and ask who it would recommend. If the answer isn't you yet, you've got an afternoon's work to change that.

 

Sources

All figures are taken from the webinar brief. Add links before publishing.

  • WPP Media, survey of 2,500 Australians, Aug 2026

  • Roy Morgan, AI tool usage, Jan to Mar 2026

  • BrightLocal, local consumer research, Feb 2026 (US); ChatGPT local recommendation sources

  • G2, survey of 1,076 B2B buyers, global, Apr 2026

  • Accenture 2025 and Phocuswright 2025, traveller AI use, global

  • Pew Research, AI summaries and clicks, US, Mar 2025

  • Adobe, AI referral conversion, US retail, holiday 2025

  • Ahrefs, AI Overviews mentions across 75,000 brands; citation freshness, Jul 2025; ranking and citation, Oct 2026

  • Muck Rack, AI citation sources, May 2026

  • Semrush, AI citation speed testing, Dec 2025