What has changed in how people find businesses?
People now ask questions instead of typing keywords, and they get an answer instead of a list. "Who's a good accountant for a small builder near Derby?" gets three names and a reason for each.
That answer might come from ChatGPT, from the AI Overview at the top of Google, or from Copilot in Windows. The buyer may never see the page that ranked fourth. If your business isn't in the answer, you're not on the shortlist. The upside: assistants don't sort by size or ad budget, so a small firm with clear facts can be named ahead of a national one.
Which AI assistants matter in the UK?
Five cover almost every UK buyer: ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. Claude matters too, especially for business buyers.
The useful bit is where they get their information. Google's AI answers and Gemini draw on Google Search. ChatGPT search leans on Bing, and so does Copilot. So two search engines feed most of the answers your buyers see, and being findable and well described in both is most of the job. Perplexity and Claude search the web and cite their sources, so the same work helps there too.
What do assistants check before they recommend a business?
They check whether your facts are clear and whether other people back them up. Roughly in this order:
- Can they read your site? If crawlers are blocked, or the copy only appears after JavaScript runs, there's nothing to read.
- What you do, who for and where. One clear page per service beats one vague page that lists everything.
- The details buyers ask about: how fast you can start, a price signal, how to get in touch.
- Whether your name, address, phone number and services match across your site, Google, Bing and directories.
- What others say: reviews, press, and mentions on sites and forums your buyers use.
How do you get recommended by AI in the UK?
Start with these five jobs, one a week, and use the fifth week to check what changed. They cover most of what assistants look for.
- Week one: ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity ten questions your buyers would ask, in fresh chats. Write down who gets named and which sites are cited. That's your starting point.
- Week two: write your core facts once. What you do, who for, the areas you cover, a price signal, how quickly you can start and how to get in touch. Put them near the top of your homepage and each service page, in plain text.
- Week three: claim or update Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, then the sector directories the assistants cited in week one. Copy the same facts word for word.
- Week four: check your robots.txt lets search crawlers in, including OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot and Bingbot, and that your key copy is in the page HTML. Then ask your last ten happy customers for a review.
- Week five: ask the same ten questions again and compare. Note any new mentions, changed descriptions or new cited sources.
How can you tell if it's working?
Re-run the same questions every month and see whether you're named more often, and described more accurately. Answers vary from one chat to the next, so look for a trend over a few months, not a single result.
Back that up with numbers you already have. In Google Analytics 4, visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com show up as referrals. In Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, rising impressions on question-style searches are a good sign. And ask new enquiries how they found you.
For BidScript, a UK bid management software company, the Google AI answers mentioning them rose 40x in 3 months, from about 10 to about 400 a day between June and September 2026. That came from steady work on pages, facts and PR, not a trick. Results like that aren't guaranteed, and they take months, not days.
What should you not spend money on?
Anything sold as a shortcut. There's no form to submit your business to ChatGPT, and nobody can pay to be placed in the recommendations.
Be wary of anyone guaranteeing AI placements, selling bulk AI-written pages, or offering to buy reviews. The first can't be delivered, the second rarely says anything an assistant can quote, and the third breaks platform rules and UK law.