Check What ChatGPT, Claude & Perplexity Say About Your Business

Open ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity in a fresh or temporary chat, ask the questions real customers ask, like "best roofer in Boca Raton," without naming your business, and record whether you're named, whether your site is linked, and who else appears. Repeat each question several times, monthly, because answers change by run, location and model.

Updated October 2026. Ten questions across three apps takes under an hour a month. All you need is the apps and a spreadsheet.

Why should I check what AI says about my business?

Because customers are asking. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local recommendations reached 45% of consumers, up from 6% a year earlier, and 42% trust AI recommendations as much as traditional reviews (BrightLocal). If an AI tool has your hours wrong, or names three competitors and not you, you want to know.

How do I check, step by step?

Write 8 to 10 customer questions. Mix broad "best" questions, specific needs and a few fact checks about you by name. The table below has examples.
Start clean. In ChatGPT, use a Temporary Chat. It won't access your memories or past conversations, though it still follows your custom instructions if you've set any (OpenAI), so turn those off for the test. In Claude and Perplexity, start a new chat.
Make sure it searches. ChatGPT searches the web automatically when a question benefits from current information, and you can also choose Search from the tools menu (OpenAI). In Claude, you can add "search the web" to your question (Anthropic). Perplexity links to the websites it uses in its answers (Perplexity).
Don't name yourself in discovery questions. "Who's the best colorist in Delray Beach?" tells you whether you come up on your own.
Record what you see. Note whether you were named, whether your site was linked, which competitors appeared and which sources were cited. ChatGPT's search answers can include citations you can click to open the source (OpenAI), and Anthropic says every Claude answer that uses web search includes citations (Anthropic).
Ask each question three times in fresh chats, and repeat the full set every month. If your customers use them, run the same questions in Gemini, Grok and Microsoft Copilot too.

What questions should I ask?

Question type	Example prompt	What it tells you
Category and city	"Who are the best hair colorists in Delray Beach, FL?"	Whether you're in the group AI considers at all
Specific need	"Which roofers in Boca Raton repair tile roofs after storm damage?"	Whether AI knows your specialties
Urgent or practical	"Which Italian restaurants near Lake Worth Beach are open late on Sundays?"	Whether your hours and details are being read
Price	"How much does a bookkeeping consultant charge for a small business in West Palm Beach?"	Whether your pricing information is found
Fact check (by name)	"What are [your business]'s hours, address and phone number?"	Whether AI has your basics right
Reputation (by name)	"What do customers say about [your business]?"	Which reviews and sources AI relies on
Comparison (by name)	"How does [your business] compare with [competitor] for balayage?"	How AI describes you next to rivals

Why do the answers keep changing?

Every run is a new draw. SparkToro and Gumshoe ran 2,961 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI. The chance of getting the same brand list twice was under 1 in 100, and the same list in the same order about 1 in 1,000 (SparkToro).
Location. ChatGPT may use an approximate location based on your IP address for local results (OpenAI), and Claude may use a location inferred from your IP address for localized requests (Anthropic). Ask from your own area, or name the city in the question.
Model and product. Even within Google, AI Mode and AI Overviews cited the same URLs only 13.7% of the time for the same query, and 45% of AI Overview citations changed from one generation to the next (Ahrefs).
Personalization. Regular ChatGPT chats can draw on saved memories and past conversations, while a Temporary Chat can't (OpenAI). That's why a clean chat gives a fairer read.
The web changes. New reviews, articles and listings change what the AI finds each time it searches.

How do I track results over time?

Use one simple score: the share of runs where you were named. SparkToro concluded that "visibility % across dozens to hundreds of prompts run multiple times is a reasonable metric," and warned against tools that claim a fixed ranking position in AI (SparkToro). A spreadsheet with these columns is enough:

Column	Example entry
Date	Oct 25, 2026
App	ChatGPT
Question	Best roofer in Boca Raton for tile roofs
Named?	Yes, second of four
Linked?	No, it cited our Yelp page instead
Others named	The three competitors listed
Sources cited	Yelp, a local news article, a competitor's site

Also watch for real visits. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends, so you can see those visits in tools like Google Analytics (OpenAI). Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report that shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries (Bing).

What if the AI gets my business wrong?

Start with the sources it cites. If an answer shows old hours, find the listing or page it came from, fix it there, and check again next month. OpenAI itself warns that search results and citations "can be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect" (OpenAI), and BrightLocal recommends reporting inaccuracies about your brand when you see them (BrightLocal). Then make sure your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business details all match.

If you'd rather not do this by hand, IndexToAI's Plus plan asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Grok your customers' questions every month and reports whether you were named or linked. It uses each company's API with live web search, which can differ from what a person sees in the app, so treat its results as a sample, just as you would your own checks.

Quick answers

Why does ChatGPT give a different answer every time?

Each answer is generated fresh. In SparkToro's 2026 study, the same prompt produced the same brand list less than once in 100 runs. Your location, the model in use and what the web says that day also change the result.

Should I include my business name in the question?

Not for discovery questions. Ask what a customer would ask, like "best plumber in Jupiter, FL," to see whether you come up on your own. Use your name only for fact checks, such as hours, services or what customers say about you.

How often should I check what AI says about my business?

Monthly is a practical rhythm, plus after big changes like new hours, a move or new services. Ask each question a few times per check and track the share of runs where you're named.

Can I make ChatGPT fix wrong information about my business?

Not directly. Look at the sources it cites, correct the outdated listing or page, and keep your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business details consistent. Then check again the following month.